October 2003 LSAT Section 1 Question 12
Poor nutrition is at the root of the violent behavior of many young offenders. Researchers observed that in a certai...
4 Replies

Melody on July 28, 2015
Okay so what answer choice (E) is doing is trying to show that there was no variable "z" that caused the effect.Remember, when we have a Cause & Effect Strengthen Questions, the way you can strengthen the cause and effect relationship (X causes Y) is to either show that (1) X does, in fact, cause Y, (2) show that Y is not causing X, or (3) show that third variable Z is not causing Y or X and Y.
This is what answer choice (E) is doing: it is confirming that it wasn't some other thing in the prison that caused the improvement in behavior, i.e. conditions were fixed in the prison. In this way, we are eliminating other factors that could have had an effect, which strengthens the argument that it was the improvement in food that caused the better behavior.
In your example about sunshine and plants, showing that cloudy weather does not lead to healthy plants helps us show that it wasn't some third factor, i.e. the soil was very nutritious, that brought about healthy plants.
Hope that clears things up! Please let us know if you have any other questions.
Kath on September 26, 2019
Could you explain answer choice D that why it is wrong? And, does it matter if the young offender "choose" the high nutritional food?
on September 10 at 02:41AM
can someone please explain why D is wrong?
on September 10 at 02:43AM
also, is E right because it provides a control group?