Hi. This Section is only for Find the flaw Questions in 5lb.
Pg.259. (Drill.44) , Q.8. I think C) is also correct, possibly even more correct than B), listed as correct by manhattan prep. Considering if lawyers comment are correct, his clients got harsher punishment than let's say all the same crime punishments in the legal jurisdiction history but the lighter sentence was ordered in all those other cases than his client and the other defendant; then comparison flaw is correct.
Pg.260. (Drill.44) , Q.13. I think the question stem lacks in Key word of Ratio/percentage in the latter part of stem.
It would seem, then, that more ________ students are choosing Mandarin over the European Languages traditionally chosen in the past. cuz technically, it is correct that more student are choosing since prior information contain: "Increasing numbers of students have been choosing ....."
OR
the answer C is true maybe cuz we don't have any information about European language as foreign course requirement? as in, there is no net loss from european language takers but people are choosing mandarin over japanese or something?
pg.301 (Drill.51), Q.25.
even if opinion that cannot be demonstrated to be false or not, opinion is still opinion therefore shouldn't this be N rather than Y?
Pg. 305 (Drill 52). Q. 6, I see Unwarrnted prediction just as much as comparison flaw . am i wrong?
Pg. 310 (Drill 52). Q. 18, the answer can be a Character flaw or Unwarranted Prediction Flaw but this explanation in the book doesn't make sense.
Pg. 312 (Drill 52). Q. 40, I don't think this is the correct description. what am i missing?
Pg. 312 (Drill 52). Q. 46, I can admit this as sampling flaw or Opinion vs Fact flaw, but i cannot see this as a comparison flaw.
LSAT Forum
3 postsPage 1 of 1
-
- RogerD345
-
Thanks Received: 4
-
Elle Woods
- Posts: 56
- Joined: July 08th, 2018
-
- ohthatpatrick
-
Thanks Received: 3808
-
Atticus Finch
- Posts: 4661
- Joined: April 01st, 2011
- This post thanked 1 time.
Re: Inquiring regards Drill 44,51,52 (Flaw Qs only)
Pg.259. (Drill.44) , Q.8. I think C) is also correct, possibly even more correct than B), listed as correct by manhattan prep. Considering if lawyers comment are correct, his clients got harsher punishment than let's say all the same crime punishments in the legal jurisdiction history but the lighter sentence was ordered in all those other cases than his client and the other defendant; then comparison flaw is correct.
Ah, I see you're trying to make the Comparison Flaw work, by saying we're comparing the verdict the client and his co-defendant received vs. the verdict all other people have been receiving for that crime.
But the author never made that comparison. You're just making a comparison in your head as you try to object to the author.
A Comparison Flaw is when an author thinks "because these two things are similar in terms of X, they should be similar in terms of Y", while failing to consider important differences that might make them different in terms of Y.
If our author said:
"Both my client and the co-defendant were both at the scene of the crime and both involved in the commission of the crime, thus their punishments should be the same"
That would invoke the Comparison Flaw. We'd ague, "they don't have to be similar punishments. Maybe they weren't equally involved in the crime. Maybe it was only 90% client and 10% co-defendant. Maybe the co-defendant is an upstanding citizen and the client is Al Capone."
The argument is Q8 is this:
CONC: the punishment is fair (i.e. it's not too harsh)
EVID: the co-defendant got the same punishment
Our objection should be, "What if the co-defendant's punishment was ALSO too harsh?!"
Equivocation is one way to think about this argument, because the author is trading on two different senses of fair:
SINCE it was fair in terms of being equal to the co-defendant that committed the same crime,
it must be fair (in terms of not being too harsh)
i.e. we might say it was fair that neither defendant received a harsher sentence than the other, but still argue it was unfair what sentence they each received.
They are two different issues of fairness.
Pg.260. (Drill.44) , Q.13. I think the question stem lacks in Key word of Ratio/percentage in the latter part of stem.
It would seem, then, that more ________ students are choosing Mandarin over the European Languages traditionally chosen in the past. cuz technically, it is correct that more student are choosing since prior information contain: "Increasing numbers of students have been choosing ....."
