Q24 - It is now clear that the ancient

[tamwaiman]

I want to make sure whether (D) means that maybe Babylonians have older unknown proofs of alcohol producing?

Thank you.

[giladedelman]

That's exactly right! The argument concludes that the Egyptians were the first to make alcohol, based on the premise that we've found evidence of Egyptian beer from 2000 B.C., which is earlier than the earliest Babylonian wine. But how do we know that the Babylonians weren't making beer, for example, in 2500 B.C.? Just because we don't have evidence of it doesn't mean it didn't happen. So, yes, the argument assumes that the earliest known instance is indeed the earliest instance.

(D) is correct because it points out this flaw: maybe the Babylonians were doing it earlier, but we don't have any evidence of it.

(A) is incorrect because the argument doesn't generalize; it just says something occurred.

(B) is out because, nope, the term's meaning stays the same.

(C) is incorrect because the argument has nothing to do with the relationship between the developments.

(E) is totally lame! We don't need support for a premise.

Thanks for your post!

[LSAT-Chang]

(A) is incorrect because the argument doesn't generalize; it just says something occurred.

I keep running into these types of answer choices and pick these out without noticing that there really is no "generalization" going on. With this question in particular, answer choice (A) said "makes a generalization about Egyptian society" so that was why I knew it was wrong since it just makes a claim about them being the first ones to produce alcoholic beverages. However, if it had just said "makes a generalization from a sample so small" I think I would have fell for it. Could you clarify what exactly is "making a generalization"?? To what extent can we say that it is making a "generalization"??

[timmydoeslsat]

A generalization is going to be obvious on the LSAT, I assure you.

I would not say that this is a generalization going on here.

We have a situation where a cup was found that may appear to depict an Egyptian brewery and the chemical residue reveals it contained a form of alcoholic beer.

And the author concludes that the ancient Egyptians were the first society to produce alcoholic beverages.

Obviously, we can see that we cannot conclude with certainty (or necessity) that the ancient Egyptians were the first society to produce it.

But the evidence given cannot be construed as unrepresentative.

How that would work in the context of this argument would be:

The king of ancient Egypt and the king of ancient Babylon had golden cups to drink alcohol.

Therefore, golden cups were not uncommon to ancient kingdoms.

[LSAT-Chang]

The king of ancient Egypt and the king of ancient Babylon had golden cups to drink alcohol.

Therefore, golden cups were not uncommon to ancient kingdoms.

Aha, I see the generalization mistake here. Basically you cannot conclude about all ancient kingdoms just from evidence of two examples of ancient kingdoms.

[timmydoeslsat]

Exactly. You could say it in a different way.

You can go from individual to broad

or

Broad to individual.

Golden cups were common to royalty.

Therefore, king of ancient Babylon had a golden cup.

[LSAT-Chang]

I always have a tendency to make a mistake on these sorts! I would automatically think that since it is common, it could be possible that the king of ancient babylon had one as well. Or if we have something like: the average citizen of this town earns 20,000 a year, thus, marie earns 20,000 since she is a citizen of this town. But i guess we could never say that for sure since she could as well be making 100,000 a year -- we dont know that she is an average citizen, right? Just like we dont know that the king had the golden cup just because its "common".. I guess it just sounds weird to me since i feel like if its common, then its more possible that he would have one. Im definitely wrong -- i know!

[minhtientm249]

So the correct conclusion should be something like: now the Egyptians are thought to be the first instead of "it is clear", right?

[giladedelman]

A valid conclusion would be, "Therefore, the Egyptians may have been the first ..." because the newly discovered sample could be the earliest one ever ... but we don't know.

[joseph.m.kirby]

I missed this question due to not reading critically enough. After going through the wonderful comments on this thread, I found, after re-reading, the part of the stimulus that makes the flaw obvious:

In the stimulus, it is noted that Babylonians mastered the process of fermentation for making wine as early as 1500 B.C.. Thus, if the Babylonians mastered something by 1500 B.C., they must have been experimenting with it before that time. Consequently, the conclusion cannot state with certainty that ancient Egyptians were the first society to produce alcoholic beverages as we need to know more information about the Babylonian's wine-making.

