Q7 - Although many political candidates

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Match the Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Negative ads benefit their targets.
Evidence: The winners of most elections were the targets of negative ads.

Answer Anticipation:
This is a Correlation to Causality flaw. Just because there's a correlation between winning an election and being the target of negative ads, we can't conclude that "being the target of negative ads HELPED you win the election". Authors committing this flaw are failing to consider either the inherent implausibility of their hypothesis (why would NEGATIVE ads HELP a candidate?) or failing to consider other ways to explain/interpret the correlation ... (maybe there's an association between election winners and negative ads simply because whichever candidate is leading in the polls, and thus most likely to win, is most likely to receive negative ads from competing candidates trying to bring them down).

Correct Answer:
B

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) This evidence is not a correlation. The evidence is actually causality, and the conclusion is a normative "should" statement.

(B) This works! There's a correlation that says "most actors who win awards have had harsh reviews of their work" and concludes that "harsh reviews HELPED them (win those awards)". It matches the original both in terms of being an implausible hypothesis (why would HARSH reviews HELP their career) and in terms of failing to consider another explanation for the correlation (maybe actors who win awards are very much in the public eye and have been in a lot of films, thus increasing the likelihood that they would have received a harsh review at some point).

(C) This is close. There's a correlation between passing a course and having studied. And the author goes to conclude that studying helps with academic success. This doesn't have the same concept of the original or (B), where something seemingly HURTFUL is actually HELPFUL. The hypothesis is much more plausible. Structurally, the original thought "negative ads" were the cause and "benefit" was the effect. Its correlation was "most people who have had a certain benefit had also had this supposed cause". (B) worked the same way. WIth this correlation, though, it's "most people who have had this supposed cause have had a certain benefit". That's different, and it's actually a more persuasive statistic.

(D) There's no correlation for the evidence. It just says lots of people like something.

(E) This is not a causal conclusion. "Acceptable" is only causality if we say "an acceptable thing causes one to be okay with it."

Takeaway/Pattern: It helped here to not only think in terms of correlation -> causality but also specifically how unlikely the author's hypothesis was. It also helped structurally to notice whether we were saying "most people who have the effect, have the cause" or vice versa.

#officialexplanation

[Acing LSAT]

I am stuck between B and C.

The baic flaw in the arugemnet is that it assumes correlation is causation

since C who were TONA won -> being TONA helps C win

That flaw in is both B and C

(B) since subject of harsh reviews have gone on to awards -> harsh reviews help career

(C) since ppl who study pass -> studying is a good way to acedemic success

B is much more farfechted and is illogical, but we all know the LSAT ignores reality.

so why is (B) right and (C) wrong

[ohthatpatrick]

Nice synopsis. When you're doing a Match the Flaw question and you find two answers that both duplicate the same Flaw, then you need to get even more specific with the actual order of parts.

Time to bust out the abstract symbols!

In the original argument, let's call "being the target of critical advertising" = X

Why does the author think that X isn't so bad a thing?

Because most Y's ("election winners") are X's ("candidates who were the target of critical advertising").

For choice (B), X = "receiving a harsh review"
Why is X not so bad a thing?

Because most Y's ("acting award winners") are X's ("actors who received a harsh review")

For choice (C), X = "studying"
Why is X not so bad a thing?

Because most X's ("ppl who study") are Y's ("pass their course")

Do you see how (B) recycles the "Most Y's are X's" of the original, but (C) gives us "Most X's are Y's". Subtle, but different, since the order of MOST statements is critical (not interchangeable).

Although that's the technical reason that makes (B) better, the other thing that is obviously more appealing about (B) is that 'a harsh review' sounds a lot more like 'a negative ad' than 'studying' does. And 'winning an acting award' sounds more like 'winning an election' than 'passing the course' does.

But, as your paranoia suggests, you don't trust that LSAT wants you to consider those factors.

[nflamel69]

I thought C was wrong because of the mismatch between achieving academic success with passing their course. is that a valid reason?