OR
the answer C is true maybe cuz we don't have any information about European language as foreign course requirement? as in, there is no net loss from european language takers but people are choosing mandarin over japanese or something?
Yeah, I don't love this either. They were shooting for your latter assessment.
Say a few years ago there were 100 students:
20 took Mandarin, 80 took European.
In recent years there have been 200 students:
40 took Mandarin, 160 took European.
In recent years, "increasing number of students chose to take Mandarin"
yet it's not the case that "more students chose Mandarin over European".
Although, isn't it?
Does saying "more students chose Mandarin over European" actually imply the ratio?
I think it's trying to. It literally uses "M over E", which would be M/E.
In that sense, this is definitely a flawed argument, since while the absolute number of M went up, the ratio of M:E did not.
But I think you (and probably others) might be thinking, "Isn't every single person who chooses to do Mandarin a person who chose Mandarin over European?"
That's not a mathematical concept; it's just the simple fact of "Did you choose Mandarin or European?"
But we could only take that interpretation of the conclusion if we knew that European and Mandarin were the only two categories of languages available.
It could be that the 20 extra people taking Mandarin in recent years chose Mandarin over Native American ... or South American ... or Indian ... etc.
pg.301 (Drill.51), Q.25.
even if opinion that cannot be demonstrated to be false or not, opinion is still opinion therefore shouldn't this be N rather than Y?
I honestly have no idea what you're asking and only a loose idea of what this drill is asking.
They're saying, "if you're concluding something based on an opinion, what needs to be true about that opinion":
1. does the opinion need to be something that hasn't been falsified?
(sure ... if the opinion had been falsified then it would be a false belief and thus a poor piece of evidence)
2. does the opinion need to be relevant to the conclusion?
(sure ... if the opinion were irrelevant, it would be crappy evidence)
3. does the opinion need to be justified?
(sure .. if the opinion were unjustified, it would be crappy evidence)
4. does the opinion need to be shared by others?
(no ... even if only one person holds the opinion, it can still be good evidence, as long as we trust that the opinion is accurate/relevant)
Pg. 305 (Drill 52). Q. 6, I see Unwarrnted prediction just as much as comparison flaw . am i wrong?
You're not wrong, you just might as well go with the sharper description.
It's an unwarranted prediction because it relies on a dubious comparison.
I could call the flaw in EVERY argument "Unjustified Conclusion" but that wouldn't take me much closer to picking a correct answer choice.
If you read an argument that said:
"Because each employee selected for the committee is an efficient employee, the new committee will be an efficient committee."
That makes an Unwarranted Prediction, because it relies on a dubious Part vs Whole assumption. So I'd rather name the problem with it "Part vs. Whole".
I don't consider "Unwarranted Prediction" to be a useful label. I think they're reserving it for when the argument commits a Temporal Flaw: "what was true in the past will be true in the present/future"
Pg. 310 (Drill 52). Q. 18, the answer can be a Character flaw or Unwarranted Prediction Flaw but this explanation in the book doesn't make sense.
Yeah, I don't like how heavily it's leaning on "it would seem that" as the wiggle room.
If anything, we could also call that "Opinion vs. Fact", since it's treating the Opinion that there are only these two options as though it's a Fact that there are only these two options.
It's definitely not a Character flaw, since we're not dismissing someone's argument by focusing on their ulterior motive or past behavior. The author is certainly ignoring the possibility that someone who has, in the past, had a sterling record for honesty might nonetheless be lying in this case, but that would be more like a Temporal Flaw than a Character flaw.
I'd prefer if Q18 were worded more like:
The defendant said something untrue to the court. It's possible the defendant lied to his lawyer. It's also possible that the lawyer knowingly lied to the court. Since the lawyer ....
If we were seeing a False Choice flaw, I don't think they'd be so awful about making it sound like there really are only options X and Y by putting in a claim like "Either X or Y occurred", even if it were couched in "it would seem that". I hear "it would seem that ____ " in the premises and think, "go ahead and accept this idea ... the logical problem in the reasoning lies elsewhere".
Pg. 312 (Drill 52). Q. 40, I don't think this is the correct description. what am i missing?
