Smoking in bed has long been the main cause of home fires. Despite a

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

(B)

One last question, and in it we’re faced with another apparent discrepancy. This time, however, we’re looking for the one choice that doesn’t help explain the unusual result or finding. First, we get some background info: smoking in bed has long been a major cause of home fires. And here’s the surprise: even though cigarette smoking has significantly declined over the last twenty years, the number of people killed in home fires hasn’t declined accordingly. There are at least four good reasons why this is so, and we’ll see those below in the wrong answer choices. But we’re looking for the one that doesn’t help solve the mystery. And (B) could only deepen the mystery: if the fires caused by smoking in bed tend to take place after the home’s occupants have fallen asleep, then home fires caused by smoking would seem even deadlier, since it’s hard to evacuate your home when you’re asleep. If fires caused by smoking are especially deadly, then it is all the more confusing that a reduction in smoking has not led to a reduction of the number of people killed in home fires. So (B) is no help, which means that it is the credited response.

(A) If (A) is true, then bed-smoking fires aren’t likely to cause many fire-related deaths in the first place. Under these circumstances, a decline in smoking wouldn’t be expected to result in a corresponding decline in home-fire deaths.

(C) picks up on the scope shift between the first and second sentences: There’s been a significant decline in cigarette smoking in general, but that doesn’t mean the decline includes the subset of people who smoke in bed. If (C) is true, we’d expect most of the bedsmokers to keep on smoking, which would certainly help resolve the apparent discrepancy.

(D) and (E) both help to resolve the paradox by offering other reasons why deaths from fires have increased lately. If kitchen fires or greater population densities are responsible for more home-fire deaths than before, the fact that no decline in fire deaths has accompanied the decline in cigarette smoking is far less surprising.

• Once again, the wrong choices offer a plethora of alternative explanations (see section A, Q. 20 for another situation loaded with alternative explanations). After all, what better way to resolve a paradox than to find a different, unmentioned, and plausible explanation for the surprising result? Understanding the concept of the alternative explanation can help you to answer Logical Flaw, Assumption, Paradox, and even Strengthen/Weaken questions. Make sure you keep this important concept in the forefront of your mind whenever working on LSAT Logical Reasoning.

• Keep your eyes peeled for scope shifts; sometimes they’re fairly subtle. Bed-smoking is not the same as cigarette smoking in general. “Home fires” from the first sentence is not the same as “people killed from home fires” in the second. Understanding these subtle distinctions when they exist in an argument will help you to assess that argument correctly and to answer any question the testmakers choose to throw at you.