Q13 - Alia: Hawthorne admits that

[b91302310]

In this one, I eliminated (B) for the reason that Alia does not address the issue of "the consequences of Hawthorne's behavior". However, I put (C) instead because Alia will disagree that there is another standard to justify Hawthrone's behavior as there is no jusification for Hawthrone's behavior, whereas Martha will agree that there is another standard for judging Hawthorne's behavior, that is-the consequence of that behavior. So, could anyone resolve my concern about this one?

Thanks.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Interesting points... unfortunately, I think you got turned around on the meaning of the answer choices though. I don't see those concerns in those answer choices specifically.

Here's what I see...

Alia is saying that Hawthorne was unethical. Martha is saying that Hawthorne was ethical. That means that they agree that the standards for judging ethical behavior can be imposed on Hawthorne by another; because they both have imposed their own standards on Hawthorne.

Answer choice (C) doesn't specify which standards are imposed; just whether standards can be imposed at all.

Answer choice (B) on the other hand is a point of disagreement. Answer choice (B) is saying whether Hawthorne is ethically justified or not. Alia would say, "no," whereas Martha would say "yes."

Does that help clear this one up?

[roflcoptersoisoi]

I got this question wrong, I had it down to (B) and (D), and chose the latter. I didn't like (D) at all but thought it was better than (B). My reasoning was that (B) discussed the consequences and justification for Hawthorne's, the former seemed unique to Martha's argument and the latter unique to Alicia's argument. Wrong answer choices for point at issue questions habitually only discuss elements that are unique to one of the speakers. I chose (D) because it discussed the meaning of behaviour as it pertains to different situations. I thought this was correct given that they had conflicting views as to whether or not Hawthorne's conduct was ethical.


Why (D) is wrong
The meaning of ethical behaviour as to public vs private situation is not even subject to discussion in their dialogue. Terrible answer choice. In hindsight I should not have given this answer choice a second look and should have eliminated it with confidence.


Why (B) is right:

Alia contends there can be no justification for Hawthorne's unethical behaviour whereas Martha contends that his behaviour was not unethical be given that it will improve the public overall. As I mentioned previously, I shied away from this answer because I thought that discussion as to the justification for Hawthorne's conduct was only discussed by Alia, however I was mistaken. Justification for Hawthorne's behaviour is also discussed by Martha, albeit more implicitly when she talks about how the consequences of his behaviour will benefit the public good. It's true that the consequences of his behaviour was discussed only by Martha. However Martha discusses the consequences of Hawthorne's actions as a means of justifying her point that his behaviour was not unethical, correspondingly, it is appropriate to include to mention it in the correct answer choice. To sum it up, correct answer choices of point of issue questions can contain info that is unique one of the speaker's arguments is directly related to the the point of disagreement between both agents, which in this case would be whether Hawthorne's behaviour was justified.


It helps to draw a mental map of the dialogue to see where the point of overlap between the two agents. The correct answer will address the overlap between the two, because in order to disagree on something, both agents need to have an opinion of it.

Hawthorne's influence:
Alia: Influence over government officials, sold the influence.
Martha: N/A

Justification for Hawthorne's "unethical" behaviour (Point at issue):
Alia: None
Martha: Benefits the public and therefore is not unethical.

Consequences of Hawthorne's behaviour:
Alia: N/A
Martha: Will benefit the public good.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Nice work roflcoptersoisoi! Yep, you've got it. Implicit information is still there, it's just unstated. And even assumptions of someone's argument are at play in ID the Disagreement questions.

Keep it up!