Q10 - Naturalist: To be dependable--inference question

[shirando21]

I got it right the first time, but now I have trouble eliminating B.

I know there's the conditional logic,

to be dependable-->the accounting framework must take into account all of our nation's assets

current accounting framework does not take into account the government-owned natural resources's value

------------------------------------------------
not dependable=not reliable


But isn't B also inferred?

[timmydoeslsat]

With regard to (B), we know that economists assign no value to it in an accounting framework, but that is not to say that these economists believe it to have no value at all.

This is an early question in the section simply testing the contrapositive and expecting you to supply a conclusion that can be supported.

[shirando21]

ok, let's think it that way, although " assign no value " not equal to " believe no value" does not sound very convincing to me.
The conditional logic plays for sure.

[timmydoeslsat]

Economists do not assign value to it in accounting.

Does that mean that they believe it has no value at all? Such as beauty in the world? Or health?

This is an answer choice that jumps from us talking about lack of value in accounting to talking about lack of value in all facets.

[pcoones]

Can someone explain this in further detail I still do not understand why C is the right answer?

[ohthatpatrick]

Let me give you an analogy ...

To be President of the U.S., you must have been born in the US. But Arnold was born in Austria. Therefore, ____________

Can you fill in the blank?

We can conclude that Arnold can’t be President of the US. He doesn’t meet the prerequisite.

Similarly, the set of facts we get here say ....

To be dependable, an accounting framework must take into account ALL assets. But the current framework doesn’t take into account some assets. Therefore, _________

We can conclude that the current framework is not dependable.

That’s all that (C) says, only it uses the synonym "not reliable" for "not dependable".

Inference questions frequently test conditional logic. Here, the first sentence gives us a rule, indicated by "must be".

Dependable "”> take into account all assets

(like all conditional statements, we can write a contrapositive by reversing the order and negating both ideas)

Does NOT take into account all assets "”> NOT dependable

The contrapositive is still the same rule as the original rule, just another way to look at it. When LSAT gives us a conditional rule, they love to test us on our ability to apply the contrapositive.

Here, it says
current accounting framework = does NOT take into account all assets
therefore
current accounting framework = NOT dependable

The four wrong answers bring in something we CAN’T prove

(A) Can we prove that economists are INDIFFERENT to destroying natural resources? Not at all. Just because they assign them no value in their accounting framework doesn’t mean they would be INDIFFERENT to spilling oil into the Mississippi River.

(B) Do I know anything about whether NATURALISTS assign value to natural resources? Not from the info provided, and that’s all I’m supposed to be going off of.

(D) Do I know anything about "VITAL assets" for "EVERY nation"? Not even close from the infer provided.

(E) Can I comment on ANY accounting framework? Nope, I only got information about the CURRENT accounting framework used by our nat’l economists.

Hope this helps.