I think it's just messed up. We wouldn't call that a Conditional Logic Flaw. That's just a Term Shift from "President's personal journal" to "important historical document". The author isn't messing up the conditional logic of the first sentence. She's just assuming that a given thing applies to the conditional logic of the first sentence.
I'm surprised you're not asking about #50, which is doing the exact same (incorrect) thing. It just has a Term Shift from "belief that life exists in other galaxies" to "an untestable proposition".
Pg. 312 (Drill 52). Q. 46, I can admit this as sampling flaw or Opinion vs Fact flaw, but i cannot see this as a comparison flaw.
I kinda hate it too, but I think they're going for the idea that there's a crucial dissimilarity between a cup of OJ and a cup of broccoli: people are normally much more willing to ingest the former than the latter.
The conclusion is fairly correct as written. If they are trying to get vitamin C, broccoli is apparently a more efficient source.
We also don't know whether the amount of vitamin C in OJ is already 100% of the needed/recommended amount. If it is, then recommending a cup of broccoli would be flawed advice since it would provide MORE than the needed/recommended amount of vitamin C.
But that wouldn't be a Comparison Flaw.
If anything, I would consider this a Prescriptive Flaw, in the sense that it fails to take into account possible weaknesses of the solution it's providing: the solution may be unnecessary (they were already getting enough vit C from OJ) ..... and the solution may backfire (they get more vit C than the body should have / they abandon their daily vitamin C habit because they don't like consuming broccoli as much as consuming OJ)
Ah, I see you're trying to make the Comparison Flaw work, by saying we're comparing the verdict the client and his co-defendant received vs. the verdict all other people have been receiving for that crime.
But the author never made that comparison. You're just making a comparison in your head as you try to object to the author.
A Comparison Flaw is when an author thinks "because these two things are similar in terms of X, they should be similar in terms of Y", while failing to consider important differences that might make them different in terms of Y.
If our author said:
"Both my client and the co-defendant were both at the scene of the crime and both involved in the commission of the crime, thus their punishments should be the same"
That would invoke the Comparison Flaw. We'd ague, "they don't have to be similar punishments. Maybe they weren't equally involved in the crime. Maybe it was only 90% client and 10% co-defendant. Maybe the co-defendant is an upstanding citizen and the client is Al Capone."
The argument is Q8 is this:
CONC: the punishment is fair (i.e. it's not too harsh)
EVID: the co-defendant got the same punishment
Our objection should be, "What if the co-defendant's punishment was ALSO too harsh?!"
Equivocation is one way to think about this argument, because the author is trading on two different senses of fair:
SINCE it was fair in terms of being equal to the co-defendant that committed the same crime,
it must be fair (in terms of not being too harsh)
i.e. we might say it was fair that neither defendant received a harsher sentence than the other, but still argue it was unfair what sentence they each received.
They are two different issues of fairness.
Pg.260. (Drill.44) , Q.13. I think the question stem lacks in Key word of Ratio/percentage in the latter part of stem.
It would seem, then, that more ________ students are choosing Mandarin over the European Languages traditionally chosen in the past. cuz technically, it is correct that more student are choosing since prior information contain: "Increasing numbers of students have been choosing ....."
OR
the answer C is true maybe cuz we don't have any information about European language as foreign course requirement? as in, there is no net loss from european language takers but people are choosing mandarin over japanese or something?
Yeah, I don't love this either. They were shooting for your latter assessment.
Say a few years ago there were 100 students:
20 took Mandarin, 80 took European.
In recent years there have been 200 students:
40 took Mandarin, 160 took European.
In recent years, "increasing number of students chose to take Mandarin"
yet it's not the case that "more students chose Mandarin over European".
Although, isn't it?
Does saying "more students chose Mandarin over European" actually imply the ratio?
I think it's trying to. It literally uses "M over E", which would be M/E.
In that sense, this is definitely a flawed argument, since while the absolute number of M went up, the ratio of M:E did not.
But I think you (and probably others) might be thinking, "Isn't every single person who chooses to do Mandarin a person who chose Mandarin over European?"
That's not a mathematical concept; it's just the simple fact of "Did you choose Mandarin or European?"
