September 2017 LSAT Section 4 Question 3

Near-Earth objects (NEOs) such as asteroids threaten the Earth because they have the potential to collide with it. Th...

rebut on May 8, 2020

Wording for answer A

Hi! The wording for answer A tripped me up and made me not choose that answer. I get that home insurance is used as an analogy, but choice A says that the phrase we are looking for "connects" an analogy made in the argument, rather than that it "is in fact" the analogy (if that makes sense). Why should I not have been put off by the wording in answer choice A? Thank you!

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Victoria on May 8, 2020

Hi @rebut,

Happy to help!

The conclusion of the argument is that government funding of NEO research is not a waste of money.

Why? Because the research is similar to buying home insurance and buying home insurance makes good fiscal sense.

Suppose we take out the statement that buying home insurance makes good fiscal sense. We are left with the analogy and the conclusion.

Without the statement, there is a bit of a gap. The passage would conclude that government funding of NEO research is not a waste of money because it is like home insurance. We could assume from this that the author of the passage believes that purchasing home insurance is an economically sound idea; however, without the statement, we do not know the author's views, making the connection between the analogy and the conclusion a bit murky.

The inclusion of the statement bridges this gap by connecting the analogy to the conclusion. NEO research is like home insurance. As buying home insurance makes good fiscal sense, we can conclude that NEO research is not a waste of money.

I hope this helps to illustrate the distinction between the analogy itself and the connecting statement for you!

Please let us know if you have any further questions.