Free LSAT Practice Question

Question 1 of 1
ID: LSAT-LR-45
Section: Logical Reasoning
Topic: Method of Reasoning
Difficulty level: Hard

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Shipping ledgers from 1920 to 1950 show that, in a particular coastal county, the average weight of adult oysters harvested each year consistently rose and fell with the average salinity of the estuary recorded the previous winter: the saltier the water, the heavier the oysters collected the next season. From this correlation, researchers conclude that the overall health of an oyster population depends largely on the amount of dissolved salt in the estuary during the months when the young oysters first develop.

The argument proceeds by

Ainferring from a claimed correlation between two historical measurements that two different factors are causally related to one another

Binferring from the fact that two variables fluctuated together that one of those variables must be the sole cause of the other

Cinferring from historical records of a correlation that the same correlation must still obtain today

Dinferring from records of two fluctuating variables the existence of a common external cause of both and then proposing a hypothesis about that common cause

Einferring the existence of one causal link from the existence of a separate causal link and then explaining how the two links interact

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