LSAT Question Explanation
PT 110, Section 2, Question 3
Identify the FlawArgument structure
The customers of the restaurant don't like potatoes.
No one orders the potatoes even though they're cheaper than the other vegetarian dishes.
Explanation
There are many reasons why people might not be ordering the potatoes. For one thing, the other dishes seem healthier. Also, people asked for vegetarian options, but the potatoes have cheese (potentially a turn-off for vegetarians). Or maybe the chef is bad at cooking potatoes, maybe potatoes seem too simple/boring to order at a restaurant, maybe the dish doesn't go well with the rest of the menu. Who knows!
There are many potential explanations for the very low potato sales, but the manager concludes that one is correct without considering alternatives.
Answer choices
The manager is only making a conclusion about one thing, the lower potato sales. He's not saying there are two things that share a common cause.
The conclusion is actually quite consistent with the argument. It technically could be the explanation for the low sales, or part of the explanation, we just can't make that conclusion without considering alternatives.
In terms of potatoes, the manager doesn't talk about what the customers say they want. He just notes that they don't order potatoes and then concludes they don't like potatoes.
The claim that the manager attempts to prove is that the customers don't like potatoes. There's no evidence that many people think the customers don't like potatoes, the evidence was that customers don't order the potatoes.
This is exactly what we're looking for - the manager fails to consider other explanations besides that the customers don't like potatoes.