LSAT Question Explanation
PT 108, Section 3, Question 10
WeakenArgument structure
A significant number of people would rather disrupt their travel plans than fly on a supposedly unlucky day.
One year ~17% of people canceled or no-showed their flights on Friday the 13th, a higher rate than on any other day of that year.
Explanation
This is a correlation vs causation error. Sure more people canceled/no-showed their flights on that supposedly unlucky day than on any other day, but we have no way of knowing if it was because they were scared of Friday the 13th being unlucky. What if there were warnings of bad weather that caused people to stay home? Or it was reported that day that there could be an outbreak of a pandemic and people stayed home so as not to get sick? Who knows what happened.
Answer choices
This doesn't weaken because Friday the 13th that year still had a higher cancellation/no-show rate than any other day, even if air travelers are generally less superstitious than normal. They could still be somewhat superstitious.
While this seems to indicate that not many people in the population are afraid of Friday the 13th, the data doesn't lie: that day had the highest cancellation/no-show rate of the year. Maybe air travelers are more afraid of Friday the 13th than the general population. Or maybe people are acting tough for the surveys but when it comes to getting on a plane on Friday the 13th they actually get scared.
This would weaken by introducing an alternate cause for the cancellations/no-shows. People were concerned about the severe weather.
The conclusion is about air travel, I don't see why this answer choice would weaken that people were scared to fly on Friday the 13th. It's reasonable to think that people are generally more scared of flying than driving.
This doesn't weaken that people were afraid to fly on Friday the 13th, maybe airline workers were just even more afraid of losing their jobs. The cancellation/no-show rate was still the highest of the year.