How will the right answer fit in terms of support and conclusion?

Only the right answer will call out why this support doesn’t establish this conclusion.

Highlight the main conclusion in the passage, if there is one:

removing children’s tonsils before swelling even occurs will ensure that the children do not experience any breathing problems during sleep.

Pediatrician: [SUPPORT], and [SUPPORT]. So [CONCLUSION].

Are you catching that the author is claiming a cause-and-effect relationship between tonsils and “breathing problems during sleep”? Just because there’s this one way to stop breathing problems doesn’t mean there aren’t other causes the author didn’t mention. The right answer will call that out.

Map the wording of the answers to the wording of the passage:

(A) …an inappropriate appeal to authority.

The author is the authority, and they never “appeal” to anyone else’s authority, so this is way off base. For the record, that would be something like ‘the most respected feline biologist in America agrees that my neighbor killed my cat’. You’d say, ‘Cool, but that’s not really what they’re an expert in’.

(B) …tantamount to assuming that the conclusion is true.

This is almost always wrong on the LSAT, but it would describe an argument that uses its own conclusion as part of its support, a/k/a “circular reasoning”.

(C) infers…that the action is intended to produce that effect…

This doesn’t line up with anything stated in the passage. The author never mentions what anything is “intended” to do.

(D) …there may be other medical reasons for surgically removing a child’s tonsils.

Cool story, but that has nothing to do with whether children will have “breathing problems during sleep”.

(E) …may be caused by something other than swollen tonsils

Boom! If there are other causes out there, then we can’t “ensure” that children won’t experience “any” breathing problems. We’d only prevent the ones caused by swollen tonsils.

(E) is the correct answer.