Q20 - A poem is any work

[goldheartgal]

A poem is a any work of art...

I don't understand why the right answer is C not D. Is this a formal logic question?

[bbirdwell]

Inference questions are often best understood with some sort of conditional logic-ish symbolism. The tip-off is that it's defining things, and there are quantity words like "any" and "some."

Here's what this argument looks like to me when done that way.

work of art that exploits musical character of language --> poem
(any = every)

novel, though art, no musical character of language

symphony, though art exploiting sound, rarely uses language

limerick, though exploits musical character of language --> not art

Ok. This is what we know. When we go to the choices, we are looking for something we can prove.

(A) Does the text state that poems, novels, and symphonies are the ONLY works of art? No.

(B) This choice says: ~rhyme --> ~poem. Does our text support this? No. The first statement is related, but off the mark. It says work of art + musical character (such as rhyme) --> poem. You can see this is a common incorrect variation of a given statement.

(C) work of art + meter and rhyme (musical character) --> poem. Absolutely. This is the first statement of the text.

(D) says that limericks are poetry. What do we know about poetry from the text? Only if something is a work of art and musical with language, then it's a poem. We know nothing of "non-artistic poetry." This is an attempt to attract us to an incorrect answer because it seems to fit our commonsense, or a loose interpretation of the text. Logically, we cannot support it.

(E) is off the mark in a similar way. We are not equipped to define whether symphonies are art. We only know that, though a symphony may be art, it's unlikely to use language.

Does that help?

[goldheartgal]

Thank you very much! Your answer is very helpful!

[tamwaiman]

Hi I have a question about the first sentence. (A poem is any work of art that exploits something.)

IMO its conditional relation should be

poem --> any work of art that exploits something

And this is why I eliminate (C) when doing this question.

[timmydoeslsat]

work of art that exploits musical character of language --> poem
(any = every)



(D) says that limericks are poetry. What do we know about poetry from the text? Only if something is a work of art and musical with language, then it's a poem.

This seems to be at odds with one another.

I question how to diagram this statement appropriately as well.

The statement is:

A poem is any work art that exploits some of the musical characteristics of language.

I am tempted to make this a biconditional relationship.

Poem <---> Any work of art that exploits some of the musical characteristics of language.

If this is not correct, I would like to understand why it is not the case.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Good question. I'd suggest that it is not a biconditional, and here's why. To begin let's look at what's creating the confusion - the word "is," I think is creating the temptation to reverse the direction. It makes sense that you'd be tempted to do that since we use the word "is" in other places to direct the conditionality.

Example:
An apple is delicious.

There we would use the word "is" to establish the direction
A ---> D

But sometimes we don't use the word "is" to organize the information, particularly those instances when conditionality is implied elsewhere in the statement.

Example:
Everything delicious is an apple.

There we would use "everything" to organize the relationship
D ---> A

Since in this question the word "any" organizes the information, we should not use the word "is" to further connote biconditionality. To see this better reorganize the statement to say:

Any work of art that exploits some of the musical characteristics of language is a poem.

I don't see any change of meaning here, so I'm inclined to suggest that there is no biconditionality implied in the original statement.

Thoughts?

[timmydoeslsat]

I will show you why I think an equivalent statement is biconditional.

A computer is anything with a chip in it.

Product Y has a chip in it...----> we know it must be a computer


If something is computer? We know the definition of what a computer is. It is necessary, is it not? If it is not necessary, then it is not the definition of what it asserts.

If a computer is NOT anything with a chip in it, then the statement on which we are building is not valid.

So I would argue that the poem statement in this case is biconditional based on that logic.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Hey Timmy! I think I agree with you. You're absolutely right that definitions can be expressed as conditional relationships where the term being defined represents the sufficient condition and the definition represents the necessary condition. And this does seem to be defining what a poem is.

I don't see that impacting any of your work on the answer choices though - which is probably why it never came to my attention in the past.

I'm curious to find another question that might contain the same structure where it does impact your answer choice. I'd feel more confident then, but I'm pretty sure you're right. Nice work!

[pateljay.osu]

I will show you why I think an equivalent statement is biconditional.

A computer is anything with a chip in it.

Product Y has a chip in it...----> we know it must be a computer


If something is computer? We know the definition of what a computer is. It is necessary, is it not? If it is not necessary, then it is not the definition of what it asserts.

If a computer is NOT anything with a chip in it, then the statement on which we are building is not valid.

So I would argue that the poem statement in this case is biconditional based on that logic.

I am not sure if I entirely agree with this. If we were to define a computer as a object with a chip in it or a hard drive in it, then it is easier to see why there may be a flaw in your reasoning.

A computer is anything with a chip in it.

Product Y has a chip in it...----> we know it must be a computer

but...

Product Y is a computer ---> product Y has a chip in it.

The following is not necessary because product Y may happen to contain only a hard drive. I don't think this statement is bi-conditional. I hope I'm not off the mark and thanks for all the help!

[Mab6q]

Inference questions are often best understood with some sort of conditional logic-ish symbolism. The tip-off is that it's defining things, and there are quantity words like "any" and "some."

Here's what this argument looks like to me when done that way.

work of art that exploits musical character of language --> poem
(any = every)

novel, though art, no musical character of language

symphony, though art exploiting sound, rarely uses language

limerick, though exploits musical character of language --> not art

Ok. This is what we know. When we go to the choices, we are looking for something we can prove.

(A) Does the text state that poems, novels, and symphonies are the ONLY works of art? No.

(B) This choice says: ~rhyme --> ~poem. Does our text support this? No. The first statement is related, but off the mark. It says work of art + musical character (such as rhyme) --> poem. You can see this is a common incorrect variation of a given statement.

(C) work of art + meter and rhyme (musical character) --> poem. Absolutely. This is the first statement of the text.

(D) says that limericks are poetry. What do we know about poetry from the text? Only if something is a work of art and musical with language, then it's a poem. We know nothing of "non-artistic poetry." This is an attempt to attract us to an incorrect answer because it seems to fit our commonsense, or a loose interpretation of the text. Logically, we cannot support it.

(E) is off the mark in a similar way. We are not equipped to define whether symphonies are art. We only know that, though a symphony may be art, it's unlikely to use language.

Does that help?

Mind if I follow up with a question about E? I'm understanding it to be wrong because although we know that a symphony may be a work of art by exploiting the musical characteristics of sounds, we don't know that this is the ONLY way it can be art, so this is not a conditional statement. E tries to make it appear to be one, with musical characteristics of sounds at the necessary assumption.

Is that correct?