Q4 - Sydonie: Parents differ in their

[rbolden]

I can see why C is the correct answer. But can you explain why E is the incorrect answer?

[aileenann]

Sure thing. I think (E), for one thing, is out of scope. We are most interested in parental attitudes towards discipline and school policies. (E) looks at educators' attitudes - but that has nothing to do with either what Sydonie nor what Stephanie is talking about, so it doesn't seem to be a fault in Stephanie's argument that she skips talking about something that Sydonie isn't talking about either.

Moreover, even if we try to reach, educators' attitude towards discipline in school is only relevant if we *assume* that their attitude towards discipline has something to do with the sort of discipline they actually enforce. While this seems sensible in the real world, we don't want to bring in outside knowledge or assumptions when we take the LSAT. When you start adding "normal" or "common sense" background like this, you are probably looking at a wrong answer. Correct answers shouldn't need you to add anything of your own to make them work.

I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have follow up questions or comments

[sbuzzetto10]

I also see why C is the correct answer, but could someone explain why B is incorrect? It seemed to me that Stephanie made both of these errors... Good discipline being the more general issue than disciplinary structure

[bbirdwell]

Well, in one sense (B) is wrong because it is not a necessarily a logical flaw. It's possible to use a more general issue and still have sound reasoning.

In another sense, one good way of looking at these kinds of questions is to consider the connection to the first person's argument that the second person doesn't seem to be making. Often, one can phrase this as an assumption.

Sydonie: Parents have different beliefs about rules. Therefore, disc. structure --> contradict some approaches --> resentment

Stephanie: Wrong! (NOT true that structure leads to contradiction and resentment!) Why? Parents really want good discipline

What's missing here? You got it -- there's definitely a difference between "disciplinary structure" and "good discipline," and it's not exactly that one is more general than the other, is it? They're both general.

It's more like they're just not the same thing. So Stephanie's argument is bad because it's sort of based on irrelevant evidence. She's trying to refute Sydonie's argument and she's essentially ignoring Sydonie's evidence and talking about something else entirely.

That's what (C) brings attention to, and that's another way we could've avoided choosing (B). Does that make sense?

[zainrizvi]

I don't like this question at all.

1) It would be reasonable to suggest that good discipline encompasses disciplinary structure but if you're willing to say that's outside knowledge, I'm willing to concede that...

2)... hoooooowever, the bigger issue I have with this question is that the conclusion is the second sentence, and C) targets the first sentence, or the premise. You can argue against a conclusion without necessarily countering the premises; hence, Sydonie's suggestion isn't flawed because it doesn't address the premise, it is flawed because it doesn't really address the conclusion.


Agree/disagree? I HOPE I'm seeing something incorrectly here...

[alana.canfield]

I also am confused with this question for the same reason mentioned above - Stephanie claims Sydonie's conclusion (that any disciplinary structure in schools is bound to create resentment) is incorrect, yet (C) says Stephanie's argument is vulnerable because it failed to attack Sydonie's premise. If Stephanie had said "Your argument is incorrect" instead of "Your conclusion is incorrect", I would have felt a lot better about (C). But (C) seems off base because Stephanie is simply trying to refute Sydonie's conclusion, which does not require that she refute Sydonie's premise as (C) implies. Can anyone shed some light on this?

[js_martin01]

Hey Alanna. Let me try my hand at an explanation for why (C) is the correct answer.

It is a subtle inconsistency in Stephanie's reasoning that makes her argument somewhat porous.

Let's first look at Sydonie's main point - that is, disciplinary structures in school is bound to create resentment because it will contradict some parental approaches to raising children.

Stephanie counters that this assertion is wrong, because discipline is always high on parent's list of things they want in their children's schools. Notice the subtle difference between "parental approaches" to discipline and Stephanie's general application of "discipline". Stephanie's argument does not necessarily preclude the possibility that some parental approaches to discipline will still be contradicted despite their ranking discipline high on their lists. For instance, they may agree that discipline is a priority, but disagree on the degree, or form of it. While the school might favor suspending a misbehaving student from school, the parent's suggested approach might take the form of detention, or community involvement.

