Let's look at it backwards to see if that helps. The question states that over the past ten years the consumption of domestically produced oil has gone up and that no new oil fields have been discovered. This would suggest that the total amount of oil in domestic oil fields should have gone down. However, the discrepancy that you need to address is that in that same period of ten years, the amount of extractable oil has remained the same in US proven oil reserves.
So let's look at the answers.
A.) Has no impact as the question specifically refers to domestic usage and levels.
B.) Even if conservations have slowed growth, the question specifically mentions that usage has grown over those ten years making this irrelevant.
C.) Exploration is irrelevant. It may explain why no new oil fields have been added, but it doesn't explain why the overall amount of extractable oil hasn't changed.
D.) The price may explain why usage of domestic oil has changed, but it doesn't explain how the amount of extractable oil has stayed the same over the past decade.
E.) This is the only answer that explains the discrepancy. While the overall level of oil in the US proven oil reserves has likely gone down, the improvements in extraction technology have increased the amount of "extractable" oil.
The key to this question comes down to the single word "extractable." If it weren't for that word, then there would be no reconciling the discrepancy. However, since the question specifically asks about "extractable" oil and not about "total" oil, answer E reconciles the apparent discrepancy.
Hannah-AndersonSeptember 6, 2019
Hi all, I eliminated E as an answer choice early on because in my reading of the answer choice it directly contradicted the information given in the question (how could the amount of extractable oil increase with new technology AND at the same time the amount of extractable oil stay the same?). "Extractable" oil is by definition the oil still in the ground so therefore new technology would mean more extractable gas reserves. This may be a case of too familiar with the topic to see it clearly (I work with the oil and gas industry). Is the rationale to this resolution that all new "extractions" (as in the oil was extracted and no longer "extractable" oil part of the reserves) were consumed away by an increasingly resource hungry population therefore leaving the amount of oil left in these reserves precisely the same as it was a decade ago? I'm trying to clarify where I went wrong, thanks for the help!
IrinaSeptember 8, 2019
@Hannah-Anderson,
I understand how LSAT questions in your field of work can be challenging - I do clean energy law and have to remind myself that LSAT questions are testing only your logical reasoning skills, not any substantive knowledge.
The passage tells us that proven oil reserves aka the amount of oil considered extractable from known fields is at the same level as 10 years ago, but no new oil fields have been discovered, and the annual consumption has increased. So how is this possible?
The important point here is what is "considered extractable," arguably the only oil considered extractable is the one that we have the technology to extract from the ground. Since the extraction technology was not as advanced 10 years ago as now, the amount of oil considered extractable remained the same even though the actual amount of oil in all oil reserves - extractable or not - has gradually decreased as some oil was extracted and consumed every year.
To further illustrate this point, let's say the total amount of oil reserves in the US in year 1 is 50 billion barrels, but only 30 of them are extractable given the technology in year 1.
Let's say a barrel is extracted and consumed each year, so at the end of year 10, the total reserves are now 40 billion and we would expect extractable reserve to be 20 because 10 got extracted and consumed, but because of technological improvements we now have the ability to extract 10 more barrels out of those 20 out of total 50 that were initially not extractable, bringing the extractable number in year 10 to 30 barrels again despite the consumption.
Let me know if this helps and if you have any further questions.
