October 1996 LSAT Section 4 Question 26

Smoking in bed has long been the main cause of home fires. Despite a significant decline in cigarette smoking in the ...

AndrewArabie on December 2, 2022

Why B? Why not D?

I don't understand how B doesn't resolve the paradox. I thought D wouldn't resolve the paradox because without knowing what the initial baseline is for people who've died in kitchen originated home fires, or how much the increase is, we won't be able to know if this offsets the deaths from home fires initiated from smoking in bed

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Emil-Kunkin on December 3, 2022

D offers us a plausible reason to think that the decline in smoking has been offset by an increase in kitchen fires. We don't need to numbers, just something that gives us reasons why the fall in smoking has not led to a fall in fire fatalities.

B does not give us any such reason. In fact, it shows that smoking fires are especially likely to be lethal, since falling asleep makes one less likely to notice a fire. This does not give us any reason why fewer smoking fires have not resulted in fewer deaths.

AndrewArabie on December 4, 2022

Thank you Emil