PT76 Section4 Q12

[marco4568]

I'm having trouble with this necessary assumption question even after reading through discussion on manhatton, lsat hacks, and powerscore forums. I really feel like if I fail to spot the gap in the reasoning, I won't be able to come up with a solid answer. I feel like that "negating answer choices to see if it damage the argument" is unlikely to help at all especially when the gap you identified was different than the one intended. Is there anything you can do if you didn't spot the gap that was intended by the people who wrote the LR questions? I see that some use the negation method and see if they are able to still reach the conclusion (does this work??).

what I thought:
The gap I originally identified was "reducing stress can reduced the susceptibility to illness", since it was given that the scent of lavender reduce stress, and with this, I can get the scent of lavender reduce the susceptibility to illness. I knew I was wrong bc the scent of lavender can still reduce the susceptibility to illness for other reasons. (Am I correct on the analysis?)

The gap seems to be about the "intense stress", if people who regularly inhale the scent of lavender weren't under intense stress, it's unknown whether they'll be more susceptible to illness, and if they (people who regularly inhale the scent of lavender) weren't more susceptible to illness in the first place, the incidence of them (people who regularly inhale the scent of lavender) wouldn't be able to be reduced by inhaling the scent of lavender. (Am I correct on this?)

Any suggestions on tackling this kind of questions? Like how can I get closer to guessing what the intended gap is?

[SilvermanBarPrep]

The key to doing well at the LR section of the LSAT is to really understand the argument so that you can spot the flaw. We're told here that inhaling lavender can reduce stress, and that stress can impair the immune system.

From that we are told that therefore the incidence of illness among those who inhale lavender is reduced by doing so.

Now imagine that nobody who inhaled lavender had any stress at all. If that were true then even if the above statements are all true (that lavender reduces stress, and stress impairs the immune system) it would not be true that inhaling lavender helps people reduce illness because nobody with any stress would be inhaling it and so the lavender could not reduce the stress to reduce the illness.

And so for it to be true that inhaling lavender reduces illness it must also be true that there are people who inhale it who have enough stress to impair their immune system (choice B).