Q20 - To date, most of the proposals

by **robowarren** Sat Jun 02, 2012 8:30 pm

Hi,

I have been trying to see why E is a better choice than A. Could someone help?

Thanks!

by **ManhattanPrepLSAT1** Fri Jun 08, 2012 3:02 pm

The short answer to why answer choice (A) does not have similarly flawed reasoning is the way in which the conclusion is qualified; it should not have qualified the conclusion to "if most of the Vasani grants are awarded to academics." Instead it should have been a stronger statement to match the conclusion in the stimulus - "Any future proposal that is endorsed by the city council, [...] ."

The flaw in the stimulus we are trying to match is that of improperly extending into the future previous patterns. So what is true of today, may not be true of tomorrow, or what was true of yesterday may not be true today. We simply cannot assume continuity between time periods. Answer choice (E) contains this flaw, and so even more accurately by scoping down the claim in the same manner as the stimulus. So while the stimulus talks about endorsed proposals that were passed. Answer choice (E) talks about stone artifacts that were domestic tools.

Incorrect Answers

(A) should not have qualified the conclusion with "if most of the Vasani grants next year are awarded to academics."
(B) should not have qualified the conclusion to "most of the tree species on the island."
(C) reverses the direction of "most." We're looking for the continuation of the same relationship into the future, and while this does continue into the future, it reverses the direction of the "most" statement.
(D) predicts a future outcome not based on what happened in the past, but rather based on what failed to occur.

by **rosscbrockway** Thu Sep 18, 2014 6:28 pm

Hi Matt,

Thanks for your explanation of this question. I'm not sure what you mean by C "reversing" the most statement. Can you explain in a bit more detail?

Thanks!

(P.S.--I didn't choose C, but it was tempting, and I only ended up moving away from C because of what I saw as a conclusion mismatch ("will probably not")

by **christine.defenbaugh** Tue Sep 23, 2014 3:03 am

Thanks for posting, rosscbrockway!

What Matt is getting at is that (C) flips the order of the two elements between the premise and the conclusion, while the original argument keeps them in the same order.

The original argument is constructed like this:

PREMISE: Most [CL-endorsed proposals] have been [city-passed]

CONCLUSION: Some future [CL-endorsed proposal] will probably be [city-passed]

In order to match this structure, we need the same essential pattern of:

PREMISE: Most A have been B

CONCLUSION: Some future A will probably be B

We want to match not only the shift in verb tense from past to future, we also need to keep the quantifiers the same ('most', etc), and the arrangement of elements.

(E) does that precisely:

PREMISE: Most [stone artifacts] have been [domestic tools]

CONCLUSION: Some future [stone artifact] will probably be [a domestic tool]

(C) flips the elements in the conclusoni.

PREMISE: Most [newspaper editors] have been NOT [farmer-sympathetic]

CONCLUSION: Some future [farmer-sympathetizer] will probably be NOT [newspaper editor]

If the conclusion had been instead Some future [newspaper editor] will probably be NOT [farmer-sympathic], it would have been awesome! The negative here "probably NOT" isn't wrong all by itself. It's only the reversing of the position of the elements that makes (C) not match the original.

What do you think?

by **rosscbrockway** Wed Sep 24, 2014 2:24 pm

Great explanation, Christine! I didn't catch that, so thanks!

by **jrnlsn.nelson** Mon Dec 22, 2014 5:50 pm

mattsherman Wrote:The short answer to why answer choice (A) does not have similarly flawed reasoning is the way in which the conclusion is qualified; it should not have qualified the conclusion to "if most of the Vasani grants are awarded to academics." Instead it should have been a stronger statement to match the conclusion in the stimulus - "Any future proposal that is endorsed by the city council, [...] ."

Thanks for the post mattsherman. All your responses that I've read on other questions have been really helpful. For this one, I do think you missed the actual reason why (E) is better than (A) though.

I narrowed it down to (A) and (E), and unfortunately chose (A). I now clearly see why (E) is better though.

(A) says:

"Most of the Vasani grants that have been awarded in previous years have gone to academic biologists. Thus, if most of the Vasani grants awarded next year are awarded to academics, most of these will probably be biologists."

The bolded portion is important, and I'll explain that shortly. But first, let's look at (E):

"Most of the stone artifacts that have been found at the archaeological site have been domestic tools. Thus, if the next artifact found at the site is made of stone, it will probably be a domestic tool."

The difference between these two, and ultimately the reason why (E) is the better answer, lies in the portion that I bolded in each (i.e. the necessary condition of each conditional conclusion). (A) states "most of these will probably be biologists," whereas (E) states "it will be probably be a domestic tool." Although subtle, this quantitative difference ("most of these" which is deduced as meaning greater than 50%, versus "it" which, in that context, is implying 100%) is why (E) is better.

Also, and maybe I'm missing something here, but I'm not sure what you meant by this mattsherman:

mattsherman Wrote: (A) should not have qualified the conclusion with "if most of the Vasani grants next year are awarded to academics."

The portion of (A) that you cited there is the sufficient condition of the conclusion in (A). Yet, the sufficient condition in the conclusion in (E) exactly matches that:

"Thus, if the next artifact found at the site is made of stone..."

So, to nail my point home:

"Thus, if the next artifact found at the site is made of stone..."

is logically equivalent to

"Thus, if most of the Vasani grants next year are awarded to academics..."

And, as I outlined above, the real reason (E) is better than (A) lies in the quantitative difference found in the necessary conditions of both conclusions.

If anyone has thoughts please share.

by **aharonw1** Wed Nov 25, 2015 12:51 am

The one thing I didn't like about answer choice E was "Thus, if the next artifact found at the site is made of stone..."

I thought it was implying only the next immediate finding, as opposed to the stimulus which was much broader, "any future proposal... will probably be passed as well".

Did I get too specific with the language? I guess if I focus on the main flaw of "what is true in the past, will continue being true" it wouldn't matter precisely how much it will be.

Q20 - To date, most of the proposals

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Re: Q20 - To date, most of the proposals