#2 - Concept Reference, Must Be True

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (E).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice.

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[vangorgc]

I got confused simply by the phrasing of this question. Can you rephrase what they were trying to ask here? Is this a common LSAT trick? I couldn't get my head around the question itself, so the answers were tricky

[Adam Tyson]

I had the same reaction as you did, vangorgc! It took me a minute to figure out what they were even asking! To deal with this, I went back to the passage to remind myself of two things: 1) what was the second hypothesis (asteroids), and 2) what was the author's objection to it (doesn't like extraterrestrial explanations - keep it down to Earth).

What the question is asking is "what would that objection apply to"? We need an answer that our author would say "nope, I don't like that, because "extraterrestrial intervention seem(s) less convincing." In other words, we need the one answer that looks to the skies instead of looking for a more terrestrial explanation.

Answers A through D all give us explanations for the extinction of the dinosaurs that are based on what was happening on and within the Earth, with no outside forces involved. Our author would probably be more willing to accept any of them rather than answer E, because answer E relies on something extraterrestrial. Answer E is the one answer choice to which their objection applies.

It might help to think of this one as an "author disagreement" question, where you're looking for something the author would object to. Sort of a "Cannot Be True" in that sense. Once I realized that was what they wanted, it became pretty obvious what the correct answer should be!