Q15 - A popular book argues that people who

[mshinners]

Question Type:
ID the Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Successful people haven't benefited from a lot of luck (important to rephrase this type of conclusion to get the actual content!).
Premise: Success requires hard work.

Answer Anticipation:
This author is treating hard work and luck as if they're mutually exclusive - in other words, if someone had to work hard, they couldn't have benefited from luck. Our answer should bring up the possibility that both could exist. This is a flavor of Sufficient/Necessary (Conditional Logic) Flaw, and the word "requires" is a strong hint in that direction.

Correct answer:
(A)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Bingo. Hard work is necessary for success, according to the argument. (A) point out that the author then thinks it's enough - without luck - to guarantee success.

(B) Not a flaw. The LSAT allows arguments to give facts (premises) without sourcing them. It's less stringent than Wikipedia!

(C) Wrong flaw. This is the Circular Reasoning answer. It's often given as an answer, but it's rarely correct. You need the premise and conclusion to say the exact same thing.

(D) Wrong flaw (Reversed Causality). This argument is conditional in nature ("requires" vs. "because of"). Additionally, if anything, the author thinks of both hard work and luck as causes of success, but she never reverses it.

(E) Wrong flaw. This answer is the ad hominem flaw, and the author of the argument never attacks the source of the book. You could read in that saying, "Anyone who has…" as being slightly sarcastic and thus a backhanded swipe at the author of the book, but the author still gives a premise outside of even that, and when the author gives a premise on top of an attack, the argument stops being ad hominem.

Takeaway/Pattern: Look for those keywords that suggest a specific flaw! Here, "requires" in the stimulus means a Conditional Logic flaw is likely to be the correct answer.

#officialexplanation

[SJK493]

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[b][size=100]Answer Anticipation:
This author is treating hard work and luck as if they're mutually exclusive - in other words, if someone had to work hard, they couldn't have benefited from luck. Our answer should bring up the possibility that both could exist. This is a flavor of Sufficient/Necessary (Conditional Logic) Flaw, and the word "requires" is a strong hint in that direction.

Correct answer:
(A)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Bingo. Hard work is necessary for success, according to the argument. (A) point out that the author then thinks it's enough - without luck - to guarantee success.

How does this relate the the reply given, that success requires hard work?
Although I managed to choose A, I still don't understand why it's a reversal of the sufficient/necessary.