Q3 - Although free international trade

[aramire2]

Would anyone be able to provide a detailed explanation of this question? Thank you in advance!

[ohthatpatrick]

Sure thing!

Question Type: Main Conclusion

Task:
1. Find the Conclusion (bracket it off, if you'd like)
2. Pick the answer choice that is the closest match

Tendencies:
They rarely put the Conclusion as the last sentence and rarely use Thus/Therefore/Hence (too easy / obvious to find it that way).

Instead ...
You typically see Premise triggers (because/since/after all/for) or opinion words like "probably".

The conclusion is frequently the 1st sentence
or
after a but/yet/however, disagreeing with someone else.

==========

In this case, we see that the first sentence is indeed the Conclusion, since the 2nd sentence begins with "after all".

Any time you see
_____________ , after all ________
or
____________ , for _________.
you know that the 1st idea was a Conc and the 2nd is a premise.

Conclusions are always supported opinions. Does the author support the opinion that "specialization carries risks"?

You can always use The Why Test.

"specialization carries risks"
(why?)
When you only rely on one or two products for the majority of your exports, you're at risk of
1. using up your finite supply of those raw materials
and/or
2. having nothing to export if a natural disaster wipes out that season's crop

Since the 1st sentence was the Conclusion, we're looking for an answer choice that is the closest match for "Specialization carries risks".

Why am I ignoring the 1st half of the 1st sentence? Any time LSAT author's say "Although _____ , _____" the author's emphasis is on the 2nd idea.

Plus, the 2nd idea is the one that gets supported.

Okay, show me ... "specialization carries risks"

(A) Boom. Looks good.

(B) This is a premise.

(C) This is a premise (actually, we never talk about "short period", but close enough)

(D) This is a premise

(E) This is similar to the irrelevant 1st half of the 1st sentence.


(A) is the correct answer.

Hope this helps.