Does this help you see this a little differently?

[alana.canfield]

Hey Alanna. Let me try my hand at an explanation for why (C) is the correct answer.

It is a subtle inconsistency in Stephanie's reasoning that makes her argument somewhat porous.

Let's first look at Sydonie's main point - that is, disciplinary structures in school is bound to create resentment because it will contradict some parental approaches to raising children.

Stephanie counters that this assertion is wrong, because discipline is always high on parent's list of things they want in their children's schools. Notice the subtle difference between "parental approaches" to discipline and Stephanie's general application of "discipline". Stephanie's argument does not necessarily preclude the possibility that some parental approaches to discipline will still be contradicted despite their ranking discipline high on their lists. For instance, they may agree that discipline is a priority, but disagree on the degree, or form of it. While the school might favor suspending a misbehaving student from school, the parent's suggested approach might take the form of detention, or community involvement.

Does this help you see this a little differently?

Hi js_martin! I definitely see your point (thank you), although my real point of confusion hinges on something you didn't mention, so I'm just going to elaborate on it in case anyone else has the same source of misunderstanding.

At first, it seemed to me that (C) would be correct IF the question stem had been something like "Stephanie's argument shows that she misunderstands Sydonie's argument because...". But this question asks for the flaw in Stephanie's argument. I read Stephanie's argument to be this:

"The conclusion that any disciplinary structure will create resentment is incorrect because parents always rank good discipline as a high priority".

So I was expecting the flaw to be something like "takes for granted that there is no disciplinary structure that could ever cause resentment among parents when those parents always rank good discipline as a high priority". To me it seemed Stephanie's argument should stand alone by itself and didn't need to rely on or address anything in Sydonie's argument. But now I see the flaw in my reasoning - the logic behind (C) is still correct even when you read Stephanie's argument to be as I wrote it out above, because (C) exposes a weakness in Stephanie's argument (that she doesn't address TYPE/relative importance of discipline as a possible source of resentment). What mislead me about (C) is that it seemed to suggest that Stephanie needed to counter Sydonie, which wouldn't be the case if Sydonie didn't make any good points - but in this situation Sydonie makes a point which weakens Stephanie's argument, and so that weakness is a flaw which must be addressed.

[austindyoung]

Alana.canfield, I think I had the same issue as you. And can I say, I am really impressed with your made-up AC of what would be a correct flaw. I always think its so B.A. when people get so familiar with this test they can write flaws.

Anyhoo... I thought this through. Writing it out helps me. Hopefully it will help the reader. I may be wrong....

(C) states [paraphrase] "it doesn't counter the suggestion made by Sydonie that parents have different concepts of what makes up good discipline."

I thought "suggestion" referred to a premise as well- but where is the premise that "parents have different concepts of what makes up good discipline" in Syd.'s argument? It's NOT there.

In fact- I think Syd.'s argument is flawed. It uses a Term Shift from the first sentence- (which is not background info.), but a premise, and incorrectly uses it as evidence for the Intermediate Conclusion (which is the second part of the second sentence) and then moves on to the final conclusion.

So we have what bbirdwell wrote:

Parents have different beliefs about rules. Therefore, disc. structure --> contradict some approaches --> resentment

Maybe I'm wrong here- but it seems that Sydonie's suggestion is not a premise- but rather it is her moving from:

(1st sentence premise) parents differ in their opinions about rules their kids ought to be subject to---> (2nd sentence sufficient condition) it [disciplinary structure] will bump up against at least some parent's methods of raising their kids.

It reminds me of when RC questions state, "The passage suggests that..." The passage may not state it explicitly, so you have to combine some statements to get there.

So- the question addresses not the final conclusion made by Sydonie, but the Premise--->Intermediate Conclusion- which is where this suggestion is located (and most questions with ICs have the assumption in that area instead of where the final conclusion is).

It seems that there is actually an assumption going on here. That (from the 1st sentence) parents differing in their beliefs about rules their children can be subjected to, to mean that parental methods of raising their children in turn are different as well.

