Q15 - Some plants have extremely

[ucsc24]

Can someone explain to me how to eliminate A? Is D the better answer because answer choice A doesn't mention anything about the temperature?

Thanks for the help.

[ohthatpatrick]

I definitely see the temptation of (A). (And can we just briefly acknowledge that (B) is possibly the funniest LSAT answer choice ever?)

Here's the issue as I see it:
The conclusion is essentially a conditional claim.
IF you simultaneously observed uncurled R's and unopened C's, you'd know you're within +/- 1 degree of 1 degree Celsius.

If you're ever trying to weaken or refute a conditional claim, you do it by establishing the Sufficient but denying the Necessary.

Here's a less complicated example of what I mean.

If you're a girl, you love Justin Bieber.

How do I weaken/refute that conditional idea?
Girls who love JB.
Guys who love JB.
Girls who don't love JB.
Guys who don't love JB.

Only the 3rd one works, because we need something that fits the Sufficient (a girl) but denies the necessary (~Love JB).

So the problem with (A) is that it's attacking the sufficient condition. It's trying to convince you that you'd never have an opportunity to see R's uncurled at the same time as C's are opened.

(In reality, it doesn't actually contradict the sufficient condition. If we were in R's blooming period, we would potentially see uncurled, i.e. blooming, R's and unopened C's, i.e. not-blooming)

But more importantly, we want an answer that's focused on the 2nd half of the conditional conclusion. Would seeing such a thing ACTUALLY allow you to know you were within 1 degree of 1 degree Celsius?

(D) tears apart that 2nd half idea.

Hope this helps. Let me know if it remains confusing and I'll attempt to clarify.

[nflamel69]

I actually am confused about part of the explanation. I thought A only compared the blossoms of both plants. but the stimulus talked about the uncurling and the blossoming. I didnt think that uncurling of the leaves is the same thing as the blossoming.. care to explain?

Also, I feel like if you do say that you never see the opportunity of one blooming and the other one uncurling, wouldn't that does weaken the argument? Since you are saying there is a time frame that both of them does these things, and they can never overlap, therefore you could never combine those two events to make a valid inference. Does that even make sense to anyone?

[ohthatpatrick]

Yeah, I agree, (A) brings in new terminology by referencing when these plants 'bloom'. In order to relate that to the stimulus, we'd have to equate "curled" with "not in bloom" and "blossoms open" with "in bloom".

It seems like pretty reasonable common sense to think that a plant with its leaves curled up is NOT in bloom, and a plant whose blossoms have opened IS in bloom, but I still think it might be dangerous to equate them.

Even though a plant with its leaves curled up probably is NOT in bloom, that doesn't necessarily mean that having leaves uncurled IS in bloom. Maybe you need both your leaves to be uncurled and your blossoms to be open in order to qualify as "blooming".

So I agree that (A) requires a dubious shift from what we've been talking about to "blooming".

Because of that shift, I think that (A) still leaves open the possibility that R's could be curled/uncurled at the same time that C's have opened/closed blossoms.

However, in terms of your other question, by LSAT's normal standards, it does NOT weaken a conditional claim to point out that the sufficient has no possibility of occurring.

Say that an author argued, "Lower average highway speeds always lead to fewer accidents. Thus, if the city government were to change the speed limit to 1 mph, we would have fewer accidents."

It would NOT weaken this argument to say
(A) city government officials would never make the unpopular decision to lower the speed limit to 1 mph.

The author was never promising that the speed limit would/might change. He was only saying that IF it changed, a certain effect would follow.

The only way LSAT wants us to attack this claim is to accept the hypothetical idea that the speed limit IS changed to 1 mph, but find a way to argue that we still wouldn't necessarily have fewer accidents.

Hence, you'd get a correct answer such as
(B) Most drivers would react to a lowered speed limit by driving faster.

(This suggests we'd get HIGHER average highway speeds, thereby attacking the notion that we'd have fewer accidents)

Hope this helps.

[nflamel69]

got it. After going back to the LR guide, it seems to me that A is doubting the validity of the premise, right? therefore the answer cannot be correct. thanks a lot!

[jasonleb1]

I vaguely understand why D is correct but I don't see how A is wrong. It seems to offer an alternate explanation as to why neither of plants exhibit their temperature activated characteristics - if those things only happen a few weeks out of the year, his thermometer could have a reading of 40 C and still neither would happen since it's within the wrong time frame for them to uncurl/blossom.

[civnetn]

I vaguely understand why D is correct but I don't see how A is wrong. It seems to offer an alternate explanation as to why neither of plants exhibit their temperature activated characteristics - if those things only happen a few weeks out of the year, his thermometer could have a reading of 40 C and still neither would happen since it's within the wrong time frame for them to uncurl/blossom.

The way I see it, A) is wrong for two simple reasons.

First and foremost (in my opinion),you have to understand that the author is giving a hypothetical. He's not saying, "this person simultaneously observed." He's saying, "hey, suppose someone observed." Big difference. Because we're talking about a hypothetical, we can step outside the realm of what would usually happen and consider just this one instance.

