Q21 - So-called "engineered foods"

[LSAT-Chang]

Hello!
I first did this "timed" and picked the correct answer (C). Then I went back to really take all the time I needed to solve it again, and I chose (A).

The conclusion I identified was:

athletes, who need to improve their muscular strength should not consume enginereed foods.

Why? Because the growth hormones stimulated by these engineered foods produce growth in connective tissue rather than in muscle mass and this does not improve muscle strength.

Well I found the author to be assuming that muscle mass is needed for muscle strength. The author just gives us the idea that growth in connective tissue does not improve muscle strength and concludes from this idea that athletes shouldn't consume engineered foods, but nothing in regards to having the growth in muscle mass. So if we had (A), then the author would be able to conclude that if you need to improve muscular strength, you shouldn't consume engineered foods since it doesn't lead to an increase in muscle mass which is needed for muscular strength. Does this make sense?

I eliminated (C) because I thought, well if we negate it, "If an engineered food does not improve muscle strength, there is other substantial advantage to athletes from consuming it" -- yeah we might question "well then how would the author be able to conclude that athletes SHOULD NOT consume engineered foods?" however, the author limits the conclusion by adding "athletes, WHO NEED TO IMPROVE THEIR MUSCULAR STRENGTH" so who cares about other substantial advantages for the athletes? The author is just saying that if you need to improve muscular strength, you shouldn't consume engineered foods because there is no growth in muscle mass and only growth in connective tissue which does not improve muscle strength. So the author would have to assume that increase in muscle mass would lead to increase in strength! Right???

[timmydoeslsat]

I eliminated (C) because I thought, well if we negate it, "If an engineered food does not improve muscle strength, there is other substantial advantage to athletes from consuming it" -- yeah we might question "well then how would the author be able to conclude that athletes SHOULD NOT consume engineered foods?" however, the author limits the conclusion by adding "athletes, WHO NEED TO IMPROVE THEIR MUSCULAR STRENGTH" so who cares about other substantial advantages for the athletes? The author is just saying that if you need to improve muscular strength, you shouldn't consume engineered foods because there is no growth in muscle mass and only growth in connective tissue which does not improve muscle strength. So the author would have to assume that increase in muscle mass would lead to increase in strength! Right???

Dude, I am proud of your thought process. You are on your way.

The key is thought process and you are asking the right questions when you are doing these problems.

You were so right on the money until the part about the conclusion!

The author states that athletes, who need to improve their muscular strength, should not consume engineered foods.

You are believing that the author is qualifying or limiting his scope by saying "athletes, who need to improve their muscular strength..."

It would be different had the author said something like:

"athletes should not consume engineered foods FOR THE PURPOSE OF MUSCULAR STRENGTH.


When you negate C, which you did a great job of doing, showing that the sufficient can live without the necessary condition, then you have a situation where there would be OTHER SUBSTANTIAL ADVANTAGES TO ATHLETES from consuming it.

If that is the case, that destroys the idea that they should NOT take it! Yes, it will not improve their muscular strength, but that it not enough reason necessarily to not take it! The athlete can take something else for that.

[LSAT-Chang]

Thanks for the compliment!
So two questions..

1. The last sentence, "athletes, who need to improve their muscular strength" is not a qualifying statement but rather a description of athletes in general? Is it something like, "runners, who need a lot of stamina" -- not limiting to runners who NEED a lot of stamina but rather a descriptoin of the runners in GENERAL? But I don't know why it sounds like those qualifying statements to me, still. Anyways I agree with your example that you gave me that shows the qualifying statement.

2. Is (A) wrong because it doesn't touch upon the conclusion? But here is my other point. The author bases his or her conclusion from the idea of "muscle mass" -- do you see it? If we negate (A), we get, "an increase in muscle mass does not produce an increase in strength" -- which if this is the case, then the author's evidence given wouldn't be enough for the conclusion to hold. Or now that I think about it, it doesn't destroy the conclusion but rather destroy's the evidence -- and we are to accept it as true, so I guess (A) just doubts the premise used for the conclusion, and doesn't necessarily destroy the conclusion.. am I right?

[timmydoeslsat]

Thanks for the compliment!
So two questions..

1. The last sentence, "athletes, who need to improve their muscular strength" is not a qualifying statement but rather a description of athletes in general? Is it something like, "runners, who need a lot of stamina" -- not limiting to runners who NEED a lot of stamina but rather a descriptoin of the runners in GENERAL? But I don't know why it sounds like those qualifying statements to me, still. Anyways I agree with your example that you gave me that shows the qualifying statement.

In this case, the conclusion is making a broad statement.

Athletes, who need to improve their strength, should not consume engineered foods.

