Q9 - Cereal advertisement: Fitness experts say that regular

[mshinners]

Question Type:
ID the Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Not gonna lie, I'd eat some Fantastic Flakes.

The advertisement wants us to believe that eating Fantastic Flakes will make you physically fit, because adults who eat cereal exercise more, and experts tell us exercise is the best way to become fit.

Answer Anticipation:
Any LSAT argument with a causal conclusion should jump off the page at you as a potential correlation/causation fallacy. In this case, the cereal scientists did a study and found a correlation between eating cereal and exercising. This in no way justifies the causal conclusion; it should be quick to find the answer.

Correct Answer:
(A)

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Right off the bat!

(B) Wrong flaw (comparison); Out of scope. The argument assumes that eating these Flakes will lead you to exercise, which is the most effective path to fitness. It doesn't argue that Flakes are the best cereal to lead to fitness. Additionally, nutrition doesn't play into this argument, making this answer out of scope.

(C) What is the "factor" here? If it's exercise, the argument never says it's the only path to the result of fitness. If the factor is eating Fantastic Flakes, the argument doesn't prove that it does contribute to the result of fitness (it assumes it does - that's the correlation vs. causation flaw!).

(D) Wrong flaw (sampling/size). Without the argument explicitly telling us the sample was small, we can't assume that was an issue. Here, we just have studies showing adults have this correlation; unless given reason to question the sample size, we shouldn't.

(E) Wrong flaw (whole to part). The argument does have a premise about a "whole" (adults), and a conclusion about a "part" (the reader of the ad, i.e., you). However, the characteristic of the whole is that cereal-eating and exercise are correlated. The conclusion doesn't say that the ad-reader also has this correlation, but rather that engaging in the cereal eating will lead to the exercise.

Takeaway/Pattern: Every correlation/causation question is the same - when you can start to place this pattern, you can knock this question out in well under a minute.

#officialexplanation

[laurenvarg]

The answer key that is associated with this section as printed from the manhattan prep website says the answer to this is D. Help. So confused.

[ohthatpatrick]

Thanks. We fixed the typos; please re-download the pdf if you want the corrected answer key.