Q12 - Aerobics instructor: Compared to many

[Laura Damone]

What does the Question Stem tell us?
"most strongly supported" means our correct answer might not be 100% provable: be prepared for that!

Break down the Stimulus:
Pretty straightforward: Kickboxing is high risk. Injuries are common when newbies try to hang like the pro's.

Any prephrase?
Nope. Conditional Inference questions are prime prephrasing turf, but many in that family, particularly in the "Most Supported" sub-type, don't lend themselves well to that approach. Just know what is said and head into the answers looking for the most provable.

Correct answer:
B

Answer choice analysis:
A) Nope. A classic inference trap answer. Just because the stimulus told us group A has a characteristic doesn't allow us to conclude that group B doesn't.

B) Not a clear winner by any means, but one to be flagged for the second pass. The prescriptive is suspect, but if we know trying to match the pro's is what triggers injury, newbies would be wise to avoid doing so. Move into the next answers to try to find something better, but if you can't, this will have to do.

C) Similar to (B), but not prescriptive. It is also, however, of a stronger degree. (B) says not going overboard will reduce the risk of injuries, while (C) says it will eliminate it. Stronger answers like these are suspect in Inference questions, so this seems an unlikely pick.

D) Tempting, because we know, at least for the newbies, the high kick is a source of injury. But what other crazy antics might other forms of aerobic exercise ential that are even more dangerous than the high kick? Also, comparative answers like this one are a classic inference question trap. We know A is risky--that doesn't mean it's more risky than B.

E) When beginners do this, it's likely to result in injury. But that doesn't tell us how frequently beginners attempt this, so this "most" is unsupported.

Takeaway/Pattern: Sometimes the LSAT makes a question hard by making two answers that look correct. Other times, the LSAT makes a question hard by making five answers that look wrong. This is one such case. Know your task, and don't be afraid to pick an answer that's the best of a bunch of bad options.

#officialexplanation

[eunjung.shin]

I couldn't find an answer so I picked E.

here is my thought. please correct me where I am wrong.

This is an inference question. well, most strongly supported question so I might have to stretch a bit.

A) Not supported- can't infer skilled practitioners are unlikely to experience injuries..
B) I elimiated this one since it says SHOULD AVIOD and no where in the argument has such perscriptive language.
(but the answer is B WHY??)

C) not supported- if they aviod trying to match --> they will not experience injuries. the stimulus just says that overextension is likely to occur when beginners try to match the high kicks of skilled ones.
D) Not supported- no comparsion with other forms
E) Not supported- we don't know if it applies to MOST beginners, it just says it is likely to occur when beginners try to match kicks of more skilled people.


I thought we are not supposed to add anything when solving inference questions and I have seen many wrong answer choices which include SHOULD when the argument does not include such strong language. so I am deeply confused..

help please!

[ohthatpatrick]

Well, I can tell you must be pretty good at Inference questions, because you expertly defined why the others are wrong (and you're appropriately paranoid about trusting an answer with "should" when nothing in the stimulus used prescriptive language).

2 things, though

1. Remember, this is "most strongly supported", not "must be true". You'll sometimes have to hold your nose and pick the thing you know is MOST supported, even if it's not 100% derivable from the information.

2. There is some precedent for this type of answer on a "most strongly support" Inference.

There's one that says something to the effect of "when old appliances are incinerated, poisonous ash is released into the air."

post2012.html

And the correct answer is something to the effect of, "old appliances should not be incinerated".

I was flabbergasted when I first saw it, asking the test, "Surely you don't want me to assume that releasing poisonous ash into the air SHOULD be avoided?"

But they did.

So allow yourself a pinch of good ol' common sense on a "most strongly support" answer if everything else is unsupportable for more concrete reasons.

Finally, note that the use of "should" in this answer choice is not the same opinionated, moralizing "should" we've learned to be so skeptical of elsewhere in logical reasoning.

It's the equivalent of "must".

If I told you, "poking a bee hive inevitably results in the poker getting stung by the bees inside", then wouldn't we have to logically accept this:

"if you don't want to be stung by bees, don't poke a bee hive."
i.e. ("you must not poke a bee hive", "you should not poke a bee hive")

It's really just the contrapositive of the original
Cause --> Effect.

It's saying "if you don't want the effect, you shouldn't do the cause."

Let's not equate THIS use of "should" with the other one which carries with it some subjective notion of right/wrong.

This use of "should" is just a logical operator, saying that if you don't want the Necessary result, you shouldn't trigger the Sufficient condition.

Of course, the whole high-kicking amateur injury was not truly conditional in this stimulus, but you get my gist.

Hope this helps.

[Vivi]

Thank you so much for such a degree of depth and width on the topic and its related!

