Q3 - When Copernicus changed...

[doug.feng]

Principle Support Question

Premise:
-- Copernicus changed future way of thinking about solar system by looking at the same information differently, rather than finding new information
-- Jenner found smallpox vaccine when he shifted focus to disease prevention, rather than looking for a cure (shift of focus within given information).

Conclusion:
History is filled with breakthroughs where the focus is shifted within current information (not future/new).

Gap:
The breakthroughs that make up history were because of a shift in focus within CURRENT information.

(A): Discoveries were not by chance.
(C): Whether or not the ability to look at new information is rare is out of scope.
(D): "Better organization of information" is going too far. We just know that the two cases in the premise are shifting focus within the same information, not necessary that it's because the information is better organized.
(E): This is trying to credit the information size as to why the breakthroughs occurred, rather than the shift of focus.

(B): Correct. This talks about the shift of focus in why the breakthroughs occur.

[ohthatpatrick]

Nice explanation!

The question type is not actually "Principle Support", though.

Those need to take the form of, "Which of the following principles strengthens the argument/reasoning above?"

This question does not hand us an argument, just a set of facts.

I would really just think of this question as "Inference", because the gist of the question stem is simply "the facts above support which of the following answer choices?"

So we wouldn't actually try to break down an argument core with a set of facts.

Nevertheless, most of your answer choice diagnosis still applied.

I would be down to (A) and (B) after a first pass.

(C) contradicts ... "rare" vs. "replete" (plentiful examples)

(D) contradicts the gist ... in these examples understanding is NOT being advanced by new information, so it should not be winning the comparison

(E) We have no idea how astronomy or medicinal chemistry compare to other fields, in terms of amount of available information.

So considering (A) vs. (B), we would just ask ourselves, "Can I find better keywords to support 'by chance' or to support 'shifting from earlier modes of thought'?"

Clearly, "looking differently at info already available" and "shifted his focus to ___ from the then more common emphasis on ____" both provide better support for (B).

Just goes to show that knowing what question type you're working on isn't the be-all-end-all of LSAT success.