This is essentially what Patrick is saying. Every sufficient condition in an If A then B relationship is essentially hypothetical. I mean think about it, we're using the word "If." "If this happens," is hypothetical. So it doesn't matter if the sufficient condition doesn't happen, because the stimulus is saying, "But what if it did happen?"

Second, in the case of rhododendrons, we are only concerned with their leaves, not with blooming. There's been some discussion of whether being in bloom presupposes leaves and lack of bloom, no leaves, but I think this misses the point. We aren't told anything about the relationship between blooming and rhododendron leaves in the stimulus or in this potential answer choice, so we can't draw any inferences. For this reason, it's possible that you could have a blooming crocus and a non-blooming rhododendron (with leaves that still react to temperature), existing at the same time.

[Nateross51]

I'm having a really hard time understanding why D is better than E. I completely get why D is correct, but E seems to attack the conclusion better. The argument is saying that someone who sees rhododendrons with uncurled leaves, crocuses with mature but unopened blossoms, and a thermometer showing 1 degree Celsius, could be sure that the thermometer's reading was accurate within plus or minus 1 degree.

E says that certain thermometers are extremely accurate in moderate temperatures but much less so in warmer or colder temperatures. 1 degree Celsius is definitely not a moderate temperature. It's really cold. I don't think that's very hard to understand nor is it unreasonable for the test makers to assume that the average person would know that.

So, if the thermometer used was one of the ones that are less accurate in colder weather, wouldn't that weaken the conclusion and show that the observer of the plants cannnot be sure that the reading is accurate within 1 degree?

The only way I'm able to see that E could be wrong is that the premise states the thermometer shows the temperature as 1 degree Celsius. As a premise (which I know we should take as given) is it supposed to already assume that the thermometer's 1 degree reading is accurate, but the conclusion is challenging us to question if that can be proven solely by seeing the uncurled leaves and mature but unopened blossoms?

I know I'm really overthinking this question, but I'm really trying to understand why every incorrect answer is wrong and this one still has my confused.

[hayleychen12]

Hi!
Still have a hard time understanding D.
I just can't see how the statement in D relate to our question core.

I feel that the stimulus is kind of funny, I can picture a person with super telescopes observing these two plants which are far far away , with a thermometer in his/her hand. It just doesn't make any sense how the temperature around these two plants relate to the temperature around this person.

Any help!!!

[LolaC289]

I'm surprised to not see much discussion here...

I got to (D) by eliminating all the others but I'm not sure if I truly understand how (D) works. So if any LSAT guru can check my take for this, thanks!

So the core is:

PRE:
Rhododendrons curl (RC) ---> Temperature below 0
Crocus Blossom (CB) ---> Temperature above 2

~RC & ~CB (Negation of the Sufficient)

CON:
Temperature between 0-2

The flaw as I saw, is the classic A-->B, so ~A-->~B fallacy.

To get this conclusion, one either assumed A is the necessary condition of B, in conditional logic,
or A is the only cause that leads to B, in a causal relationship.

Since we are dealing with conditional logic here (it's not the curling or the blossom that caused the temperature to be in certain range, only indicators), so we shall attack it by saying A is not the necessary condition for B.

So when ~A happens, ~B doesn't also occur. (If A is the necessary condition for B, then if A is negated, B would be negated as well)

Specifically in this case, we shall establish even when we observed both ~RC and ~CB, the temperature is not between 0-2.

(D), out of the blue, accomplished this super straight-forwardly (to an extent I find weird) by saying that, (no matter what), temperature surrounding R is like to differ than that surrounding C, by more than 2 degrees.

See, in the author's conclusion, the temperature is between 0-2 degrees. The range is at most 2 degrees (2 minus 0). But if R's temperature always differs C's temperature by more than 2 degrees, how can it be between 0-2 degrees?

Thus destroyed the argument by saying no matter what, the assumed consequence is unlikely to be true.

The weirdness I saw here is (D) mentions nothing about the premise. It's highly unusual, because like previously mentioned, we would expect them to first bring up a circumstance where ~RC & ~CB happens, the contradicting result follows.

It's like Mary says: the global warming will slow down if we cut CO2 emission. Her aggressive friend responds to her: Hey, the global warming is forever and ever unlikely to be slowed down.

It's valid refutation, but it's strange. ...Won't Mary feel stupid, that her whole set of argument is actually no worth consideration at all? (or maybe it's just me )

Since we've come this far, might as well take a look at why the others are wrong...

(A) says R & C will never bloom in the same time. But we don't need R to bloom as well, for R, we only care if it's leaves are curled.

(B) just gave up trying. Maybe it tries to say people don't want to observe outdoor temperature when it's cold, but R & C can totally grow together inside of the room.

(C) says R & C favor the same climate and soil conditions. Maybe it's implying R & C could grow together. But even if anything, it seems to be strengthening the argument a bit or totally irrelevant.

(E) says certain thermometers are extremely accurate in moderate temperature but much less accurate in warmer & colder temperatures. Well, which does 0-2 degrees fall into? And even if so, couldn't less accurate than extremely accurate, still pretty accurate?

So as it turns out, the four wrong answer choices are pretty easy to get rid of.

[EmaD316]

I understand why D is right, but can anyone thoroughly explain why E is wrong?