Well, I can tell you must be pretty good at Inference questions, because you expertly defined why the others are wrong (and you're appropriately paranoid about trusting an answer with "should" when nothing in the stimulus used prescriptive language).

2 things, though

1. Remember, this is "most strongly supported", not "must be true". You'll sometimes have to hold your nose and pick the thing you know is MOST supported, even if it's not 100% derivable from the information.

2. There is some precedent for this type of answer on a "most strongly support" Inference.

There's one that says something to the effect of "when old appliances are incinerated, poisonous ash is released into the air."

http://www.manhattanlsat.com/forums/post2012.html

And the correct answer is something to the effect of, "old appliances should not be incinerated".

I was flabbergasted when I first saw it, asking the test, "Surely you don't want me to assume that releasing poisonous ash into the air SHOULD be avoided?"

But they did.

So allow yourself a pinch of good ol' common sense on a "most strongly support" answer if everything else is unsupportable for more concrete reasons.

Finally, note that the use of "should" in this answer choice is not the same opinionated, moralizing "should" we've learned to be so skeptical of elsewhere in logical reasoning.

It's the equivalent of "must".

If I told you, "poking a bee hive inevitably results in the poker getting stung by the bees inside", then wouldn't we have to logically accept this:

"if you don't want to be stung by bees, don't poke a bee hive."
i.e. ("you must not poke a bee hive", "you should not poke a bee hive")

It's really just the contrapositive of the original
Cause --> Effect.

It's saying "if you don't want the effect, you shouldn't do the cause."

Let's not equate THIS use of "should" with the other one which carries with it some subjective notion of right/wrong.

This use of "should" is just a logical operator, saying that if you don't want the Necessary result, you shouldn't trigger the Sufficient condition.

Of course, the whole high-kicking amateur injury was not truly conditional in this stimulus, but you get my gist.

Hope this helps.

[Mab6q]

This question was a time-sinker for me. I have a question about D. If it said, "kickboxing is more risky that forms of exercise that do not involve high kicks", would it be correct, since we are taking out the part about aerobics. This was the reason I eliminated it since although the first sentence tells us that compared to many other forms of exercise, kickboxing aerobics is highly risky, we don't know anything about these other types.

If not, what if we limited it to "kickboxing is more risky than some forms of exercise that do not involve high kicks."

Surely that would be limited enough to be correct, right?

[ohthatpatrick]

Let's examine the evidence we have to judge that hypothetical:
"kickboxing is more risky than some forms of exercise that do not involve high kicks."

What do I know about kickboxing?

Not too much. I know that kickboxing aerobics is not the LEAST risky form of exercise. (many forms of exercise are less risky)

What do I know about "forms of exercise that do not involve high kicks"?

Umm ... nothing, right?

The information allows us to make a comparison between "kickboxing aerobics" and "forms of exercise that are not kickboxing aerobics".

So if (D) said, Kickboxing aerobics is more risky than at least one form of exercise, it would be correct (but it would also be unlikely since it would just restate ONE fact, when the correct answer to Inference should demand that we have combined at least TWO facts).

I'm assuming you're thinking, "Since we know that the high kicks is what makes kickboxing aerobics risky, we could say that forms of exercise that don't involve high kicks would be less risky."

But we don't know anything about forms of exercise that don't involve high kicks.

Perhaps everything that DOESN'T involve high kicks DOES involve juggling fire-breathing sharks. So maybe the latter forms of exercise really ARE more risky.

Your hypothetical answer is OF COURSE true and OF COURSE very reasonable, but it's not at all provable or supportable based on the information given.

I find that asking myself, "what was I told about [forms of exercise that do not involve high kicks]?" is a good way to get myself to think:

Nothing. They never used THAT category to make any claim, so I can't really judge that category of exercise.

Hope this helps.

[CharlesS800]

I flagged this question for review. I selected answer choice B but was unsure of it. Upon review, I am more confident in this answer choice.

Reviewing the answer choices again, I immediately got rid of answer choice A because it referred to skilled practitioners of kickboxing and what injuries they experience, something that I thought was out of scope in relation to the stimulus. I kept option B even though it seemed a relatively soft answer choice. I discarded answer choice C because of the wording "will not," this absolute was too much for me and seemed a bridge too far from the argument. While originally taking this PT, I had kept answer choice D as one of my final two options but I got rid of it while reviewing because of its reference to other aerobic exercises, something that I thought could not be supported by a stimulus that only referred to kickboxing. I got rid of answer E because it said, "Most...experience injuries," which seemed a bridge too far that the stimulus did not support, saying only that those who overextend are more likely to experience these injuries, not that "most" do.