Q25 - Chef: This mussel recipe's first

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Necessary Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: The chef can skip the cornmeal step.
Premises: The cornmeal is to clean out sand. The mussels at the markets don't have sand in them.

Answer Anticipation:
The cornmeal step isn't needed for mussels purchased at the market. However, the chef never tells us where he purchased his mussles. Therefore, we need an answer that says he purchased them at the market.

Correct Answer:
(E)

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Out of scope. Cornmeal is used to wash out sand, but the farm-raised mussels don’t have sand to begin with.

(B) Out of scope. Even if there are other contaminants, we have no way of knowing if the cornmeal would have an effect on them. The stimulus specifically states that cornmeal has them eject sand, not all contaminants. Yes, it says the cornmeal cleans them out, but I'd also say a vacuum is used to clean an apartment even though I also need a mop, duster, etc... to finish the job.

(C) Out of scope. It might be more important to have clean mussles than mussels without an altered taste. Also, the word "affect" is neutral, in the sense that it doesn't convey whether it enhances or detracts from the taste - not too important here, but something important to note in general.

(D) Out of scope. When the recipe was written doesn't matter for the necessity of the step.

(E) Bingo. If we negate this and the chef's mussels aren't from the seafood market, they might have sand and thus require the first step. Unless you want sandy mussels. Philistine.

Takeaway/Pattern:
Don't write statements into the argument! It's easy to read in that the chef shopped at the seafood market but, short of a premise stating it, it's not established.

#officialexplanation

[Raiderblue17]

How is B not correct. I see how E is right, but b seems to be a good choice.

Im guessing the chef didn't mention contaminants, but someone would be greatly appreciated if they expounded furhter

[timmydoeslsat]

The argument core:

Recipe's first step is sprinkle live mussels with cornmeal.
+
Cornmeal used to clean them.
+
Take cornmeal in and eject sand out.
+
Mussels available at seafood markets are farm raised and do not have sand

---> I can skip first step!


Hold the phone! I understand that the mussels available at seafood markets do not have sand. But did you obtain your mussels from there? The chef never says! It may be true that mussels available from a seafood market do not contain sand, but perhaps the chef is using a mussel he obtained from the ocean!

Choice B. Let us negate it.

Mussels contain some contaminants other than sand.

Does this matter in respect to our conclusion of this chef being able to skip the first step? No!

The mussels could contain 1,000 contaminants. Does not matter.

Answer E negated.

The mussels the chef is using for the mussel recipe did not come from a seafood market.

This ruins his argument.

[wguwguwgu]

Can anyone tell me why C is wrong?

The chef is assuming that the sole function of cornmeal is to clean the mussels, so he can skip it if the mussels don't have sand in them.

But if the cornmeal is also added for flavor, then he should NOT skip it if he wants to follow the recipe, right?

thanks so much!

[timmydoeslsat]

There is nothing necessary about affecting taste in this argument.

We also do not know if it affects the taste in a positive or negative manner.

[jgallorealestate]

B is wrong because it doesn't follow that cornmeal can clean out anything besides sand.

If it read, "Mussels contain no contaminants other than sand that the cornmeal is intended to clean out."

I believe it would be correct.

It's kind of a scope shift: cleaning out sand and contaminants. They're not the same thing.

[amil91]

B is wrong because it doesn't follow that cornmeal can clean out anything besides sand.

If it read, "Mussels contain no contaminants other than sand that the cornmeal is intended to clean out."

I believe it would be correct.

It's kind of a scope shift: cleaning out sand and contaminants. They're not the same thing.

I agree, all the stimulus says is that cornmeal is taken in and sand is ejected, it doesn't say that the cornmeal cleans anything out of the mussels other than sand, so who cares if there are other contaminants, we don't know if the cornmeal would do anything about them.

[Mab6q]

I must say, I got this question wrong because I completely read over E and eliminated it quickly. Now, of course I feel silly because E is probably the most obvious assumption choice I have ever seen. That's probably why I did skip over it. However, my question here is not about E but about C. I have read some other explanations and I must say I am not pleased. I think an argument could be made for why it is necessary. Before I even got to the answer choices, my prephrase for this question was that the author is assuming that the cornmeal does not serve any other purpose besides the cleaning. C would seem to get at that gap. If it does affect their taste, than not having the mussels would mean that we would not have the same final result as with the recipe and I take issue with this. I would love for one of the experts to chime in and help me out with this one. Again, my concern is only about whether C is necessary. Thank you.

[Alvanith]

I got this wrong and I, too, read over E.

Here is my take:

P:
1st step is to sprinkle the mussels with cornmeal, and using cornmeal is to clean the sand out.
Seafood markets have mussels that are sand-free.
C:
I can skip the 1st step.

Assumption:
The chef is going to use those sand-free mussels. And this is E.

Answer Choices:
I think the key to rule out B and C is to keep in mind what the 1st step is used for: clean the sand out and nothing else, according to what we are given from the stimulus.
(B): We don't care about whether there are other contaminants. We are only going to clean out the sand. Who care about the other things? Even if there are other contaminants, we don't even know whether cornmeal can be used to clean them. We need further assumptions to make B correct.
(C): Still, remember the purpose of the 1st step: cleaning. We only care about whether the purpose of the step can be fulfilled. If the purpose can be fulfilled, we can certainly skip the step even if there are some downsides of skipping it because the benefits of the skipping might far outweigh some negative consequences. This is to say even if sprinkling does affect the taste, we can still say the step can be skipped because the purpose of the step is fulfilled. So if we negate this answer, the argument can still stand. Furthermore, the answer does not even clarify whether sprinkling affects the taste in a good way or a bad way. If it is in a bad way, skipping the step is of course without problem.

[GodLovesUgly]

This is one of the best examples demonstrating the difference between a sufficient assumption/necessary assumption question that I have come across.

(B) is sufficient for the argument to be valid, but not necessary, or "required" as expressed directly in the prompt. If you were to negate (B), the argument could still theoretically hold up, whereas if you negate the credited response (E), the argument falls apart immediately.

(C) is wrong simply based on scope. Nowhere in the stimulus does it mention anything about "taste." It's easy to make assumptions yourself on some of these questions and they almost always lead you astray. It seems logical to assume that someone cooking mussels is concerned with taste and based on that (C) starts to look appealing, but it is clearly wrong based on the information contained in the stimulus.

[asafezrati]

This is one of the best examples demonstrating the difference between a sufficient assumption/necessary assumption question that I have come across.

(B) is sufficient for the argument to be valid, but not necessary, or "required" as expressed directly in the prompt. If you were to negate (B), the argument could still theoretically hold up, whereas if you negate the credited response (E), the argument falls apart immediately.

(C) is wrong simply based on scope. Nowhere in the stimulus does it mention anything about "taste." It's easy to make assumptions yourself on some of these questions and they almost always lead you astray. It seems logical to assume that someone cooking mussels is concerned with taste and based on that (C) starts to look appealing, but it is clearly wrong based on the information contained in the stimulus.

Actually, B is not sufficient, since we don't know a very basic thing - the chef's mussels might not be from the seafood markets and they may contain sand. So even if B is correct, he may still have to use cornmeal after all.

Moreover, I don't think that the taste issue is out of scope. A hypothetical answer choice could have said something like: It is not necessarily true that mussel dishes prepared without cleaning the mussels using cornmeal taste like vomit.

Here are some very quick explanations for every answer choice:
A. Usage of cornmeal prior to the whole recipe thing isn't relevant because the mussels in discussion do not contain sand when they get to the chef anyway!
B. And if they contain mercury, which stays there even if cornmeal is used? Other contaminants don't necessarily affect the conclusion.
C. Does cornmeal changing the taste says that it's good, bad or necessary at all for the cooking process? No.
D. One of the most irrelevant answer choices I have ever seen in my studies.
E. Says something that is so simple, that I had automatically done myself while reading the stimulus. The chef doesn't say that HIS mussels don't contain sand, but he does describe these seafood market mussels.

Very simple for a last question in the section.

[DongheeK886]

First time poster here. Big fan of this site and have been my primary source of learning and improving LSAT score.

I also selected (c) and misread (E) - I interpreted (E) that the chef got the recipe from the market, not the mussels. I think I misread (E) because I was so sure about (C) since it matched my pre-phrase very well. I thought that the gap was that getting sand out was the only reason for sprinkling with cornmeal. (C) introduced another reason for cornmeal and I took this bait.

After thinking about this question for some time, I realized that my pre-phrase was actually very wrong.

Turning the stimulus into formal logic:

Premise:
(1) Use of cornmeal -> sand out
(2) Mussel from Seafood market -> /sand out

Conclusion:
/use of cornmeal

The reasoning regarding "sand out" and "use of cornmeal" is actually valid. The contra-posistive of premise (1): since there is no need to "sand out", no need to use the cornmeal.

The assumption the author needs to make is that the mussels chef got was from the seafood market to ensure premise (2) to work in the reasoning. (ensuring the "trigger")

Please correct me if my reasoning is incorrect...
Hope this helps!

[andrewgong01]

First time poster here. Big fan of this site and have been my primary source of learning and improving LSAT score.

I also selected (c) and misread (E) - I interpreted (E) that the chef got the recipe from the market, not the mussels. I think I misread (E) because I was so sure about (C) since it matched my pre-phrase very well. I thought that the gap was that getting sand out was the only reason for sprinkling with cornmeal. (C) introduced another reason for cornmeal and I took this bait.

After thinking about this question for some time, I realized that my pre-phrase was actually very wrong.

Turning the stimulus into formal logic:

Premise:
(1) Use of cornmeal -> sand out
(2) Mussel from Seafood market -> /sand out

Conclusion:.
/use of cornmeal

The reasoning regarding "sand out" and "use of cornmeal" is actually valid. The contra-posistive of premise (1): since there is no need to "sand out", no need to use the cornmeal.

The assumption the author needs to make is that the mussels chef got was from the seafood market to ensure premise (2) to work in the reasoning. (ensuring the "trigger")

Please correct me if my reasoning is incorrect...
Hope this helps!

that was my prephase too : "other reasons to use cornmeal".However, I am not quite sure if I fully agree with your reasoning because I didn't really see it as a conditional statement ("Cornmeal --> Eject Sand) but at the same time it does make sense that it is a conditional since if I use cornmeal I know I will eject out sand.

I am curious though, would there have been an answer choice that ruled out alternative causes been valid given the way the logic this stimulus is constructed based where if we followed :
"Premise:
(1) Use of cornmeal -> sand out
(2) Mussel from Seafood market -> /sand out

Conclusion:
/use of cornmeal"

Would ruling out alternative reasons matteR?

Edit: I re-read it again and my guess is no since we stated up front cornmeal is used to clean out sand; however, it never said that was the only reason