#21 - Restaurant critic: Most people agree that the food at

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[LSAT1802017]

Can someone please explain this Q? This one was the hardest one and I just can't figure out how I should approach this Q. Thanks!!!

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi LSAT1802017,

Basically, the stimulus is saying that Traintrack's food being not as good makes sense because it is in a convenient location. You might find yourself wondering why those two things are related; how come having crummy food follows from being conveniently located? We're looking for a principle that says that convenient location = less delicious food, in some way.

D is the only answer that comes anywhere close to giving us that.

If you want to tell us how you approached this question and which answer you chose, that will help us give an answer more tailored to you!

[mepstlsat24]

Why is B wrong? Is it because moving locations does not matter? Or is it just too general of an answer?

[Adam Tyson]

The problem with answer B, Meps, is that it fails to connect the location to the quality of the food. As Emily pointed out, the author here is telling us that we should expect lower quality food when the location is convenient, and that is the relationship that we need our principle to address. "Popular" isn't the issue; food that is "fairly ordinary" (as opposed to exceptional) is what matters most. We need a principle that bridges the gap between the premise of a convenient location and the conclusion that we should not be surprised by ordinary food. B just doesn't cross that gap for us.

[mepstlsat24]

Thank you!

[mepstlsat24]

Thank you!

[LSAT2018]

So the premise is that location by itself is enough to guarantee a steady flow of customers (Location → Attract Customers). Therefore Traintrack Inn did not improve its products.


Answer (D) is the contrapositive of this. So when it is not necessary to improve products in order to attract customers, a business will not improve its products. I would like to ask how the 'guarantee a steady flow of customers' matches up with 'not necessary' part.

[jayzbrisk]

The problem that I had with this question is that I understood the discrepancy to be the fact that Traintrack was popular even though it has ordinary food. With this understanding, the critic was explaining that the reason for its popularity was because of its convenient location. Which left me with choice E because it says that the popularity of a restaurant does not depend on its food.

Why am I wrong in the way I understood this paragraph and question???

[James Finch]

Hi Jay,

This stimulus is absolutely designed to throw people off. At first glance, a Prephrase saying that location is more important than food quality for a restaurant's popularity. But in fact the argument being made by the stimulus is that a restaurant's food quality is caused by its level of popularity; if the restaurant is already popular due to another factor, it won't make good food. If a restaurant doesn't have anything else to rely on for customers, then it must make superior food. So (D), as a principle, bolsters that causal link.

(E) instead tries to break the link between food quality and popularity. But we don't know this; if anything, the stimulus would imply that a restaurant that suffers from a lack of popularity would do everything it could to improve its food.

Hope this clears things up!