But we could only take that interpretation of the conclusion if we knew that European and Mandarin were the only two categories of languages available.
It could be that the 20 extra people taking Mandarin in recent years chose Mandarin over Native American ... or South American ... or Indian ... etc.
pg.301 (Drill.51), Q.25.
even if opinion that cannot be demonstrated to be false or not, opinion is still opinion therefore shouldn't this be N rather than Y?
I honestly have no idea what you're asking and only a loose idea of what this drill is asking.
They're saying, "if you're concluding something based on an opinion, what needs to be true about that opinion":
1. does the opinion need to be something that hasn't been falsified?
(sure ... if the opinion had been falsified then it would be a false belief and thus a poor piece of evidence)
2. does the opinion need to be relevant to the conclusion?
(sure ... if the opinion were irrelevant, it would be crappy evidence)
3. does the opinion need to be justified?
(sure .. if the opinion were unjustified, it would be crappy evidence)
4. does the opinion need to be shared by others?
(no ... even if only one person holds the opinion, it can still be good evidence, as long as we trust that the opinion is accurate/relevant)
Pg. 305 (Drill 52). Q. 6, I see Unwarrnted prediction just as much as comparison flaw . am i wrong?
You're not wrong, you just might as well go with the sharper description.
It's an unwarranted prediction because it relies on a dubious comparison.
I could call the flaw in EVERY argument "Unjustified Conclusion" but that wouldn't take me much closer to picking a correct answer choice.
If you read an argument that said:
"Because each employee selected for the committee is an efficient employee, the new committee will be an efficient committee."
That makes an Unwarranted Prediction, because it relies on a dubious Part vs Whole assumption. So I'd rather name the problem with it "Part vs. Whole".
I don't consider "Unwarranted Prediction" to be a useful label. I think they're reserving it for when the argument commits a Temporal Flaw: "what was true in the past will be true in the present/future"
Pg. 310 (Drill 52). Q. 18, the answer can be a Character flaw or Unwarranted Prediction Flaw but this explanation in the book doesn't make sense.
Yeah, I don't like how heavily it's leaning on "it would seem that" as the wiggle room.
If anything, we could also call that "Opinion vs. Fact", since it's treating the Opinion that there are only these two options as though it's a Fact that there are only these two options.
It's definitely not a Character flaw, since we're not dismissing someone's argument by focusing on their ulterior motive or past behavior. The author is certainly ignoring the possibility that someone who has, in the past, had a sterling record for honesty might nonetheless be lying in this case, but that would be more like a Temporal Flaw than a Character flaw.
I'd prefer if Q18 were worded more like:
The defendant said something untrue to the court. It's possible the defendant lied to his lawyer. It's also possible that the lawyer knowingly lied to the court. Since the lawyer ....
If we were seeing a False Choice flaw, I don't think they'd be so awful about making it sound like there really are only options X and Y by putting in a claim like "Either X or Y occurred", even if it were couched in "it would seem that". I hear "it would seem that ____ " in the premises and think, "go ahead and accept this idea ... the logical problem in the reasoning lies elsewhere".
Pg. 312 (Drill 52). Q. 40, I don't think this is the correct description. what am i missing?
I think it's just messed up. We wouldn't call that a Conditional Logic Flaw. That's just a Term Shift from "President's personal journal" to "important historical document". The author isn't messing up the conditional logic of the first sentence. She's just assuming that a given thing applies to the conditional logic of the first sentence.
I'm surprised you're not asking about #50, which is doing the exact same (incorrect) thing. It just has a Term Shift from "belief that life exists in other galaxies" to "an untestable proposition".
Pg. 312 (Drill 52). Q. 46, I can admit this as sampling flaw or Opinion vs Fact flaw, but i cannot see this as a comparison flaw.
I kinda hate it too, but I think they're going for the idea that there's a crucial dissimilarity between a cup of OJ and a cup of broccoli: people are normally much more willing to ingest the former than the latter.
The conclusion is fairly correct as written. If they are trying to get vitamin C, broccoli is apparently a more efficient source.
