Q23 - Societies in which value

[yusangmin]

this is pissin me off.

ok.
so they must TEND to be in contrast ..... is different from answer choice D which says journalists ALWAYS use language literally.

so did i read this wrong or is the LSAT inconsistent or what?~?!

please help!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

I think you may over-thinking certain issues and losing sight of the big picture -- sure you can drive yourself crazy thinking about the word "tend," but notice the word "must" right before it! Also notice the switch from "invariably" in the original argument to "frequently" in (D). There will always be gray areas such as this, and, though often one word or modifier will be crucial to the right answer, that doesn't mean that's what these problems are really about.

Normally, you want to go from general to specific --

What is wrong with the reasoning in the argument? And what answer choice matches that problem? That should be your priority here.

In terms of the big picture, the argument has an obvious structural flaw:

The premise is "If A, then B" (If measured in financial, then fragmented.)

The conclusion is "Therefore, if not A, then not B" (If not measured in financial, then not fragmented.)

You cannot infer from a statement by negating both sides. (ex: Tom likes beer. Since Mike is not Tom, Mike does not like beer.)

There is only one answer that has this flaw, and that is (D). If there were a few answers with the flaw, then you would maybe be more suspicious of the difference between "must tend" and "surely."

[cdjmarmon]

I got rid of B,C, and E because they contained words like usually, probably, and often. Which didnt match up with invariably.

However, I did not choose D because it said frequently which does not equal invariably.

A always B is not the same as A freqeuntly B. But i do see how D is "most" similar when compared to A.

Im just a little confused now so any explanation would be nice.

[timmydoeslsat]

Our stimulus:

FT ---> I

~FT ---> ~I

It does use the word must tend in the conclusion, but the flawed reasoning is still the same idea: the absense of the sufficient condition does not have to mean the absense of the necessary condition.

The answer choice does give us this framework. It's premise does make use of the word frequently, and its conclusion uses the word always. And our stimulus had the idea of all in the premise and most in the conclusion.

However, any other answer choice fails in replicating the flaw. Answer choice A is actually a valid argument.

[ilia.medovikov]

Another point to note about this question is that 2 out of 4 wrong answer choices contain errors of reasoning that are different from the error of reasoning made in the stimulus:

(a) - seems to contain valid reasoning: ~ G (same genus) ----> ~ I (interbreed); contrapositive: I ----> G. The author's conclusion is consistent with the conditional statement, since jackals and wolves belong to the same genus and thus fulfill the necessary condition, which makes it possible for them to interbreed.

(b) seems to contain error of reasoning: the author takes evidence showing that something could be true to conclude that something is in fact true: "Ecosystems close to the equator usually have more species than those closer to the pole. Thus the Sahara Desert must contain more species than Siberia does." This is not the flaw in the stimulus.

(c) At first, this answer choice appears to make an error of composition by attributing a characteristic possessed by one member/entity in a group to a group as a whole: Because insect is an anthropod and undergoes certain stages of mutation, we can conclude that all anthropods undergo the exact same stages of mutation. But the author qualifies the conclusion by the word "probably" and this seems to validate the reasoning to some extent.

(e) seems to make the same error of reasoning as (b) by going from often in the premise to must in the conclusion.

[steves]

I think you may over-thinking certain issues and losing sight of the big picture -- sure you can drive yourself crazy thinking about the word "tend," but notice the word "must" right before it! Also notice the switch from "invariably" in the original argument to "frequently" in (D). There will always be gray areas such as this, and, though often one word or modifier will be crucial to the right answer, that doesn't mean that's what these problems are really about.

Normally, you want to go from general to specific --

What is wrong with the reasoning in the argument? And what answer choice matches that problem? That should be your priority here.

In terms of the big picture, the argument has an obvious structural flaw:

The premise is "If A, then B" (If measured in financial, then fragmented.)

The conclusion is "Therefore, if not A, then not B" (If not measured in financial, then not fragmented.)

You cannot infer from a statement by negating both sides. (ex: Tom likes beer. Since Mike is not Tom, Mike does not like beer.)

There is only one answer that has this flaw, and that is (D). If there were a few answers with the flaw, then you would maybe be more suspicious of the difference between "must tend" and "surely."

I understand from the discussion above and on pages 576-577 of the LR study guide that (D) has the same flaw structure as the passage. However, I may be misunderstanding the process taught for these questions in Chapter 12 of the study guide and Lesson 10. My impression--reinforced by the discussion of some of the wrong answers--is that we are supposed to look for precisely these sorts of inconsistencies in the premise (frequently convey vs. invariably fragment) or conclusion (always use vs. must tend) as a means to quickly identify and eliminate wrong answers. Is this answer just an unusual case--or am I misunderstanding the lesson--and that this elimination process should only be used after answers with similar flaw structures are identified and not before? It does save a lot of time to whack out these inconsistent answers first if that method does almost always work.

[christine.defenbaugh]

I'm so glad you posted, steves!

This is a common area of some confusion, so your post gives me an excellent opportunity to clarify some things!

First, it's critical to remember that we have a slightly different primary task when we are faced with a Match the Flaw question than we do when we tackle a Match the Reasoning question. For Match the Reasoning, we want to focus primarily on the component structures lining up. For Match the Flaw questions, however, the only thing that matters is to match the flaw type.

Since this question is Match the Flaw, we aren't going to want to rely on what could be superficial structural dissimilarities if the logical fail doesn't match up!

Now, the LR Strategy Guide dissects (B) and (E) by focusing on the difference between 'usually'/'often' and 'always' - and that might make it seem like we could eliminate anything that went down the usually/often/frequently/probably path! But it doesn't mean that at all.

Here's the key distinction:

In (B), the premise establishes that certain ecosystems usually have more species, then concludes that a specific ecosystem must have more species than another. The difference between 'usually' and 'always' is NOT pointed out to highlight a difference (mismatch) between the original argument and the answer choice argument, but rather to point out the difference between the premise and the conclusion.

In other words, the only reason we assess the difference between 'usually' and 'always' is to characterize what type of flaw the argument in (B) contains!

Both (B) and (E) commit the flaw of assuming something is always the case just because it is sometimes the case. We are NOT eliminating them because "often" or "usually" doesn't match the premise statement's "invariably" - instead, we're eliminating them because the move from 'often' to 'always' (what (B) and (E) do) is a totally different flaw type than negating a conditional(ish) statement (what (D) and the stimulus do).

In short, you can't go slicing off answer choices to Match the Flaw questions just because of a shift in that type of language unless it changes the flaw type in play. Focus on the flaw type first!

Does that help clear things up a bit?

[steves]

Yes, that helps a lot.

Thanks, Christine!

Steve