Q2 - Archeologist: How did the

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Question Type:
Strengthen

Stimulus Breakdown:
The archeologist hypothesizes that the stone masons who carved the Parthenon's columns may have relied on a drawing like the one at Didyma. This would explain how the Parthenon's stone masons where able to carve columns that bulged outward in the same way and there is evidence of this at a Greek temple in Didyma.

Answer Anticipation:
A strong candidate would be one that makes the example of Didyma more relevant to the case of Parthenon, but it's difficult to predict since the right answer could also rule out a potential alternative explanation.

Correct Answer:
(C)

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) is out of scope. Modern attempts aren't relevant to this ancient comparison.

(B) weakens the argument. This makes it less likely that Didyma serves as an example for what happened at the Parthenon.

(C) is correct. This makes it all the more likely that the template used in Didyma was also used at the Parthenon by making that template the utilized in a variety of other similar examples.

(D) weakens the argument. This makes it less likely that Didyma serves as an example for what happened at the Parthenon.

(E) is out of scope. This tells us nothing of the kind of experience those stone masons had, nor the practices they used in carving the columns of the Parthenon.

Takeaway/Pattern: Reasoning Structure: Comparison

#officialexplanation

[Kearly91]

I need help on this.

Main conclusion - Parthenon's columns stonemason may have relied on a drawing like on at Didyma.
Premises - discovery of scael drawing
- drawing is profile view, makes possible to determine correct width

What is the assumption? How do we strengthen?

[lampars2]

Kearly 91,

Great job identifying the conclusion.

The stimulus starts by asking us a question, then offers us a hypothesis. This hypothesis being "the discovery of a scale drawing of a column etched into the stone of a Greek Temple at Didyma". From here we get the conclusion as you have identified, "The stonemasons who carved the Parthenon's columns may have relied on a drawing like the one at Didyma".

Before hitting the answer choices you should be thinking in your mind, "How can I strengthen this conclusion that the stonemasons who carved the Parthenon's columns may have relied on these drawings"

A) Does nothing for us. Does the conclusion or premises have anything to do with modern attempts?

B) Would weaken the argument.

C) We see that these drawing were commonly used in "many" many matches with "may" in the conclusion. Not too extreme. Looks good.

D) The size has nothing to do with the argument.

E) Is tempting but forces you to make some assumptions that are unwarranted. C is a better answer but if you can't get see at first glance you can flag it and come to C being the answer through POE.

Hope this helps

[sanchez.zoilac]

Hello,

is answer choice C correct because it supports the validity of the drawings?

[ganbayou]

I thought D is correct because if they could make something twice big , its easier to make something the half of it...Why is D wrong and C correct?

[konamiyoxi]

I don't like this question at all. To correctly land on the answer choice C requires the test taker to know where the Parthenon is (or even what it is), which I don't initially. It could easily be any other great ancient architectures in the world, whose locations are unknown to many test takers.

Is this the "LSAT common sense" as regarded by the LSAC? I doubt that.

[ohthatpatrick]

I don't like this question at all either, although for somewhat different reason.

I just find this "barely increasing the plausibility" type of correct answer deeply unsatisfying.

I agree, that outside knowledge makes this easier to process, and it's annoying that LSAT would reward that.

However, LSAT is ultimately meant to be a metric of how well students would fare in law school. So when LSAT periodically seems to reward outside knowledge / prior familiarity with a topic / worldly sophistication when it comes to vocab and topics .... it often seems to dishearten those of us who like to think of LSAT as a "pure thinking" test.

But if you remind yourself of its actual role, it seems defensible that law schools would expect that a wide vocab range and a wide familiarity with different disciplines / topics could each be assets that would help a student in law school. So if LSAT is rewarding that stuff, then LSAT is still serving its function for law schools.

To a certain extent, if we can infer that the Parthenon is NOT a temple, we could defend this question on the grounds that "No matter WHERE the Parthenon is located ... if you think that builders of the Parthenon used a scale drawing like that at Didyma, then you must assume that 'scale drawings were used on more types of construction than just temple construction'."

(C) takes us in the direction of that assumption.