Q9

[lhermary]

Is it me or is this a poorly worded question?

If it had said, 'which one of the following would the authors most likely disagree with each on', is would have made more sense. Rather I interpreted this as they both disagree, which is not the case. I'm assuming other people got this right. Where did I go wrong?

Thanks

[ohthatpatrick]

Good point. It is potentially confusing wording.

The problem is that your version, while possibly easier to understand, isn't grammatically acceptable. You're not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition. So that's part of why the question stem is organized in a less-than-conversational fashion.

I think the way they would word the question you interpreted this to be would be:
"It can be inferred that both authors would be most likely to disagree with which one of the following?"

They tend to use the word "both" or "each" if they're asking about what the authors/passages had in common.

There's also a slight difference between "disagree with" and "disagree about".

Sue & Mary disagree with the Best Picture winner. (means they both think the award should have gone to something else)

Sue & Mary disagree about the Best Picture winner. (means they have differing opinions concerning the winner)

If you look at the wording for Q11, you'll see that they switch to "both" and "with" for a question in which they want you to find something in common with both passages.

I'll be honest, I never considered any of the subtle linguistic stuff I'm currently highlighting. When I read Q9, I think I assumed they meant "which of these is a bone of contention between the two authors" based on two factors:
1. The 2nd passage was arguing against the 1st passage, so such a question made natural sense.
2. I've never seen an LSAT RC question ask me what both authors would disagree with.

That's not to say that #2 couldn't ever happen, but I don't believe it ever has.

Q9 is sort of like those questions we see in Logical Reasoning, in which 2 people are speaking and the stem asks:
The dialogue provides the most support for the claim that X and & disagree over whether ____

Hope this helps. See ya.

[nflamel69]

it's wrong because it stated "most people are not genuine in their concerns". unlike B, which argues that economics is THE reason for the war on purple loosestrife, A simply stated that there are scientific reasons why that plant is bad for biodiversity, it never mentioned what did those who waged war on the plants believed.

[jfalconfree]

I still don't understand this question (I picked 'C'). It seems to me that passage A concludes by suggesting that some sort of control mechanism for loosestrife is necessary on the basis of environmental concerns. Passage B strongly implies that people are waging a 'war on purple loosestrife' based on economic considerations that are often cloaked in rhetoric about the environment. Passage B also briefly reviews the scientific literature and seems to conclude that there is little scientific basis for claims about the necessity of combating loosestrife based on environmental concerns which seems to strongly imply that people making these claims are being disingenuous (it would also be possible that they are just making an error, but because there are the economic and philosophical reasons for being disingenuous mentioned this seems less likely). Given this, it would be quite strange if the author of passage A agreed with the characterization of the motivations of most people who raise environmental concerns to urge for the control of this weed, especially without acknowledging these concerns.

Despite all this, I still wanted to choose B but for the word 'local' in the answer. Passage B says that none of the furbearing animals in the literature are threatened in the US, but doesn't at all deny that there may be a serious threat to a localized population of such animals.

Can anyone shed some light on this for me?

[ohthatpatrick]

Great questions -

Think of this question the way you would think of an Identify the Disagreement question in LR:
1. You need inferential support for the idea that ONE person agrees with the answer and the OTHER person disagrees
2. If, for any of the answers, you're thinking, "Well I know how THIS guy feels, but should I speculate how the OTHER guy feels since he didn't really address this?" No! If an answer choice alludes to something only discussed by one of the authors, it's wrong.
3. Answers aren't perfect. We just have to go with the best we've got.


(A) Psg. A would agree. Psg. B no comment. Eliminate.

(B) Psg A would agree (11-13). Psg B generally disagrees (55-58).

(C) Psg A makes no comment about what "most" people believe. Psg A is purely from the voice of its author and only represents its author's point of view. Psg B would agree with (C); it seems pretty close to the main point of psg. B. But, since psg A takes NO position on what "most" people worried about purple loosestrife are motivated by, we have to eliminate it.

(D) I don't think either passage made this claim.

(E) Neither passage took a position on OTHER invasive species.

Most of us would (and should) be down to (B) vs. (C). In a down to 2, I'm often asking myself:
- Do I have better textual support for one answer than the other?
- Do I have any reason to see why one of the answers I'm considering could be a trap (i.e. a way in which it's DESIGNED to be attractive)?

(B) has better textual support, because I can pull a line reference from each passage that addresses what (B) is saying. (I agree with the previous poster that psg B is discussing aggregate species endangerment, not local endangerment, but this line reference, taken in context, is still trying to convey that we shouldn't buy into the hype of people like psg. A who warn us about the furbearing mammals in distress)

(C) has more of a trap answer design to it. First of all, it uses the word "most", which has killed more RC answer choices than almost any other word. Secondly, it sounds a LOT like the main point of psg. B. We know that psg. B disagreed with psg A, but psg A did not actively disagree with psg. B. (Consider to the correct answer to Q12) So the main point of B is not something that psg A actually commented on. Thus, we have no textual ammunition to point to in psg A that would be a rejoinder to what psg B accuses.

Hope this helps.

[timsportschuetz]

I would also like to add that (C) isn't even provable with regards to passage B! "Most" in the answer choice destroys it for both passages... Passage A definitely doesn't mention this subject matter at all. Passage B never states that a majority believe this, but rather that some people seem to believe this. Although (C) sounded extremely attractive to me during the test, I must admit that I crossed it out without even considering it due that single "most" term... I guess I got lucky... You should never cross out an answer choice unless you have verifiable evidence that the answer is not supported by the passage. However, I relied on pure memory during my elimination process since I have become accustomed to clearly make mental notes when encountering unusual quantity indicators in the passage (like: "all", "always", "never", "none", "most", "usually", "more often than not", etc.). I would also like to point out that I simply register the presence of indicator words that equate to "some", however, I do not make concious mental notes due to the inherent weakness of "some" quantity terms.

[allenkw90]

Most of us would (and should) be down to (B) vs. (C). In a down to 2, I'm often asking myself:
- Do I have better textual support for one answer than the other?
- Do I have any reason to see why one of the answers I'm considering could be a trap (i.e. a way in which it's DESIGNED to be attractive)?

(B) has better textual support, because I can pull a line reference from each passage that addresses what (B) is saying. (I agree with the previous poster that psg B is discussing aggregate species endangerment, not local endangerment, but this line reference, taken in context, is still trying to convey that we shouldn't buy into the hype of people like psg. A who warn us about the furbearing mammals in distress)

(C) has more of a trap answer design to it. First of all, it uses the word "most", which has killed more RC answer choices than almost any other word. Secondly, it sounds a LOT like the main point of psg. B. We know that psg. B disagreed with psg A, but psg A did not actively disagree with psg. B. (Consider to the correct answer to Q12) So the main point of B is not something that psg A actually commented on. Thus, we have no textual ammunition to point to in psg A that would be a rejoinder to what psg B accuses.

Hope this helps.

Hi Patrick. I need help with this question!

I was down to B and C also, but elimated B because of the word "aquatic". Passage A surely discusses aquatic furbearing animals, but passage B, does not specify that the furbearing mammals are "aquatic". Muskrats and minks, which were given as examples by Passage B as of animals that aren't actually considered to be threatened, aren't aquatic as far as I'm concerned. So when I was considering answer choice B, I thought passage B does not really discuss aquatic animals.

Is my thought process wrong? Should I be assuming/inferring that furbearing animals mentioned in Passage B entail aquatic animals as well? Or should I choose B because it's better supported than other answer choices even though aquatic animals is not really inferable from Passage B?

Thank you in advance!

[ohthatpatrick]

(Sorry for the delayed response; this one slipped through the cracks)

Psg B is referential to things mentioned in Psg A in a way that allows us to use information we learned in A and plug it into B.

The "literature" in psg A discussing the impact of loosestrife on wildlife mentions waterfowl and aquatic furbearers.

Psg B then references 'waterfowl' (which is definitely aquatic) in line 51 and then mentions furbearers (which we can understand to be the same aquatic furbearers that were being discussed in psg A).

This actually does pop up sometimes in ID the Disagreement questions in LR. You might see a correct answer in which there's some word that definitely didn't appear in the 2nd person's comments, but because the 2nd person is referentially addressing the 1st person's comments, it's fair for us sometimes to reasonably think that the 2nd person is alluding to what the 1st person was talking about.

Finally, you have the author of psg B saying that "none of the furbearing mammals discussed as being adversely affected by loosestrife can be considered threatened".

Since psg B thinks "there isn't a serious threat to any of the furbearing mammals ", even without saying 'aquatic' you can infer that psg B would say "there isn't a serious threat to any of the aquatic furbearing mammals".

Aquatic furbearers are a subset of furbearers, so if you've said "no furbearers are threatened", that includes aquatic / terrestrial / intergalactic, etc.

On a related note, check out the Spotify page for my new band
Intergalactic Furbearers