Argument Flaw Identification Flashcards
7 cards from real LSAT practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Argument Flaw Identification flashcards as text
Historian: Every civilization that expanded its territory rapidly eventually collapsed. The Roman Empire expanded rapidly. Therefore, the Roman Empire collapsed because it expanded rapidly. What is the flaw?
Answer: It treats a correlating feature of collapsed civilizations as the definitive cause of collapse
Rapid expansion may be correlated with collapse without being the cause; many other factors may explain both expansion and eventual decline.
Ethicist: Lying is always wrong because honesty is always right. What flaw does this reasoning contain?
Answer: Circular reasoning — the wrongness of lying is assumed to prove itself via a restatement
Saying 'lying is wrong because honesty is right' restates the claim without providing an independent justification.
Journalist: A poll of 500 Twitter users found that 80% oppose the new tax. Most Americans oppose the new tax. What is the flaw?
Answer: The sample is biased because Twitter users are not representative of all Americans
Twitter users skew younger, more politically engaged, and less representative of the broader American population.
Mechanic: This car is either broken or it just needs an oil change. It doesn't need an oil change. Therefore, it is broken. What potential flaw is present if the initial premise is wrong?
Answer: The false dilemma flaw — the premise may omit other explanations for the car's condition
If there are other possibilities beyond 'broken' or 'needs an oil change,' the either-or premise is a false dichotomy and the argument fails.
Sociologist: Countries with higher chocolate consumption tend to have more Nobel Prize winners per capita. Chocolate must boost cognitive performance. What flaw is present?
Answer: It infers causation from a spurious correlation likely driven by a confounding variable
Wealth likely drives both chocolate consumption and the resources needed to produce Nobel laureates, making this a textbook spurious correlation.
Supervisor: Maria has been late three times this month. She is clearly an unreliable employee who will never meet deadlines. What flaws are present?
Answer: Hasty generalization and an extreme conclusion drawn from insufficient evidence
Three incidents of tardiness are insufficient to conclude permanent, universal unreliability, and 'never' is an extreme extrapolation.
Activist: Studies show that violent video games increase aggression in laboratory settings. Therefore, violent video games cause real-world violent crime. What is the flaw?
Answer: It overgeneralizes from controlled lab conditions to complex real-world behavior
Laboratory aggression measures and real-world violent crime are very different outcomes; the gap between them is not bridged by the cited studies.