The author tells us athletes what they should not do. This author is assuming that the strength aspect is the only thing that matters to them.

2. Is (A) wrong because it doesn't touch upon the conclusion? But here is my other point. The author bases his or her conclusion from the idea of "muscle mass" -- do you see it? If we negate (A), we get, "an increase in muscle mass does not produce an increase in strength" -- which if this is the case, then the author's evidence given wouldn't be enough for the conclusion to hold. Or now that I think about it, it doesn't destroy the conclusion but rather destroy's the evidence -- and we are to accept it as true, so I guess (A) just doubts the premise used for the conclusion, and doesn't necessarily destroy the conclusion.. am I right?

A is wrong because it has no impact on the conclusion. The conclusion is that athletes should not consume engineered foods.

The reason is that the stuff found in these foods produce growth in connective tissue, not muscle mass. We know that growth in connective tissue does not increase strength. However, we do NOT know that an increase in muscle mass does increase strength.

If you negate A:

An increase in muscle mass does not produce an increase in strength. The conclusion would still live! Does that statement have any impact that athletes should not consume the engineered food? No! The engineered food has bearing on strength/mass. That is the entity in question.

[LSAT-Chang]

We know that growth in connective tissue does not increase strength. However, we do NOT know that an increase in muscle mass does increase strength.

I completely agree with you. I mistakenly thought that the author was assuming that muscle mass increases strength -- when in fact, we have no evidence for this. Thanks for clarifying this point for me!!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Nice discussion So and Tim! If you don't mind I'm just going to add another perspective on this one.

So, I can see why you were thinking that the argument depends on the assumption that there needs to be a relationship between muscle mass and muscle strength. There is a subsidiary argument before the final conclusion.

~ improve muscle mass
----------------------------
~ improve muscle strength

that rests on the assumption that if one does not improve muscle mass, one will not improve muscle strength. Another way to say that is that in order to improve muscle strength, one must improve muscle mass. Notice that's the reversal of answer choice (A), making it tempting but incorrect.

Now notice that the main conclusion does limit the scope. it's only discussing athletes who need to improve muscle strength. And it says that for these athletes there is no reason to consume these engineered foods. But that's overlooking the fact that just because these engineered foods won't produce muscle strength, that there might be some other reason why they would want to consume them - such as convenience or improved "connective tissue" which we know engineered foods produce!

Answer choice (C) effectively rules out any possible reason for taking these engineered foods except for improving muscle strength. And in oder for the argument to conclude that these athletes should not consume engineered foods, it does need to be true that there is no reason other than improving muscle strength why these athletes would consume such engineered foods.

A look at the incorrect answers...

(A) reverses the relationship between a premise and a subsidiary conclusion.
(B) is out of scope since this argument's conclusion is about athletes.
(D) is out of scope since we don't know that the nutrients found in engineered foods can be found more easily somewhere else.
(E) conflates a bunch of terms from the stimulus. It stipulates the same relationship from answer choice (A) but then puts a requirement on it, that is simply unnecessary.

Hope that helps, but I think you guys were already there on this one!

[LSAT-Chang]

~ improve muscle mass
----------------------------
~ improve muscle strength

that rests on the assumption that if one does not improve muscle mass, one will not improve muscle strength. Another way to say that is that in order to improve muscle strength, one must improve muscle mass. Notice that's the reversal of answer choice (A), making it tempting but incorrect.

I am so glad you pointed this out for me. I definitely had "improve muscle mass --> improve muscle strength" in my mind and so that is why I picked (A) the second time I solved it. Thanks so much for pointing this out! I would have ruled this out immediately if I had known that. The "not" made me a little confused and I'm pretty sure if I had diagrammed it, I would have seen it right away, but because I didn't think there was a need to diagram in this one, I was doing it all in my head and I definitely assumed the mistaken negation of this one.

Now notice that the main conclusion does limit the scope. it's only discussing athletes who need to improve muscle strength.

So I guess my first impression on this one was right? That was what I thought at first because it sounded like "among athletes.. those who need to improve their muscular strength" but I was really convinced by timmy's explanation for it!! I can be easily persuaded -- and hearing it from someone who really does seem to know the LSAT front and back, I didn't doubt it

And it says that for these athletes there is no reason to consume these engineered foods. But that's overlooking the fact that just because these engineered foods won't produce muscle strength, that there might be some other reason why they would want to consume them - such as convenience or improved "connective tissue" which we know engineered foods produce!

I totally agree with you and timmy on this point. So even with these athletes, there could STILL be other reasons for these athletes to consume engineered foods, not JUST for muscular strength.

Thanks so much for your feebdack and I am more than happy to always hear your perspective!

[timmydoeslsat]

The limiting factor is indeed about the athletes "that need to improve their strength."

However, that was not the limiting factor we were discussing.

I believe that you were letting the idea of "should not consume engineered foods" not WEIGH ENOUGH in your mind.

This conclusion is super-seceding just improving strength. It is saying SHOULD NOT CONSUME engineered foods. Had the conclusion said "for the purpose of improving strength" then we have a better argument.

The limited factor of the athletes, those that need to improve strength, IS NOT LIMITING THE CONCLUSION of should not consume.

I believe you were thinking that by qualifying the goal of athletes, this conclusion was basing its should ONLY to that respect of strength. Where it was not, and that is the flaw.

Your first impression is right in that there is a limiting aspect, however this aspect is not limiting the scope of the conclusion about the "should."

[LSAT-Chang]

The limiting factor is indeed about the athletes "that need to improve their strength."

However, that was not the limiting factor we were discussing.

OHHH, okay I went back and read my very first post -- and I definitely should have made myself clearer. I was actually talking about the limiting aspect of the "athletes" -- I said "limiting conclusion" because that was a part of the whole concluding sentence. Does this make sense? The "Hence, athletes..." part was what I was talking about, and in particular, I was referring to the "athletes" and that was why in my previous previous post -- I asked again:

1. The last sentence, "athletes, who need to improve their muscular strength" is not a qualifying statement but rather a description of athletes in general? Is it something like, "runners, who need a lot of stamina" -- not limiting to runners who NEED a lot of stamina but rather a description of the runners in GENERAL? But I don't know why it sounds like those qualifying statements to me, still.

What I meant by that was just that sentence: "athletes, who need to improve their muscular strength" -- but I thought you were telling me that that was not a qualifying statement of athletes, but a general statement of all athletes and so that was why I was confused for a second since I thought I didn't know how to read. So even with the example I gave above, "runners, who need a lot of stamina" is limiting the scope of runners to just those who need a lot of stamina -- do you agree? But now I can see that there was definitely a miscommunication! Thanks for clarifying this up for me.

[timmydoeslsat]

I would say that the "who need to improve their muscular strength" is a qualifying factor of the broader group of athletes.

You are correct. It narrows the type of athletes we are talking about.

[tamwaiman]

So, I can see why you were thinking that the argument depends on the assumption that there needs to be a relationship between muscle mass and muscle strength. There is a subsidiary argument before the final conclusion.

~ improve muscle mass
----------------------------
~ improve muscle strength

that rests on the assumption that if one does not improve muscle mass, one will not improve muscle strength. Another way to say that is that in order to improve muscle strength, one must improve muscle mass. Notice that's the reversal of answer choice (A), making it tempting but incorrect.

Regarding this aspect, I cannot see the reversal part in answer choice (A).

The stimulus says that the growth in connective tissue rather than muscle mass does not improve muscle strength. Shall we interpret it as muscle mass is necessary to muscle strength? even so, it seems (A)'s error, instead of reversal, is it presumes that what is necessary to something must also be the effect of something.

Thank you.

[Mab6q]

Wow! Without this fabulous discussion I would've been so lost as to why A is wrong and C is right. I made the same mistake regarding the "Hence, athletes, who need to...", thinking it read like this, "Hence, athletes who need to.... Subtle, but important distinction.

[cyt5015]

I disagree with the above explanation why A is wrong due to reverse mistake.
I don't think by looking at the sentence "these hormones produce growth in connective tissue rather than in muscle mass; this does not improve their muscular strength" we can conclude muscle mass is the necessary condition for improving muscle strength.
(1) if we treat it as conditional logic:
connective tissue increase + /muscle mass increase --> /improve muscular strength, then we get improve muscular strength-->/connective tissue or muscle mass increase
(2) if we treat it as causal relation: by looking at that statement, we only can conclude connective tissue increase is not the cause for improvement of muscular strength. Nothing about relation between muscle mass and muscular strength.
(3) we can easily replace "muscle mass" by some other tissue like "brain cell" and the sentence will become: hormones produce growth in connective tissue rather than in brain cell; this does not improve their muscular strength. Can we still assume that brain cell is necessary for muscle strength? No. The sentence "A rather than B, doesn't lead to C" just give us an illusion that Being B is very important to get C; however, from it we are only allowed to conclude that being Not B is part of sufficient to get NOT C.

[logicfiend]

I understand the argument that muscle mass may not be sufficient to increase muscular strength, but I had another reason why eliminated A. This may be very simple and may not be biologically correct, but the reason why I eliminated A was because it changes muscular strength to strength in the AC.