The amount of electricity consumed in Millville on any day in August is directly proportional to peak humidity on tha...
Julie-VAugust 3, 2019
(A) vs. (D)
Hi LSAT Max,
I eliminated answer choice (A) because while the stimulus shows a relationship between "this august than last august", (A) has a relationship between "last year than in previous years". I thought it wasn't most similar to the stimulus, so I was wondering if someone could expand the breakdown of the stimulus and this answer choice.
I would also like to know if (D) is incorrect because it mentions "number of students" whereas the correct answer would need to be "number of classes" in order to see the relationship with the correlation.
Many thanks in advance for the help!
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(A) says, "The amount of art supplies used in any of the Aesthetic Institute's 25 classes is directly proportional to the number of students in that class. Since in these classes the institute enrolled 20 percent more students overall last year than in the previous year, more art supplies were used in the institute's classes last year than in the previous year."
(A) has a very similar pattern of reasoning to the argument in the stimulus. Two things (the amount of art supplies and the number of students) are proportional. And, because one of these things (the number of students) is higher, the argument makes the conclusion that the other thing (amount of art supplies used) will be higher. Thus, (A) is the correct answer choice.
(D) says, "The fees paid by a student at the Aesthetic Institute are directly proportional to the number of classes in which that student enrolls. Since the number of students at the Aesthetic Institute is increasing, it follows that the institute is collecting a greater amount if fees paid by students that it used to."
(D) doesn't have a similar structure. We know that each student's fees are proportional to the number of classes that particular student takes. However, the conclusion says that more students means that there are more total fees paid, and this doesn't have to be true since it's possible that the students are taking fewer classes per person. Thus, we can get rid of (D).
Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any more questions!
