Q14 - In medieval Spain, most gold coins

[shirando21]

why is C wrong? is it because the second half of the statment "of gold coins by measuring their density"?

I understand that merchants have a preference for coins minted from Senegalese gold because the gold has a fixed purity of 92 percent. But I do not have knowledge what refine will do to gold...

[maryadkins]

If merchants were demanding Senegalese gold, there must have been some reason why non-refined gold was preferable to refined gold. (A) gives us that reason.

(C) is wrong because it doesn't tell us why the non-refined would be preferable. We already know from the stimulus that refined gold coins could actually be more pure than non-refined. So if it was just about purity, there's no reason they would necessarily prefer non-refined gold.

(B) and (D) are irrelevant.

(E) is the opposite of what we want.

[KakaJaja]

Also I think C is wrong because the stimuli is about merchants, whereas C talks about mints? Mints prefer the coins from Senegal can't explain why merchants want them right?

[AndreaKeller66]

As I read through the answers on here I see that most of the posts are older so Im not certain as to whether or not people are still responding to questions on here but I figured I'd have a go at it anyways. The question I have here is how we know that some of the coins have gold content of less than 92 percent? It says the Senegal coins had a gold content of 92 percent but I don't see anywhere in the stimulus where we can infer that there were definitely coins that had less gold content than that .

[tommywallach]

Hey Andrea,

The forum is very much alive and well. However, LSAT instructors only respond to people who are taking classes or who bought books (demarcated by Blue/Green names, as opposed to orange), which is why it may look slower than it actually is. There are still 30-50 posts a day though on here!

-t

[seychelles1718]

Hi,

I can see why all other answer choices cannot be correct except B but I am just not 100% assured why B is correct.
When I first tried the problem, I thought B cannot be the answer because of "less than 92 percent" part, because I think the "unrefined gold " in B refers to Senegalese gold, which is always 92%, not less than 92%?

Please help! Thanks!

[ohthatpatrick]

You're asking about Q13 but posting on the thread about Q14.
Here's the link for Q13 ... see if you're appeased by that thread:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/foru ... t4171.html

But, quickly, you said:
"I can see why all other answer choices cannot be correct except B but I am just not 100% assured why B is correct."

Q13 doesn't say that the correct answer choice will be 100% assured. It says the correct answer will be "MOST strongly supported by the information".

You will often have to pick less-than-provable but still very supportable answers on "most strongly support" questions.

Also, the "unrefined gold" in (B) does NOT refer to Senegalese gold. Senegalese gold was "the purest", always 92%, and never refined.

All OTHER types of gold, were thus less than 92%, prior to being refined.