December 2017 LSAT Section 1 Question 17

Discharges of lightning from a volcanic ash cloud occur only when the cloud's highest point exceeds an altitude of 5 ...

wills on June 24, 2020

Answer explanation

I get why b is right, but why is a not right? In order to measure the lightening, wouldn’t the highest altitude of the cloud have to reach above 5 km?

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Skylar on June 24, 2020

@wills, happy to help!

Answer choice (A) is incorrect because of the word "any." From the passage, we can infer that volcanic ash clouds do at least sometimes go above 5 kilometers, as this is when they can provide lightning discharge data. However, we are never told that any given volcanic ash cloud must go above 5 kilometers. It is quite possible that some volcanic ash clouds never exceed 5 kilometers/produce lightning discharges. So, (A) is incorrect because it is overly strong and the argument does not depend on it.

Does that make sense? Hope it helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions!