Q18

[andrewgong01]

I am unclear about what Choice A means on the LSAT.

When it says general principles, could it be something like "People invest in the stock market to make money" or "Stock prices reflect the value of the company".

But what is a particular example?

I felt that Passage A gave examples of people selling stocks but to be a particular example does it have to be a specific example like "People invested in Facebook during its IPO because people all thought it was going to be profitable" or "Bank X was engaged in insider infomation and as a result harmed the stock price of Company Y but that actually helped millions of every-day investors who would have other-wise purchased Company Y's share at a premium".

In other words, does a particular example on the LSAT need to be a specific example and not general examples like "Millions of investors could have lost billions had the inflated stock price been allowed to continue "

For Choice B, it does describe A in that A's reasoning was trying to say insider trading isn't all that radical; in fact it is just like every day trading and even better. On the other hand, Passage B does not try to draw any similarities between controversial and uncontroversial activities; instead its reasoning structure is closer to Here is what happens when we have insider-infomation and here is an immediate consequence (lack of transparency+trust) and, in turn, here is the bigger consequence ( bad capital markets)

[ohthatpatrick]

Yup, a "particular example" would generally be something like the Facebook example you gave.

It doesn't have to name a proper noun to be an example, but it DOES have to refer to something that happened or somehow get pretty specific.

If we counted the generic hypotheticals in lines 11-15 as particular examples, then we'd also have to count the generic hypotheticals in 46-54 as particular examples as well.

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For a particular example (couldn't resist) of what a particular example would look like, check out test 52, Q10.

[tjfarrin]

Could someone explain why answer choice D is wrong here? I was stuck between B and D, and ended up going with D.

I thought that insider trading fit into the larger context of market information dissemination (L 16 - 20). Also, we don't necessarily know insider non-trading is noncontroversial (even though it is widely done).

Thanks!

[andrewgong01]

Could someone explain why answer choice D is wrong here? I was stuck between B and D, and ended up going with D.

I thought that insider trading fit into the larger context of market information dissemination (L 16 - 20). Also, we don't necessarily know insider non-trading is noncontroversial (even though it is widely done).

Thanks!

Could someone explain why answer choice D is wrong here? I was stuck between B and D, and ended up going with D.

I thought that insider trading fit into the larger context of market information dissemination (L 16 - 20). Also, we don't necessarily know insider non-trading is noncontroversial (even though it is widely done).

Thanks!

If we go with what you put down to prove Passage A conforms to Choice D we would also have to give that to Passage B. Passage B also shows how a specific activity, insider trading, is related to something larger: the functioning of our stock/capital markets. Since this question is asking for what makes A different from B, Choice D has to be out.

Regarding Choice B, I think what convertervsial refers to is insider's trading, which is a controversial topic; insider non trading was a smaller side issue the author brought up. The main idea around Passage A still revolved from insider trading. The similarity and differences being pointed out is showing how in normal stock investing we invest based of our knowledge of how the stock will perform, which is not controversial . Passage A argues this practice of investing through knowledge is basically what insider trading is where trades are made based of information. Passage B does not do this because it never strives to compare insider trading (or anything else that is controversial) to something that is not controversial . In fact, if anything, if Passage B did it it would weaken Passage B because the whole point of Passage B was to argue against this controversial practice; hence no reason to suddenly compare something controversial to something that is not controversial