We also don't know whether the amount of vitamin C in OJ is already 100% of the needed/recommended amount. If it is, then recommending a cup of broccoli would be flawed advice since it would provide MORE than the needed/recommended amount of vitamin C.
But that wouldn't be a Comparison Flaw.
If anything, I would consider this a Prescriptive Flaw, in the sense that it fails to take into account possible weaknesses of the solution it's providing: the solution may be unnecessary (they were already getting enough vit C from OJ) ..... and the solution may backfire (they get more vit C than the body should have / they abandon their daily vitamin C habit because they don't like consuming broccoli as much as consuming OJ)
-
- RogerD345
-
Thanks Received: 4
-
Elle Woods
- Posts: 56
- Joined: July 08th, 2018
Re: Inquiring regards Drill 44,51,52 (Flaw Qs only)
Hi. Patrick,
First of all, Thank you so much for your help.
I did have that objection for Pg. 312 (Drill 52). Q.50, i contemplated about asking whether I saw term shift flaw element more than than conditional logic flaw.
but word "IS" can be used as to express some form of conditional reasoning. and most importantly, the authors of 5LB , i am pretty certain they are better than me in terms of logical reasoning in every aspects so i thought there must be something I am missing here.
I thought:
If I go over this question in my "Trouble-Shooting/ Going over a wrong question prior" later times, Then, maybe then, i can finally see what am i supposed to see that is designed by the 5LB book authors' meant for me to see.
so I dared not to ask. I thank you for providing that extra work
Regarding pg.301 (Drill.51), Q.25.
I thought Opinion vs fact is a flaw because regardless of an opinion can be falsified or not even if it is not falsfied yet, it is still a flaw to consider as a fact.
Therefore we don't need to ask whether any stem contains Opinion that can be demonstrated to be false or not.
As in ,
FOR EXAMPLE:
A reporter: "South Korea government did not publicize the rumored North Korea government peace talk occur YET, so it
must not have occurred' i must report this fact to my boss and make it a news asap."
(First of all, I know this argument contains strong element of Evidence Error flaw; let's put that aside) whether south korea government ever had the rumored peace talk with North Korea Government or not, it is opinion of an reporter and it is wrong to consider that (talk not occurred as a fact.) As in, the LSAT test takers don't need to ask this information to themselves, South Korea government had the talk or not, CAN BE FALSFIED or NOT ; it is an opinion and wrong to consider as a FACT. That's why it <pg.301 (Drill.51), Q.25> should be N not Y.
Am I making myself coherent?
First of all, Thank you so much for your help.
I did have that objection for Pg. 312 (Drill 52). Q.50, i contemplated about asking whether I saw term shift flaw element more than than conditional logic flaw.
but word "IS" can be used as to express some form of conditional reasoning. and most importantly, the authors of 5LB , i am pretty certain they are better than me in terms of logical reasoning in every aspects so i thought there must be something I am missing here.
I thought:
If I go over this question in my "Trouble-Shooting/ Going over a wrong question prior" later times, Then, maybe then, i can finally see what am i supposed to see that is designed by the 5LB book authors' meant for me to see.
so I dared not to ask. I thank you for providing that extra work
Regarding pg.301 (Drill.51), Q.25.
I thought Opinion vs fact is a flaw because regardless of an opinion can be falsified or not even if it is not falsfied yet, it is still a flaw to consider as a fact.
Therefore we don't need to ask whether any stem contains Opinion that can be demonstrated to be false or not.
As in ,
FOR EXAMPLE:
A reporter: "South Korea government did not publicize the rumored North Korea government peace talk occur YET, so it
must not have occurred' i must report this fact to my boss and make it a news asap."
(First of all, I know this argument contains strong element of Evidence Error flaw; let's put that aside) whether south korea government ever had the rumored peace talk with North Korea Government or not, it is opinion of an reporter and it is wrong to consider that (talk not occurred as a fact.) As in, the LSAT test takers don't need to ask this information to themselves, South Korea government had the talk or not, CAN BE FALSFIED or NOT ; it is an opinion and wrong to consider as a FACT. That's why it <pg.301 (Drill.51), Q.25> should be N not Y.
Am I making myself coherent?
3 posts Page 1 of 1