Q14 - Scientists hypothesize that a particular

[LSAT-Chang]

What is wrong with answer choice (E)??

By the way, I think there is a wrong Q14 posted on this page about bad economy. This question is the correct one for Preptest 44 Section 4..

[timmydoeslsat]

I will address all of the answer choices, so choice E will be covered!

The core of the stimulus can be seen like this:

Scientists hypothesize that P-fat is required for eyesight development. (STRONG WORDS, P-fat is REQUIRED? We better see some strong evidence for these strong words in the hypothesis.)

Evidence:

Babies fed formulas low in P-fat tend to have worse eyesight than those fed mother's milk which is higher in P-fat.

Before we go any further with the other line of evidence, something needs to be jumping out at you. I see a correlation there, don't you?

We do not know, as of right now, that the amount of p-fat in these feedings is causing the eyesight differences. There is a relationship there, but no cause.

Also, notice that there is another issue. The babies that are given their mother's milk tend to have better eyesight than those who have FORMULAS low in p-fat. We know that the mother's milk is high in p-fat, so that could explain the difference of the discrepancy of eyesight, but perhaps there is something else in the mother's milk that helps in eyesight development!

The other line of evidence is that babies that are 5-6 weeks premature tend to have worse eye sights than babies that were carried to term.

This is another correlation. We do not know that the act of being born premature is causing the difference of these eyesight levels.

After all of this being said, you tell me, does the hypothesis posited by the scientists seem 100% valid? Do those premises prove that p-fat is required for eyesight development? Of course not!

This argument needs some help. This is a strengthen question. Sometimes a strengthen question will have as its answer, an assumption. When you state an assumption that the argument makes, you strengthen it.

Answer choices:

A) This brings in adults. Too much variability in going from babies to adults. You have things like environment, etc. going on here that can distort things. Eliminate.

B) Ahhh, this really looks like it would strengthen it. It would not make it valid, but wow, it would strengthen it. If it is true that a fetus typically (more than 50%) receives high levels of P-fat during ONLY the last four weeks of pregnancy, then we have an explanation to talk about.

Since we know from the stimulus that babies that are born 5-6 weeks premature tend to have worse eyesight than those carried to term, and with this new information, we have a possible explanation. The reason for this MAY be that these babies are not receiving the high levels of P-fat because they are no longer in the womb.

C) This makes no distinction of babies born premature or at term, nor does it make a distinction of which babies receive high levels of P-fat or not. This does not help strengthen the idea of p-fat being required for eyesight development!

D) The idea of a baby's preference of what the feeding is will not strengthen this argument.

E) It may be true that the eyesight develops during that time, but will this strengthen the idea of P-fat being required? Does this answer choice distinguish between high P-fat levels and low ones? It does not even mention P-fats, how will we know if P-fats are required?

[LSAT-Chang]

Timmydoeslsat, your explanations are SOOO damn clear. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

[andrea.devas]

Just a quick question for answer choice (C),

I don't understand how C doesn't help support the argument. Isn't stating that ' babies whose mothers have poor eyesight do not tend to have poor eyesight themselves' support the scientists' P-Fat hypothesis because it rules out an alternative explanation that could contradict the higher P Fat leads to better eyesight hypothesis?

Thanks in advance.

[timmydoeslsat]

Just a quick question for answer choice (C),

I don't understand how C doesn't help support the argument. Isn't stating that ' babies whose mothers have poor eyesight do not tend to have poor eyesight themselves' support the scientists' P-Fat hypothesis because it rules out an alternative explanation that could contradict the higher P Fat leads to better eyesight hypothesis?

Thanks in advance.

This states simply poor eyesight. What we have in the stimulus is a relative comparison of worse eyesight. This answer choice does not indicate anything with a relative comparison in mind.

Really the stimulus breaks down like this:

Hypothesis of p-fat being required for development of eyesight.

- Babies fed high levels of p-fat tended to have better eyesight than those fed lower levels.

- Babies carried to term tended to have better eyesight than those 5-6 weeks premature.


Our second piece of evidence does not have any stated relation to p-fat, and this is what choice B does for us.

Another way of strengthening this argument would have been that some sort of influx of p-fat occurred right at the term date.

Or perhaps the test writers could have ruled out other things in the mother's milk aiding in better eyesight, that is other than p-fat.

[tzyc]

I think the core is;
P: "babies who are fed...in P-fat" and "babies that arefive to six...carried to term"
C: "'P-fat' is required...eyesight"

And I chose C thinking it would exclude the possibility that eyesight is hereditary.
I think I can see why B is correct, but not sure why C is wrong...and also A. Is it because A is not talking about baby??

Thanks!

[timmydoeslsat]

You will notice so many times that strengthen question stems simply tie one premise to the conclusion.

In this argument, we have a conclusion that is really just a hypothesis, which is that P-fat is required for eye development.

We cite a correlation that shows high p-fat intake babies have better eyesight than low p-fat intake babies. Although this does not prove the conclusion (hypothesis) it is a starting point.

This argument also gives us a statement about 5-6 week premature babies having worse eyesight than those not premature.

How does this statement relate to p-fat? It does not.

We can expect a strengthen answer choice to link this idea to the conclusion.

Answer choice B gives us that.

A) Adults is problematic in talking about eyesight development. It does give us something consistent with the argument however, low p-fat intake correlates with bad eyesight. Just simply not strong enough to make any impact, especially with babies.

C) Very tricky answer choice. Even if it were the case that the moms who gave birth to those ill-developed eye children actually had eye development problems themselves, this does not help with the idea of p-fat being required for the development.

D) Baby preference is not important in this argument.

E) Close, but not sure how p-fat relates to this. Is it the case that p-fat intake happens during the first two trimesters?

[demetri.blaisdell]

Thanks for your question, tz_strawberry, and thank you for the great response, timmydoeslsat. I think you’ve done a nice job of explaining this question.

I would just emphasize with (C) that the problem is that you don’t know about the P-fat. Did the mothers or the babies have any shortage of P-fat? Because you don’t have any idea, it can’t strengthen.

(E) might even weaken. If eyesight (in a general sense) develops at the end of a pregnancy, that might provide an alternate cause for why the premature babies have bad eyesight (it’s not the P-fat, it’s just the eyesight in general that develops late). In that case it weakens. But it’s also possible that it’s still related to P-fat. Then, it only acts as a premise booster. We already know that the premature babies have worse eyesight. So this only reinforces that.

I hope these extra tidbits are helpful. Thanks again for posting, both of you.

Demetri

[amil91]

An additional thing to think about for discrediting E is it requires you to have outside knowledge that the LSAT should not expect you to have. I personally don't know how long a trimester is, nor do I know if they are all the same length, etc. I could assume a trimester is 3 months - 9 totals months divided by 3 (tri) and get 3 months - not only could this be completely incorrect, but 3 months is ~12 weeks, which is much more than the 5-6 weeks mentioned in the stimulus. So in addition to the great reasons above for E being out of scope in that it doesn't address P-fats, I am always weary of an answer choice that requires extra outside knowledge.

[LolaC289]

Wow...so awkward. I went with (A) after eliminating all the others. I eliminated (B) because I think for either premature or carried-to-term babies, they will always have to experience "the last four weeks of pregnancy", so my understanding is like that the premature baby receive P-fat during week 31-35, while normal babies receive that during week 35-40. I think if they have made clear "during only the last four weeks of NORMAL pregnancy", it would be so much better.