Logical reasoning PrepTest 134 · Section 1 · Question 5

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Errors in Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
Frequent discipline correlates with dog misbehavior. Therefore, that discipline causes misbehavior instead of fixing it.

Answer Anticipation:
As soon as you read "a higher incidence," you should have started thinking about a correlation/causation flaw. That's clear correlative language.

From there, the conclusion states that discipline causes misbehavior in dogs. Since the argument's made a jump from correlation to causation, it's flawed. The correct answer will highlight this generally, or go into one of the specific forms—a third cause of both phenomena; reversed causality; coincidence.

In general, when reversed causality makes sense, that's the correct answer. Here, it would make sense that higher levels of misbehavior would cause more frequent discipline, so let's be on the lookout for that answer in particular.

Answer Explanation:
This answer highlights that the causality in the stimulus might be reversed, and the misbehavior might be a cause of the discipline instead of an effect.

Key Takeaway:
As you practice the LSAT, you should start to note language cues for specific concepts and flaws. Correlative language, in particular, can highlight relatively early on in an argument that you're going to see a correlation/causation flaw.

Incorrect. This answer suggests that the dogs who are being disciplined would know they're likely to be disciplined, which isn't a possibility the argument overlooks.

Incorrect. Other animals are out of scope of this argument without relating their behavior to that of dogs.

Incorrect. The argument does make a jump from kennel club members to all dog owners. However, it's not clear how skill at raising a dog is related to how the dogs react to punishment, especially since the kennel club members are split on whether they discipline their dogs, so this answer isn't clearly in scope.

Incorrect. The question isn't about how likely a dog owner is to discipline their dog, but how the dog reacts to it.