A problem I have with my explanation is that it seems that this is so obvious- how can it be an assumption? Or, maybe I am incorrect and it is simply a Repeated Premise that has a term shift, rather than an incorrect argument in and of itself.

However- it is not explicitly stated- and, must be something that should be addressed since (C) is the correct answer.

[austindyoung]

Also- another thing I just noticed. Even without the first sentence in Syd.'s argument- we could still get to (C).

The last sentence of Sydonie's argument requires the assumption that parents parents differ from each other in in their approaches to raising children.

Insert, "Parents do NOT differ in their approaches to raising children." Well, this conclusion about causing resentment appears as folly.

Stephanie's argument does not address this assumption. I think the reason (C) states it as "suggestion" is because of the presence of the first sentence.

Maybe I'm reading too closely here- because honestly I'm more familiar with going this in depth later in the section. (C) is hard, I think, precisely because it addresses this somewhat complex mistake (or maybe what I am making more complex than need be).

So- it seems that Stephanie's flaw is that she doesn't address the flaw in Sydonie's argument. And, that's what (C) states, right? We can see that Stephanie brings in irrelevant information- but the correct answer is about Sydonie's argument and that Stephanie does not address it properly.

Now- I could be completely off base and in la la land here- so I'd just wait for a Geek to correct or substantiate what I have written here.

[wgutx08]

Also didn't pick C and totally agree with some of the previous posters. If B is wrong because it's not a necessary flaw, then C can't be right either -- of course it's not necessary to counter the premise in order to attack the conclusion!

After reading this Q for many times, I am guessing that LSAC wanted C to be interpreted under the obvious/implicit premise that Stephanie is only trying to attack Sydonie's suggestion, that she is not attacking the argument in any other aspects. Sy states a difference in her premise. St says" no , they are all alike!" She is obviously not trying to attack Sydonie's argument leading from premise, but trying to take on the premise itself.

Maybe C would be a better choice if it reads:
it fails in its attempt to counter...
or even just adding one word :
it does not successfully counter...

And I still don't get why B is "more" wrong than C. OK, it is not necessarily a flaw to attack a more general issue, but C doesn't sound literally necessary either the way it is now. Is the issue that parents want discipline more general than the issue what kind of structure/rules they want in that discipline? I personally do think so.

Would appreciate so much if the geeks here could elaborate on this!!!! It's really annoying to lose point on such an actually simple question (Q4, not Q24!!). And I have no idea what to learn from this mistake. I may very well pick the wrong one again at a similar Q with similar ACs.

[donnakim92]

Hello!

I actually had difficulty taking (C) as the answer. Sydonie suggests that parents have different approaches/rules to discipline. I'm not sure how this can imply that they have different ideas as to what constitutes "good discipline." They could simply have different approaches, but have the same idea of what "good discipline" looks like, couldn't they?

I interpreted that approaches to discipline and the concept of "good discipline" were two different things..Parents prefer varying approaches; hence, taking that all parents want good discipline is not really telling us any specific approaches that parents want from a school..so I was between (B) and (D).

[gaheexlee]

Sydonie suggests that parents have different approaches/rules to discipline. I'm not sure how this can imply that they have different ideas as to what constitutes "good discipline."

I think you may be getting a bit too caught up on the 'good discipline' part. Let me try to give you an easier example:

Sydonie: Parents like many different ice cream and topping combinations. So any one combination of ice cream flavor and topping will create resentment because it will contradict some parents' preferences.

Stephanie: You're wrong. Research shows that when choosing their combinations, parents list 'something healthy' as being high on the list.

Even if all parents list 'something healthy' as an important consideration in choosing the ice cream/topping combination, if you give every parent just one combination to eat (say vanilla with sugar free sprinkles), there will likely still be some unhappy parents who would rather pecans than the sprinkles - even if the pecan group agrees that sugar free sprinkle ice cream combination qualifies as 'something healthy'. In short, Stephanie failed to address Sydonie's claim that any one particular combination will not satisfy a parent. Instead, