Q24 - One of the great difficulties

[weiyichen1986]

Hey dear people,

I picked B over D in this question. Answer D is about either Or , which is not a logic that stated in the stimulus.

The argument basically is saying we need to define the :living things more clearly. so why B is wrong???

Can you also explain why E is wrong? Thank you so much.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Great question, thanks for bringing it to the forum!

We're asked to find an answer choice that can "most reasonably be inferred." That gives us some wiggle room, so the answer doesn't have to proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, but it should follow fairly easily from the stimulus.

The stimulus names two issues with establishing right for animals based on the fact they're living things: defined too broadly and we'll include plants (ie; something other than animals) and defined too narrowly, we won't include animals that should be included.

Think about the logic involved in the following example:

If John goes to the store and pays in cash, he always buys milk or else eggs. So when John goes to the store, if he doesn't buy milk, then either he buys eggs, or else he doesn't pay in cash.

I know it's complicated but the second sentence does follow from the first sentence and simply reorganizes the conditional relationship. Answer choice (D) is doing the same thing. It's reorganizing the logic of the stimulus without drawing any new information or leaving anything out.

Let's look at the incorrect answers:

(A) is out of scope. Whether or not something should be done is not a topic of discussion. Answer choice (A) takes a wrong turn with the word "should."
(B) is not necessarily true. It would be true if we had to use "living things" as the basis for the bestowing of rights. As it relates the example above, this would be like saying that if John does not buy eggs that he must buy milk. But that's necessarily true because he might not be paying in cash.
(C) is not true. it's not delineating the set of living things, but rather delineating amongst the set of living things.
(E) is not true. Just because it is difficult to grant rights to animals by defining limits on living things, does not mean that being a living thing is irrelevant to being granted rights.

Hope that helps, and let me know if you still have further questions on this one!

[KakaJaja]

Sorry but I don't really understand why C is wrong.

I think the argument is delineating the boundary of living things, the boundary, as he said, may either go too broad--include some plants, or go too narrow--exclude some animals.

Your reply "but rather delineating amongst the set of living things" makes the assumption that living things include all the plants and animals, so the argument is delineating among them.

The only doubt I have about C is at the end it said the action "interferes with every attempt to establish animal rights". The term "every" may be too extreme?

Please tell me where I get wrong, thank you very much!

[felix-3]

I think you are right in pointing on every establishes too strong of an inference. The stimulus talks only about animal rights based MERELY on the fact that animals are living things. So it would be wrong to conclude that it interferes with EVERY since it only talks about one scenario.

[rpcuhk]

is there a middle ground between construing the term "living things" broadly and narrowly?

[Jessica_x_1028]

E is talking about whether animal should or should not be accorded rights. But the statement is about establishing right. I feel they are two different issues. And "irrelevant" is also not right.

[SJK493]

The question is: If the statements above are true, which one of the following can be most reasonably inferred from them?
Is there a difference between a Must Be True question and this one, which seems like Most Strongly Supported question? Then specifically for this question, how would a Must Be True answer differ from a Most Strongly Supported answer?

[RichardN82]

Yes, there is. For MSS questions, the degree of certainty is lessened. You're basically trying to get to an AC that MBT as much as possible, however, the AC doesn't 100% have to be true. It just has to be supported by the stimulus' statements.

Also, with the question stem, "If the statements above are true, which one of the following can be most reasonably inferred from them?", "most reasonably" is the best indicator that this question is an MSS compared to an MBT.

[WhimsicalWillow]

Question: I know that B is wrong because it includes “some” plants when it should say “all” plants, but I don’t understand how D correct because it also says “some plants” which is not part of the stimulus yet, it’s the correct AC?

B) One cannot bestow rights on animals without also bestowing rights on at least some plants

D) Successful attempts to establish rights for all animals are likely either to establish rights for some plants or not to depend solely on the observation that animals are living things

[Laura Damone]

Hi there, so sorry for the embarrassingly-long delay here.

B isn't wrong because it says "some" and not "all." True, if we bestowed rights on all living things, we would inherently bestow them on all plants, not just some plants. But since "some" is of a lesser degree than "all," when "all" would be accurate, "some" is also accurate. For example, all users of our forums use the forums online. That's a true story. But it's also correct to say that some forum users use the forums online. That's a true story too. It's not the whole story, but it's a true story nonetheless. MANY correct answers to tough Must Be True questions will be like this: they'll say something that must be true, even though it doesn't paint a complete picture of everything that must be true based on that stimulus.

Ok, so if B isn't wrong because of the "some," why is it wrong? Because it only deals with one of the two scenarios presented in the stimulus. The stimulus tells us that if we construe the term "living things" broadly, then we'll end up counting plants. But if we construe the term "living things" narrowly, we might miss some organisms that are biologically considered animals. In this scenario, plants might not make the cut either. That's why B is wrong.

D, on the other hand, addresses both scenarios. If we want to establish rights for all animals, then we can't go with the narrow construction scenario. That means either we're either construing "living things" broadly and giving rights to plants, or we're using a different framework instead of, or in addition to, the "living thing" requirement.

Hope this helps!

[HughM388]

Hi there, so sorry for the embarrassingly-long delay here.

B isn't wrong because it says "some" and not "all." True, if we bestowed rights on all living things, we would inherently bestow them on all plants, not just some plants. But since "some" is of a lesser degree than "all," when "all" would be accurate, "some" is also accurate. For example, all users of our forums use the forums online. That's a true story. But it's also correct to say that some forum users use the forums online. That's a true story too. It's not the whole story, but it's a true story nonetheless. MANY correct answers to tough Must Be True questions will be like this: they'll say something that must be true, even though it doesn't paint a complete picture of everything that must be true based on that stimulus.

Ok, so if B isn't wrong because of the "some," why is it wrong? Because it only deals with one of the two scenarios presented in the stimulus. The stimulus tells us that if we construe the term "living things" broadly, then we'll end up counting plants. But if we construe the term "living things" narrowly, we might miss some organisms that are biologically considered animals. In this scenario, plants might not make the cut either. That's why B is wrong.

D, on the other hand, addresses both scenarios. If we want to establish rights for all animals, then we can't go with the narrow construction scenario. That means either we're either construing "living things" broadly and giving rights to plants, or we're using a different framework instead of, or in addition to, the "living thing" requirement.

Hope this helps!

So you're saying that (D) entertains yet a third option ("using a different framework") that is not mentioned in the stimulus?

I didn't know that was allowed on a question of this type, as the answers on these questions seem to limit themselves quite strictly to the terms set down in the stimulus. So if the stimulus of an inference question says "John doesn't like apples and John doesn't like oranges" the correct answer couldn't be "But John likes bananas."

It also seemed to me that, because of the fundamental "great difficulties" described in the stimulus, it would be inherently impossible to describe an effort to establish animal rights as definitively "successful"—because even if you used a different set of criteria someone could always shift the terms of those criteria to include more or fewer organisms. That was, vaguely, part of my answer-choice anticipation, and it's what (C) vaguely resembled to me.

How do we assess "success" in animal-rights assignment, and how could we trust that such an assessment is, in fact, successful? The stimulus mentions neither success nor the means for defining and assessing it, so its appearance in (D) appeared like quite a leap. Who is the arbiter of success in determining and assigning animal rights? Does (D) assume a UN animal-rights authority whose word on these matters is final? And in successfully assigning those rights, what method and criteria were used, and why are they better than the method and criteria described in the stimulus? How does that method solve the fundamental problem of inclusion-exclusion described in the stimulus?

Without the answers to those questions, it's impossible to begin to know what "successful" in the realm of animal rights would look like, let alone to infer what such attempts are more or less likely to do.

[ChentuoZ870]

The reasoning below may help to clarify:

The stimulus is actually constructed in two layers.

1.IF "based merely on fact that animal are living things" (a) , then:
1.1 if boardly defined, then something not animals included;(b)
1.2 if narrowly defined, then some animals not included.(c)
IF (a), then either (b) or (c).

D) says about rights of all animals(i.e. ~c), then either include some plants(b), or not based merely on fact(~a). From diagram above we can see it is the CORRECT choice as crystal clear.

for B), it says(~b) is impossible, yet (c) is consistent with this choice, under (c) one does not bestow rights on plants. so clear B) is wrong.

for C), it says (b) and (c). Yet it ignore the (a). We do not know the circumstance under(~a).

A) and E) are clearly wrong.