[jrnlsn.nelson]

But the evidence given cannot be construed as unrepresentative.

Thanks for the post timmydoeslsat. Yet, why can you not consider the evidence (i.e. the one Egyptian cup) unrepresentative?

The conclusion says:

"It is now clear that the ancient Egyptians were the first society to produce alcoholic beverages."

Yet, the archaeologists only found a (singular!) cup that they suspect contained alcohol. It's not a logical flaw to make a generalization about the activities of an entire society (i.e. alcohol production) based on a single object (i.e. a cup that contained alcohol)? That seems like a very significant leap in logic to me. Thus, I ultimately chose (A).

You could say that this line from the stimulus: "...sides depict what appears to be an Egyptian brewery" enables you to make the leap. Yet, it still says "what appears to be," which I found troubling.

I now see why (D) is the correct answer, but I still find (A) unsettling. If anyone has any thoughts please share, thanks.

[yuchenh]

I have the same question about the gap between a single incidence and a common behavior in society. After all, the conclusion talks about the first SOCIETY to produce alchoholic beverages. Can anyone please explain why A is wrong if considered this way?

[christine.defenbaugh]

Thanks for posting, yuchenh!

To address your question (and jrnlsn.nelson's), let's clarify exactly what a generalization really is.

We 'generalize' when we take evidence (premises) about a single instance, or a small number of instances, and then make a grand conclusion about an entire group. If the sample is unrepresentative, or so small that it's likely to be unrepresentative, then you have a serious probably supporting the sweeping (generalized) conclusion!

Now, in this situation, you are both right that the premise is a single instance - a single cup depicting a brewery, and with alcohol in it. As a result, it would absolutely be a generalization to conclude that:

1) All Egyptians drank alcohol, or
2) Most Egyptians were familiar with breweries, or
3) beer was a common beverage in Egyptian society, or
4) Egyptians were typically aware of the variety of alcohol being produced in Egypt

All of those problematic generalizations have to do with making a claim about ALL or MOST or MANY of the people within the society.

Now, let's take a look at what our conclusion actually does: "ancient Egyptians were the first society to produce alcoholic beverages."

This is not a claim about ALL or MOST or even MANY of the people within the society. In order for a society to be "the first to produce" something, all that needs to happen is that one person in that society produces it.

If right now, in my living room, I successfully time travel, then America would be the first country to time travel (since I'm American). It doesn't matter than only one person has done it, that conclusion would be accurate.

Since this conclusion is not about ALL or MOST or even MANY of the people in the society, it's not at all a 'generalization'.

One thing that I find helpful on a lot of flaw answer choices is to look at what they seem to be saying about both the premise AND the conclusion. If an answer choice says an argument is flawed because it makes an XYZ conclusion on the basis of an ABC premise, there are three questions you need to ask.

1) Did the argument make an ABC premise?
2) Did the argument make an XYZ conclusion?
3) Is that really a flaw to do that?

In this case, the argument used the ABC premise (small sample - single cup!) - #1. And making generalizations on the basis of tiny samples is bad - #3. But the argument did NOT make a generalization conclusion.

Does this help clear things up a bit?

[yuchenh]

Thank you very much christine! Your replies are always clear and helpful

[Dtodaizzle]

Hey thanks for your reply Christine! If I try to apply your reasoning on Prep Test 45, Section 4, question 10, then the answer choice would be valid at addressing the flaw.

Code: Select All Code

The reason that C is incorrect because the enthusiastic acceptance  of the monks are not applicable to entire Medieval  societies. But isn't a monk also a member of Medieval societies? By your logic, this answer choice wouldn't be a flaw since it would also be a claim.