Q17 - One should never sacrifice one's health

[ohthatpatrick]

What does the Question Stem tell us?
Sufficient Assumption

Break down the Stimulus:
Conclusion: Never sacrifice health in order to acquire money.
Evidence: Without health, you can't have happiness.

Any prephrase?
On Sufficient Assumption, start with the claim you're trying to prove and ask yourself what we were told about these ideas in the Evidence (if there's any new term/idea that was NOT discussed in the evidence, it automatically must be in the correct answer).

We need to prove "don't sacrifice health in order to acquire money". Were told about health in the Evidence? Yes (it's connected to happiness). Were we told about 'acquiring money' in the Evidence? No (thus 'acquiring money' must be in our correct answer). Were we told about what we "should" or "shouldn't" do? No (so some form of normative/justified language needs to be in our answer).

Let's use the familiar part of our conclusion, "health", to plug in what we were told from the evidence. Our conclusion is saying "don't sacrifice your health". Did the evidence tell us what happens if we sacrifice our health? Yes, we'd also make happiness impossible to obtain. So the author is really trying to say "One should never [make happiness impossible to obtain] in order to acquire money". That's what we're looking for.

Correct answer:
A

Answer choice analysis:
A) If acquiring money makes happiness unobtainable, we shouldn't acquire money. Since sacrificing our health to acquire money would involve sacrificing our chance at obtaining happiness, we should never sacrifice our health to acquire money.

B) This rule would only allow you to prove whether happiness is possible or not. We need a rule that helps us prove what we should / shouldn't do.

C) This doesn't bring up acquiring money, so it's useless for proving our conclusion.

D) This has nothing to do with what we should / shouldn't do.

E) Cool comparison, bro. This has nothing do to with what we should / shouldn't do.

Takeaway/Pattern: The four big premise triggers are FABS (for, after all, because, since). 'For' shows us the conclusion. The new terms in the conclusion, "Should" and "acquire money", are enough to get (A) without actually doing much thinking (so make sure you're clear on how and why this "New Guy in the Conclusion" shortcut works on Sufficient Assumption).

Something mentioned twice, like "health", is automatically NOT something we need to hear about in the answer choice. If you say
x = y
and
x = z
you use that to get to y = z.

This argument said "sacrificing health = sacrificing happiness"
and
"sacrificing health = something you shouldn't do to acquire money"

so we get "sacrificing happiness = something you shouldn't do to acquire money".

#officialexplanation

[vavanessian]

can you help me on this question. I've diagrammed it but it gave me the other way around conclusion with the correct answer!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

I imagine this would be a pretty difficult argument to diagram --

Here's an analogous argument that might make the issue clearer:

Imagine your friend said to you,

"You shouldn't wear that sweater to the party, because if you do Janice won't like you."

What is your friend assuming? That you actually care what Janice thinks. What would make his case logical? If you did actually care what Janice thinks, and if you did actually let that influence you.

Imagine we through the following assumption into the above argument: "I should wear the sweater only if it isn't one that makes Janice not like me." Notice, then your friend's argument would make perfect sense.

(A) essentially plays the same role in this argument.

The author is saying one shouldn't sacrifice health for wealth.

Why?

Because without health we can't have obtain happiness.

When would this reason be sufficient? If we knew that we do actually want that happiness -- therefore, "Money should be acquired only if its acquisition will not make happiness unobtainable," makes a lot of sense as a correct answer.

(E) is comparative, and because of that can be eliminated (we're not making any points about more or less.)

Hopefully that helps clear things up. Please don't hesitate to let me know if it doesn't, and I'll be happy to give a more formal response.

[ilona11223344]

I think that you can easily diagram this as well as this is a sufficient assumption question - it would go like this:

Evidence: Happiness --> Healthy
(the word 'without' always comes before the necessary condition and requires you to negate the sufficient)

Conclusion: Money --> Healthy

Sufficient Assumption: Money --> Happiness

This is the missing link and is exactly what (A) says

Another way you can look at this is that since it's a sufficient assumption you know that you will have to link some pieces of stimulus and since health appears twice and there is no connection btwn money and happiness, you have to link the two together - (A) is the only one that comes even close to doing that

[lhermary]

Please go into more detail as to why E is wrong. We are looking for a sufficient assumption and E seems to be okay.

Thanks

[wguwguwgu]

Please go into more detail as to why E is wrong. We are looking for a sufficient assumption and E seems to be okay.

