Q15 - Researchers had three groups of professional cyclists

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

What does the Question Stem tell us?
Inference (Most Strongly Supported)

Break down the Stimulus:
The information tells us that we have three groups of cyclists: groups A, B, and C.
Group A experienced pulse rates 60% maximum and were less depressed and angry.
Group B experienced pulse rates 70% maximum and did not report benefits.
Group C experienced pulse rates 85% maximum and reported feeling worse with regard these benefits.

Any prephrase?
The correct answer normally combines claims using Conditional, Causal, Quantitative, or Contrast language.

Here we don't really have any of those things. There is a gradient from 60% to 85% that suggests that lower was better, middle was neutral, and higher was worse. We certainly can't DERIVE any causal connection, but there is a suggested connection between pulse rate and better/same/worse.

Correct answer:
B

Answer choice analysis:
A) does not have to be true. It seems very likely but does not have to be true. It could be that exercising at pulse rates 95% maximum leads to the benefits described in the stimulus. Likewise, it could be the case that exercising at pulse rates 35% of maximum could lead to no benefits. Think of the information as giving you three discrete points on an x/y axis. The curve of the line could be convex.

B) Plausible. The answer choice is really weak. The best part about the answer is when it says "at least in part". It is easily supported that the effects are somewhat dependent on the level of exercise attained.

C) need not be true. The best exercise could actually be at 95% of maximum. The information does not let us know for sure.

D) need not be true. We are not given information that would inform us of the degree of contribution of various factors.

E) is out of scope. The information is about psychological benefits, while answer choice (E) is about physical benefits.

Takeaway/Pattern: The correct answer leaps from correlation to causality, which is not a MUST BE TRUE move, but IS supportable. Correlations are SUPPORT for causality, just not proof. The correct answer is so moderately worded that it's basically saying "pulse rate is often relevant to the mood derived from the workout". Other answers have the classic wrong answer giveaways of STRONG and COMPARATIVE wording, as well as some out of scope stuff we couldn't comment on, since we have no information about it.

#officialexplanation

[eunjung.shin]

Can you elaborate more on A? I picked B but was very tempted by A. The reason I picked B was A seemed too general- not specific to cycling but refering to sustained excercise in general. So I thought B was a better inf question answer. But other than that, it seemed fine to me.

Help please!

[kanikakumar19]

Im really confused. The 10 New Actual, Official LSAT Preptests book I bought from LSAC lists the answer to this question as A. I had picked B too but then marked it as wrong when I saw the Answer Key.

Which is the correct answer??? Help

[schmid215]

Matt-

I see why (B) is the correct answer, but can it really be strictly inferred from the stim? Because we don't know if the results from this study would hold for all cyclists--the study could deal with a very unrepresentative sample that it isn't a microcosm of pro-cyclists.

[timsportschuetz]

On ANY inference questions (most logically completes, most strongly supports, must be true, etc.), the information in the answer choices MUST be corroborated and DIRECTLY mentioned in the stimulus! This was the best and most valuable lesson I learned from the Manhattan books! If, the answer is broader in scope than the stimulus, OR, the answer mentions a term (ANY TERM) that is NOT in the original argument, DELETE THESE ANSWERS WITH CONFIDENCE. Also, there is an extremely high likelihood of an answer choice being incorrect if it uses terms such as "the best, the worst, the primary reason, etc." BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR EXTREME CATEGORICAL STATEMENTS in the answer choices. These will most likely (95% of the time) be incorrect. You MUST be able to prove the answer choice without a reasonable doubt! Can you prove something being the "best" and/or "worst" if the argument does not explicitly state that one method is best or worst? NO, you cannot!

A and D should be immediately eliminated. Then, (B) is the only answer that would work. Notice how this answer choice is extremely vague and/or weak in its' language! This is exactly what we want! Always look for weak language since these are most likely easily proven...

[cwolfington]

I decided (A) was wrong because it referred to "exercise" while the stimulus refers to cycling. I crossed out (C) for the same reason, as it says "exercise" in the first line.

[Mab6q]

Is there are reason you guys are looking at this as a Must Be True question?

[maryadkins]

Is there are reason you guys are looking at this as a Must Be True question?

We treat all Inference questions (most strongly supported, must be true, etc.) the same in the MPrep curriculum. This is because the task is the same: to figure out what's most supported. So we don't see a reason to distinguish in terms of method; it seems superfluous.

[zdlsat]

I choose B in PT, bc B is better than rest of answers, but I don't think is correct either.

Stimulus only states correlation, but not causal relation. "Depend on" in B kinda indicates a causal relation, which was not proved.
B basically says Mood at least in part depends on intensity, i.e. intensity might at least a little bit affects mood.

Even "at least", "in part" reduce the certainness, again I don't see any causal relation from stimulus.

Could anyone point out where I was wrong?


Thank you ahead.

[maryadkins]

Fair critique!

"Tends to depend at least in part" is watering down a causal statement as much as one possibly can, however!

"Tends to" = not always, necessarily
"At least in part" = a little, tiny bit maybe

Of the five choices (B) is the most supported, which is how you want to choose an answer choice on these kinds of questions, whether it's "must be true" or "most strongly supported."