Unplugged Practice Test: Logical Reasoning Set 3, Question 14 (Strengthen)
Taking the test? Finish it first. This page shows the answer.
- Strengthen questions ask which new fact most supports the argument.
- Find the gap the argument leaves open, then look for the choice that closes it.
- Every question on this test is original, written to the same logical skeletons as real questions, and Steve checked every one himself before release.
The question
Curator: The first paper was most likely made by pouring pulp onto a cloth mold floating in a shallow tray, not, as some scholars hold, by dipping a rigid screen mold into a vat of pulp. Pouring onto a floating mold requires only a loosely woven cloth stretched across a frame, and such crude molds are an intermediate step toward the fine rigid screens associated with later papermaking.
14. Each of the following, if true, strengthens the curator's argument EXCEPT:
- (A)The earliest papermaking workshops kept stocks of the shallow trays and cloth-covered frames that the pouring method uses.
- (B)The oldest surviving sheets bear the print of a coarse cloth weave and vary in thickness the way poured sheets do, unlike sheets lifted from a vat.
- (C)The pulp prepared in the earliest workshops was too coarse to drain through a fine screen, so a dipped mold would have clogged.
- (D)In the region where paper was first made, loosely woven cloth was cheap and was already produced in quantity for other uses.
- (E)The earliest papermaking workshops stood beside streams that supplied them with a steady flow of water.
EWhy (E) is correct
The curator says the first paper most likely came from pouring pulp onto a floating cloth mold, not from dipping a rigid screen into a vat. Pouring needs only a loosely woven cloth on a frame, and crude molds like that are an intermediate step toward the fine screens of later papermaking. 4 choices back pouring or undercut dipping. (E) does neither. A steady flow of water from nearby streams says nothing about which kind of mold made the sheets, so it's the exception.
Why the other answers are wrong
AWhy (A) is wrong
(A) strengthens by putting the pouring method's own tools, shallow trays and cloth-covered frames, in the earliest workshops.
BWhy (B) is wrong
(B) adds physical evidence, since the oldest sheets carry a coarse cloth weave and vary in thickness the way poured sheets do.
CWhy (C) is wrong
(C) goes after the rival view: pulp too coarse for a fine screen would have clogged a dipped mold. With
DWhy (D) is wrong
(D) , the loosely woven cloth that crude molds need turns out to be cheap and already made in quantity.
Common questions
What type of question is this?
Strengthen. Strengthen questions ask which new fact most supports the argument.
How do I get better at Strengthen questions?
Find the gap the argument leaves open, then look for the choice that closes it. The free LSAT cheat sheet lists the wrong-answer patterns to watch for on every type.