Thanks

E doesn't help the conclusion at all. The conclusion is about sacrifice health TO ACQUIRE MONEY. What contributes to happiness has no influence on that if the gap between happiness and money is not addressed.

Besides, E is basically restating the premise given in the second part of the stimulus. And it would not even qualify as a premise booster because being only quantitative, it is even weaker than the premise, which is an absolute statement.

[vlstewar]

I know I'm coming into this pretty late, but here is my understanding:

Premise: Happiness--->Health (using the "unless equation")

Conclusion: Money--->/Health (/ indicates "not")

Now, take the contrapositive of the conclusion: health--->/money

Which allows the premise to be connected: happiness--->health--->/money

Reading that final chain and its contrapositive made (A) the correct answer choice in my mind.

[crazinessinabox]

I don't think you can diagram the conclusion as "Money --> ~Health".

I struggled with this question a bit as well and had it narrowed to (A) and (E), ultimately choosing (E). In reviewing the question, I approached it as follows:

Conclusion: Never sacrifice health for money
Why? Because health is necessary for happiness

Firstly, I realized that the main gap that prevented me from reaching the conclusion involved assuming that happiness was desirable in some way (health is necessary for happiness, so never sacrifice health would only make sense if we assume that we want happiness always). I think I only lightly had this thought when I first encountered the question because it seems so basic (lesson learned, LSAT). Then, I noted that money was a new element introduced in the conclusion and approached the answer choices with this in mind.

(A) This wasn't what I had in mind based on my pre-phrase, but I held off judgment as I read through the other answer choices (I think that's probably why I settled on (E) in the end too).

It is quite clear that this is the only answer choice that addresses the gap. It basically says to always choose happiness over money in the event they might conflict.

[mlbrandow]

(E) shouldn't even be in consideration in a sufficient assumption question like this. It's makes a relativistic claim that has no conditional basis at all.

The correct answer choice is going to be some sort of conditional link, which makes (A) and (B) the only valid options here.

(B) directly counters the premise so it can't be right. It says that you can have happiness without health, which is exactly the opposite of what the premise says.

(A) may seem convoluted, and so might the stimulus, but it's the only possible correct answer choice here. Even if you don't fully understand this question or its implications, you can confidently choose it as the correct answer by elimination.

Now, as others have said, it does correctly provide the link necessary to establish the conclusion.

But this debate about (E) is really having an unnecessary conversation about a type of answer choice that is always wrong in sufficient assumption questions.

[nthakka]

I think the test writer is equating "sacrifice health" and "without health" in the premise and conclusion as essentially the same thing. Therefore, I think this question can be fairly easily diagramed.


AM (acquire money) ~~~> NO SH (sacrifice health)

Sacrifice health ~~~~> NO Happiness

Reverse the first statement to get

SH ~~> NO acquire money

and

SH ~~> NO happiness

Therefore, NO happiness ~~~> NO acquire money. This is the author's assumption.

Answer choice (A) is a reversal of this assumption. Money ~~~> happiness (or, happiness not unobtainable, more or less the same thing for our purposes)

[timsportschuetz]

REAL REAL SIMPLE... I will break this question down with the method that lets you solve questions such as these in less than 30 seconds! Find the core of the argument and then find unique terms that are only present in the conclusion. In this particular question, the unique term is clearly "acquire money". Therefore, the correct answer MUST have this unique term present! Any answer choice that DOES NOT have this term, is 100% wrong and should be eliminated with confidence! So, lets look at the answer choices:
A) OK... it mentions "acquire money"... keep for now.
B) Firstly, either/or was an immediate red flag for me. Secondly, this answer choice only mentions "money"; however, "acquiring" is not mentioned. Eliminate.
C) Eliminate - does not mention unique term.
D) Wealthy????? Where in the world did this come from!?!?! You CAN NEVER equate ACQUIRING MONEY to WEALTH! This is a common trap, and you should NEVER fall for this!
E) Same reason as (D), eliminate!

(A) is our answer... move on. This question took me about 15 seconds providing me with valuable time on the remainder of the section.

[christinachenn]

I answered this question incorrectly when I took this preptest, but in reviewing it, I think it's actually a fun little LR problem that is good for practice.

The key to answering this question correctly hinges on two things:
1. Identifying the logic in the stimulus and;
2. Understanding the double negative in answer choice A

The short stem states:
Premise:
Happiness -> health
Conclusion:
Money -> health

Answer choice A states:
Money should be acquired only if its acquisition will not make happiness unobtainable.
Translate this to:
Money -> make happiness obtainable.

If you plug this into the conditions of the stimulus, you get this:

Money -> Happiness -> Health

Is this thinking correct?

