May 2020 LSAT Section 3 Question 26

Every Labrador retriever in my neighborhood is a well-behaved dog. However, no pet would be well behaved if it were n...

CJLEAL on March 28, 2022

How come there is no video explanation for this question?

Can someone provide an explanation for the answer?

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Emil-Kunkin on March 29, 2022

Hi @Cjleal,

While I'm not sure if there is a video, I can take a stab at the answer. Since this is a flawed parallel reasoning, we should expect the right answer to mimic the structure and the flaw of the stimulus.

We could diagram the stimulus as follows:

If Lab -> Well behaved
If not well trained -> not Well behaved
(Note, the contrapositive of the above is If Well behaved -> Well trained)
Thus, Training is the cause of the good behavior, not some other factor.

This is flawed as it mistakes a condition that is necessary for good behavior (training) for one that is sufficient, and excludes any other possible cause.

(A) does not match the structure of the stimulus, as the stimulus does not tell us anything about what pet-owners "should" do.
(B) Looks similar, lets leave it for now
(C) Does not introduce a necessary condition while the stimulus does. Also, the "most responsible" language does not match the conclusion of the stimulus.
(D) Generalizes about what people should do from one example, which does not match the stimulus.
(E) The conclusion fails to tell us what IS responsible for the phenomenon in question like the stimulus does.

Looking again at (B), we can see the structure is the same as in the stimulus:

If snow -> More CC
IF not Careless -> No CC
(Contrapositive is If CC ->Careless)
Conc: The cause is Carelessness, not ice.