Q3

[RuthS478]

Can someone explain why C is right? Am I being too narrow in reading that it only talks about trees with photosynthesis?

[Laura Damone]

Hi!

The test writers have a lot of tricks up their sleeves that make questions hard. Some questions are hard because the right answer looks really tempting. Others are hard because NONE of the answers are tempting. I place this question in that second category. C is not a good looking answer, plain and simple. But, it's a correct answer because all the other answers are worse. We have no idea what % of rain forests are in the Amazon (a). Nor can we quantify the number of products derived from plants on commercial plantations (b). Producing more oxygen is never discussed (c), nor is a comparison between trees and other vegetation (e). So that leaves us with D (no pun intended). Is the passage more narrow, discussing trees only instead of plants in general? Absolutely. But at least it tells us how trees produce oxygen. That's better than we get with any of the other choices.

Sometimes on the LSAT, all the answers are bad. But they're never all equally bad. Learning to tell the difference between a "yellow flag" and a "fatal flaw" will serve you well!

Hope this helps!