[erikwoodward10]

Having a hard time seeing how "never sacrifice health in order to get $" can be diagrammed as Money-->Health.

Help?

[ganbayou]

Is this just
Premise: A→B
Conclusion: C
----
Thus assumption B→C　and the answer is /C→/B?

[ohthatpatrick]

Not quite.

You represented the correct argument as

PREMISE: A --> B
SUFF ASSUMP: B --> C
===================
CONC: C

Do you know why the above argument is not a valid argument?


We were never told "A". To conclude C as a fact, you need to be given A as a fact.

A --> B
B --> C
A.
===================
C.

That would be a valid argument


Anyway, this is probably not getting you any closer to thinking about this argument.

How are you representing "one should never sacrifice health in order to acquire money" with C?

That claim involves regurgitating the concept of "health", so your conclusion would need to represent health (A) and money (C).

Prem: ~Health --> ~Happiness (~A --> ~B)
======================
Conc: Shouldn't sacrifice health for money (shouldn't give up A to get C)

You can anticipate that we're missing some connection between B and C (something about connecting happiness to money).

But we also need to get the idea of "should" in our sufficient assumption, since it appears in our conclusion but not in our evidence.

Our Suff Assump is
"if getting money makes happiness unobtainable, you shouldn't go after money"
(if getting C means ~B, then you shouldn't go after C)

Prem: ~A --> ~B
Suff Assump: Shouldn't go after C if it means ~B
=================
Shouldn't go after C if it means ~A

[ganbayou]

Hi

Thank you for your reply,
But I'm still not sure...

Prem: ~A --> ~B
Suff Assump: Shouldn't go after C if it means ~B
=================
Shouldn't go after C if it means ~A

For some reason this sounds like
~B→~A which is not allowed...
If the assumption is ~A and conclusion is ~B
I think I understand it...why from ~B to ~A is allowed?

[nhahoyt]

I feel like this is an example where a common sense approach, rather than dogmatic conditional logic schematics, is a better approach? Several times I tried diagramming the conditional logic, but the normative "should" trips me up and makes it harder to diagram the kind of categorical black-and-white relationships that true formal logic contains. Agree or disagree?

[ohthatpatrick]

Agree.

If you look at my official explanation, I didn't use conditional logic, and I am certainly willing to use conditional logic when it seems like the right tool.

[christian.zeigler]

I'm still struggling with this question, even after reading the above answers. I think what makes sense to me is the following:

One should choose X over Y (or, not choose Y over X). This is because without X, you can't have Z.

Premise: Without X, can't have Z.
Conclusion: choose X over Y.

What is missing, logically? That I want to have Z. Z is desirable. Nothing I do should prevent me from doing Z. Or, anything I do should only be done if I can still get Z. Or, I should get Y only if it doesn't make Z unobtainable. I'm fiending for Z. I gotta have it, Jerry!

This is how it makes sense to me.

One of the things that threw me here, was that I was expecting "health" to figure into the assumption. Another logically sufficient part of this could be something like: "Acquiring money never leads to health and one ought to seek happiness." This is a bit more convoluted, but would work. Or, just "One ought to seek happiness." Another one, which I was sort of predicting, is, in addition to "One should seek happiness" would be "Anything else that is acquired will sacrifice one's health."

It seems to make sense, that if a stem has a normative statement in it, and it's a sufficient prompt, the credited answer has to have a normative in it as well. I'm not sure that's always the case on every question, but fact of the matter, if a question is throwing you for a loop and you aren't sure, it's as good a shortcut as any. So while I don't agree with TimSportsSchuetz above, every time, I think it's better to spend 15 seconds on a question, and have a good chance of getting it right, than 3 minutes and have the same or worse chance.

Shorthand of above:

Premise: No X, means no Z.
Conclusion: Should chose X over Y
Sufficient fills in gaps: Should get Z, and optionally, Y figures into this somehow

[PeterV313]

In my view, the challenge here is to rightly understand the meaning of each sentence. I would diagram this question with the following conditional logic.

First part of the sentence (conclusion): in order to means "if"

if acquire money ---> health (it would not be "NOT health", because "never sacrifice" cancel each other - "never sacrifice health" = "have health")

Second part of the sentence (premise) if happiness obtainable ---> health

Now, the correct answer (A) says: if acquire money ---> happiness obtainable ("happiness NOT unobtainable" means "happiness obtainable")

We have a beautiful conditional chain:

if acquire money ---> happiness obtainable ---> health