Q13 - Columnist: Tagowa's testimony in the

[bnuvincent]

I found A is better than the rest, however, I found B and E seem to make sense, so could you please explain?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

This is an Identify the Flaw question. To answer this, we need to see why the conclusion does not follow from the evidence.

The evidence is that Tagowa believed the defendant was guilty. The conclusion is that not everyone believed Tagowa's testimony. This argument assumes that Tagowa's testimony reflected her belief. Answer choice (A) correctly describes this flaw. Tagowa's belief may not have matched her testimony!

(A) correctly describes the flaw for the reasons above.
(B) describes a flaw, but not one committed in the argument. In order for this answer choice to be correct, you would need the conclusion to be restating an opinion as if it were a matter of fact. Here's how it would look in the argument... Tagowa believes the defendant is guilty, therefore, the defendant is in fact guilty. It needs to be a restatement of a belief, but stated as a fact.
(C) is not an assumption made. Nowhere does the argument address whether in fact the defendant was guilty, only whether others believed the defendant was guilty.
(D) is totally irrelevant. Nowhere does the argument indicate or even hint at dishonesty on anyone's part.
(E) does not describe a flaw committed in the argument because the conclusion specifically states that not all of the jury members agreed. So, the argument did not fail to consider the possibility that the jury members might disagree with each other, but rather concluded this specifically.

Tricky one, huh? These Identify the Flaw questions are always tough to transition into abstract language...

[rmoncel]

Thanks for the clarifications. These detailed explanations are super helpful!

Tricky one indeed.

[jgallorealestate]

I understand why A is the answer.

Why not E?

The passage says that not all of the jury believed Tagowa's testimony; not that they disagreed whether it was important or not.

The jury may have all believed the testimony but disagreed whether it was important to the case. So the conclusion that not all of the jury members believed the witness, may be wrong. Why? Because it fails to consider that maybe the witness didn't have anything important to say. Which is what E is saying. Just because someone gives testimony and thinks guilty doesn't mean that the jury members think relative. They may have believed the testimony to be the truth, but may have believed it to be pointless. Thus, we have a flaw in the reasoning.

I must be missing something because the LSAC hasn't dismissed this question.

[kaseyb002]

I understand why A is the answer.

Why not E?

The passage says that not all of the jury believed Tagowa's testimony; not that they disagreed whether it was important or not.

The jury may have all believed the testimony but disagreed whether it was important to the case. So the conclusion that not all of the jury members believed the witness, may be wrong. Why? Because it fails to consider that maybe the witness didn't have anything important to say. Which is what E is saying. Just because someone gives testimony and thinks guilty doesn't mean that the jury members think relative. They may have believed the testimony to be the truth, but may have believed it to be pointless. Thus, we have a flaw in the reasoning.

I must be missing something because the LSAC hasn't dismissed this question.

Yeah I'm having real trouble with this as well.

To me, (E) introduces another possibility for why the jury found Pemberton to be not guilty, or at least part of the explanation. (A) certainly introduces another, stronger possibility; I definitely see that.

[austindyoung]

So, we need to look for the core--

P: Tagowa publicly affirmed Pem's guilt
+
Jury found Pem NOT guilty

C: We can conclude that not all jury members believed Tagowa's testimony

But we don't know what Tagowa said in the testimony! The Columnist is assuming the same thing was said publicly as in the courtoom.

If it was not the same, then, the conclusion does not follow; maybe all of the jury members would have agreed then, because Tagowa too, would have stated the defendant was NOT guilty.

(A) gets at this assumption perfectly. For the argument to work, as structured, it's assumption MUST BE TRUE- however, the Columnist is assuming truth- which is what (A) gets at.

My problem with (E), is that it seems to focus rather myopically on the latter part of the argument- and not how the Premises inform the Conclusion (looking at the impact of the first sentence). I don't know if that's a great explanation- but (E) doesn't seem to get at the flaw that is occuring with the connection that occurs between the Premises and Conclusion. (E) would be more attractive if we actually knew what Tegowa's testimony actually was, I think.

