Q7 - When individual students are

[YLAGUNAS]

I'm lost in this question. I tried to diagram it but wasn't able to draw any chains. I am wondering why Ais right, is it because it is the contrapositive of the first sentence?

[timmydoeslsat]

Can you double check the location of your question? I am not seeing the preview sentence you posted for the question listed.

[slimjimsquinn]

Hi, OP.

You can't draw chains because the terms don't follow. Though the question stem read " if statements above are both true," it doesn't mean that both statements have to be relevant to each other.

The answer is concerned only with the first statement. And, yes! You are right that it is a contrapositive. Here is diagram:


TE --> VRQQ

TE = Treated Equally
VRQQ = Variance of rate, quality and quantity of learning in each student

Answer A) is the more complicated way of naming the contrapositive:

- VRQQ --> - TE

-VRQQ = rate, quality and quality NOT varied (meaning, they are uniform/equal)

-TE = not treated equally ( the unequal treatment mentioned in the AC)


They also trip you up by referring to the "unequal treatment" first. Since it is "required," it ends up on the necessary side of the diagram--making it identical to the contrapositive we're looking for.

I initially resisted the answer because common sense tells me that more equal treatment should result in more equal outcomes. Thinking about it, though, it makes a lot of sense. To attain educational equity (have students learn on the same level), you have to give extra care and attention to the students who've fallen behind. So this turns out to be an argument for closing the Academic Achievement Gap, which is always cool in my book.



Hope that helps!

[griffin3575]

I had a different take on why A was the correct answer. I believe the two statements in the stimulus can indeed be to combined to prove answer choice A.

First statement:
ALL students treated equally ---> rate, quality, quantity vary student to student

Second statement:
all students master curriculum---> SOME students need different types of help.

"SOME students need different types of help" is equivalent to "NOT ALL students are treated equally", the negated form of the first statement's sufficient condition. If SOME of the students need different types of help for mastery, then it must be true that "NOT ALL of the students being treated equally" is a necessary condition for mastery. So, the two statements can be linked as follows,

all students master curriculum--->SOME students need different types of help---> NOT ALL students treated equally

or

all students master curriculum--> NOT ALL students treated equally

Answer choice A can be diagram as follows:
EQUALITY with respect to mastery--> unequal treatment

which is nearly equivalent to what we just derived above:
all students master curriculum---> NOT ALL students treated equally

Thus, by liking some of the ideas in the stimulus, answer choice A is clearly the correct answer.

[ohthatpatrick]

I agree. You can definitely get the question WITHOUT diagramming, but LSAT was definitely playing with the binary idea of whether all students are treated equally as the connective tissue between the two claims.

[maithu.raman]

I have figured the answer to this question the following way :

When individual students are all treated equally in that they have identical exposure to curriculum material, the rate, quality, and quantity of learning will vary from student to student. If all students are to master a given curriculum, some of them need different types of help than others, as any experienced teacher knows.

Lets divide the question into two parts :

1) When individual students are all treated equally in that they have identical exposure to curriculum material, the rate, quality, and quantity of learning will vary from student to student.---> This statement clearly explains that even under equal treatment and identical exposure the quality of learning will vary from student to student . Some might pick up fast and some might sloth , so this concludes that the teacher has to treat the students unequally by providing more help to the slow learners

2) If all students are to master a given curriculum, some of them need different types of help than others, as any experienced teacher knows.----->
If students are to master a curriculum, some might need more help from the teacher than the other . Again some might pick it up fast and some students might sloth. Unequal treatment is given by teachers so that slow learners can also master the curriculum.

Hence the Answer A is the right choice.

[chal4oye]

I am not seeing the preview sentence you posted for the question listed.

[Mab6q]

I didn't like A here because it says "ensure equality with respect to the educational tasks they master", but the stimulus already tells us that equality is not the way to go. Ultimately it's not a perfect match.

It should have said "to insure that the students mater the educational tasks".

That is why I was thrown off by it, I thought it was a trap. C is not perfect but it was the only other choice I could justify. Any thoughts on C? Is that simply beyond the scope of the argument?

[maryadkins]

Yeah, (C) is out of scope. We don't know anything about how teacher experience affects student learning.

[jwms]

I didn't like A here because it says "ensure equality with respect to the educational tasks they master", but the stimulus already tells us that equality is not the way to go. Ultimately it's not a perfect match.

'Equality' is being used in two different contexts here. That's the trap, I think.

The stimulus states that equality is not the way to go as far as teaching goes. Ensuring equality with respect to the educational tasks they master, however, refers to each student 'mastering' a given curriculum. That is the objective here; for each student to master the curriculum equally. It's just that there is no approach that is equal.

Does that make sense?