Q3 - In an experiment, tennis players

[LSAT-Chang]

Is (A) wrong because both groups of tennis players will be closely watched and not just the group who were told that their tennis-playing talent would be measured? I chose the correct answer (B) but spent a lot of time deciding between (A) and (B).

[timmydoeslsat]

Yes, that is the reasoning used in dismissing choice A. Very good.

[schmid215]

Hmmm. Not so sure that's the correct line of reasoning to get rid of (A). There's no reason to think that the TP's who are having their rackets assessed won't be closely watched either, or at least there's not if we think on the basis of the stimulus that the other group is being closely watched, too. But that's the problem, I think--"closely watched while doing it" isn't supported for either group. All we know is that the performance of these groups will be used to assess something. That doesn't actually entail being watched while performing that task. Could easily be the case that the matches, practice, or whatever it is, will be taped and then used to assess performance/racket quality after the fact.

[ptraye]

if the matches were being taped instead of watched closely, int he experiment, then A still would not be the correct answer.

A would be better if they said would be measured instead of will be closely watched.

[christine.defenbaugh]

There's a lot of great discussion here about "closely watched" and how it functions here! One important thing to think about - whether we're talking about tapes or direct watching, or whatever - do we have any indication of a difference between the two groups in this?

Let's take a step back and assess our task. We have situation that occurred: one group of tennis players perform better than another; and we need an answer choice that conforms to this. All the answer choices are in the form of conditionals - that means our situation needs to trip the conditional in question AND it needs to end up at the conditional's result.

The only difference between the two groups is that one is told their performance is being judged, and the other is told that only the racket itself is being judged. This trips the conditional in (B)! One group does not believe their abilities are being judged (the racket-judged group). The rule in (B) says that this group should perform better, and they do!


The Unconformists!
Both (A) and (C) end up where we want: saying one group performs better than the other. But the conditionals don't get triggered!

(A) - For for this to be triggered, one group would need to believe they were more closely watched than another. We have no indication this is the case! Just because the first group's performance is only being used to judge the racket does not indicate they will be less closely watched.

(C) - For this to be triggered, one group would need to have more confidence than the other. We have no indication that this is the case.

(D) - We have zero information about how either of these groups assess their own talents!

(E) - There's no indication that either of the groups believe a good performance will please someone, nor that either group tried harder than the other.


I hope this helps clear a few things up about this question!

[krisk743]

I'm still struggling to fully understand why the answer is B and not A. Is it because both groups were essentially being "closely watched" or just watched in general, and A only applies to the second group (skill measured ones) and not to the first group (racket quality, since they performed better)?

I was just hesitant on B that it used "more proficient". But now that I think about it, one group was "more proficient" and so it can apply to both in this case. Is that right? I hate getting questions like this wrong....ones that I burn time on because i'm 50/50 on them.

[snoopy]

I'm still struggling to fully understand why the answer is B and not A. Is it because both groups were essentially being "closely watched" or just watched in general, and A only applies to the second group (skill measured ones) and not to the first group (racket quality, since they performed better)?

I was just hesitant on B that it used "more proficient". But now that I think about it, one group was "more proficient" and so it can apply to both in this case. Is that right? I hate getting questions like this wrong....ones that I burn time on because i'm 50/50 on them.

It's not stated that one group was watched more than the other. Choosing A meant that you assumed the second group (talent measured) was more closely watched than the first group (racket quality). It could be the case that both groups were equally closely watched.

B is correct because the first group did perform "more proficiently" than the second group because the second group's talents were being measured vs. the first group.