Maybe one of the Geeks will end up clearing this up; but for me, (E) just doesn't get at the flaw occuring in the reasoning provided.(E) is a flaw, it just seems like it's not happening here, within the P--->C (Core). But hey, I could be wrong

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Maybe one of the Geeks will end up clearing this up; but for me, (E) just doesn't get at the flaw occuring in the reasoning provided.(E) is a flaw, it just seems like it's not happening here, within the P--->C (Core). But hey, I could be wrong

Exactly right Austin! The issue with answer choice (E) is that it suggests that the conclusion relies only the premise that Pemberton was found not guilty. But what about the discrepancy between Tagowa's public affirmation and the acquittal? The conclusion seeks to explain that discrepancy, whereas answer choice (E) only seeks to provide an alternative explanation for the acquittal.

Flaw questions are about the gap in the reasoning between the evidence and the conclusion, not just about why the conclusion does not have to be true.

Nice work Austin!

[zana.nanic]

Can you please elaborate more on B?

[hstler1]

This is an Identify the Flaw question. To answer this, we need to see why the conclusion does not follow from the evidence.

The evidence is that Tagowa believed the defendant was guilty. The conclusion is that not everyone believed Tagowa's testimony. This argument assumes that Tagowa's testimony reflected her belief. Answer choice (A) correctly describes this flaw. Tagowa's belief may not have matched her testimony!

(A) correctly describes the flaw for the reasons above.
(B) describes a flaw, but not one committed in the argument. In order for this answer choice to be correct, you would need the conclusion to be restating an opinion as if it were a matter of fact. Here's how it would look in the argument... Tagowa believes the defendant is guilty, therefore, the defendant is in fact guilty. It needs to be a restatement of a belief, but stated as a fact.
(C) is not an assumption made. Nowhere does the argument address whether in fact the defendant was guilty, only whether others believed the defendant was guilty.
(D) is totally irrelevant. Nowhere does the argument indicate or even hint at dishonesty on anyone's part.
(E) does not describe a flaw committed in the argument because the conclusion specifically states that not all of the jury members agreed. So, the argument did not fail to consider the possibility that the jury members might disagree with each other, but rather concluded this specifically.

Tricky one, huh? These Identify the Flaw questions are always tough to transition into abstract language...

I don't agree that the flaw you stated lines up with the answer choice. For us to accurately have this question in our sights we need to simply see that just because one gives a testimony that person X is guilty, does not guarantee that is the case and furthermore does not guarantee that they didn't believe her testimony. There are many testimonies of which people claim individuals are guilty or not, however, so lack sway more than others. Either way, as stated previously your given flaw is problematic because in no way does it really reflect the answer choice as far as I'm concerned.

[Heart Shaped Box]

[/quote] we need to simply see that just because one gives a testimony that person X is guilty, does not guarantee that is the case .[/quote]

This is the problematic part. No where in the stimulus says she testified against Pemberton. In fact, it says "the testimony was not heard outside the courtroom, so we cannot be sure what she said."

[NicholasL644]

(E) is the stand out problematic answer.
The line of thought is:
Publicly affirmed belief in guilt (but unknown testimony) + not guilty = some jury did not believe.

For (A), because the testimony wasn't publicized, we should not assume that the testimony implicated the defendant simply because of her public statements, which the conclusion does and (A) addresses.

For (E), we note the possibility that the jury did not necessarily attach any significance to Togawa's testimony, in which case we cannot make inferences about whether the jury believed it or not. A correct way to describe the flaw is failing to consider that the jury members differentially considers the significance of a particular person's testimony, as in between witnesses.The problem with (E) is that it mentions "jury members disagrees with each other," as in between jury members, which fundamentally is not an issue with the argument. The tricky part is that the answer (E) is a direct implication of an actual flaw.