Section 2, #22, of the June 2007 LSAT presents us with a loose, but reasonable, causal chain of events: First, the media does a shitty job of covering politics. Simultaneously, politicians conduct their business in secret. The result of these two things is that citizen action is less likely to influence politics. And the result of THAT, in turn, is that citizens lose interest in politics.

I think that’s basically what’s happening here. There are TWO initial causal factors (bad media and government secrecy), and one end result: people give up on politics.

The question asks us “Which one of the following is most strongly supported by the editorialist’s statements.” I am not, by nature, a conservative.  But I’m going to pretend I’m conservative when I’m answering this question.

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Take the driver’s argument in question 21 of Section 2 of the June 2007 LSAT with a giant grain of salt. Imagine you’re this guy’s friend–you’re one of the friends that has been telling him he’s going to die someday because he drives like an A-hole. He tells you, in response, that he’s going to lower his risk of having an accident by switching to a minivan, which has a lower accident rate. What are you going to tell him?

STOP. DO NOT LOOK AT THE ANSWER CHOICES! The answer is more easily found by criticizing the argument, rather than by sorting through the answer choices. Argue with the driver. He says a minivan will protect him. What are you going to say?

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No outside knowledge of the world is really required on the LSAT.  All the information you need, for the most part, is already on the page.  You do need to think critically about what you read, of course, but you don’t need to have prior knowledge of the topics that are being discussed.  Question 19 in Section 2 of the June 2007 LSAT is a good illustration of this.  You definitely don’t need to know anything about the nation of Banestria, and if you do know something about Banestria it can surely only hurt you.  Because “Banestria” doesn’t even exist.

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Onward through the June 2007 LSAT.

Section 2, Question 14 presents yet another bogus argument.  The ultimate conclusion here is Cause and Effect:  Raw milk, raised to 50 degrees Celsius in a microwave, loses its enzymes because of microwaves, not because of heat.  The evidence for this assertion is the fact that exposure to a conventional heat source of 50 degrees won’t lead to the same enzyme loss.  There’s a problem here, and you’d better figure out what the problem is before you stumble blindly into the answer choices.  Think about it for a minute.  Take your time.

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Continuing through the June 2007 LSAT, we arrive at an argument about global warming.  Please read the argument critically, then come back.

This one feels a little different, huh?  That’s because the argument, for once, seems close to being reasonable–there’s no glaring flaw.  All we have here is a description of a phenomenon and then an explanation of that phenomenon.  There aren’t a lot of moving parts.  Still, the argument is far from complete.

According to the scientist, it is a fact that the Earth’s average annual temperature has increased by about 0.5 degrees Celsius over the last century.  We can’t argue with this part.  But the scientist goes on to explain this fact with a claim about causality:  The warming is primarily the result of the buildup of gases in the atmosphere, which blocks the outward flow of heat from the planet.

Uh-oh.  That’s a claim of causation.

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