#25 - Although wood-burning stoves are more efficient

[nicholaspavic]

Hi kcho,

Generally on the LSAT when you get a blanket statement like this in a weakening question, you should assume that they are stating that they are all 100% quantity-wise more efficient. If they want to qualify it, they qualify with terms of quantity or quality, but this introductory clause isn't the thing that we are ultimately looking to weaken in this question. As noted above it's the conclusion that they are "more dangerous."

Thanks for the great question and we hope this helps.

[whitefox20]

Could someone please elaborate on why A is wrong? When looking at the prompt, I initially thought that the answer had something to do with a factor which could make the open fire stoves more dangerous, because the stimulus focuses only on one aspect of the wood burning stove. However, I still got confused between A and C. I think, I just cannot find a clear reason to eliminate A. Thank you!

[Dave Killoran]

Could someone please elaborate on why A is wrong? When looking at the prompt, I initially thought that the answer had something to do with a factor which could make the open fire stoves more dangerous, because the stimulus focuses only on one aspect of the wood burning stove. However, I still got confused between A and C. I think, I just cannot find a clear reason to eliminate A. Thank you!

Hi Whitefox,

I think you may have missed Eric's explanation of (A) on the prior page of this thread: "The bottom line is that we KNOW that wood burning stoves deposit more creosote in chimneys than open fireplaces. Answer choice (A), even though it shows that the most efficient stoves produce less creosote than fireplaces, does not change the fact that stoves deposit more."

I've added italics to his explanation to focus in on the ideas of producing and depositing, as that comparison helps explain why (A) is incorrect. The idea being that even though they may produce less creosote, as the smoke travels more slowly it still will deposit more. Best analogy I can think of is how a river can, over time, cut through rock and make a huge gorge, and by its slow steady movement do a lot more damage than the occasional big flood. Let me know if that makes sense.

Thanks!

[Tajadas]

Would A be viable if it said "The most efficient wood-burning stoves deposit less creosote than do many open fireplaces"? I didn't notice the difference between deposit and and produce when I saw the answer; I eliminated it because I thought the text was talking about wood stoves and fireplaces generally. I'm not seeing that as a point raised by Powerscore staff though so I may have eliminated a wrong answer for the wrong reasons.

[Poonam Agrawal]

Hi Tajadas,

Great question! Answer choice (A) would definitely be a stronger answer if it said deposit instead of produce, but I'm not sure that slight word change would make it stronger than answer choice (C). The LSAC probably recognizes that having deposit instead of produce in answer choice (A) would make it too competitive with answer choice (C), which is why it was not written that way. I agree with you that one of the drawbacks of answer choice (A) is that it talks only about the most efficient stoves whereas the stimulus is about stoves in general.

So, you were on the right track when you eliminated answer choice (A), but you would have been more certain when eliminating it if you had seen the deposit/produce difference. Hope that helps!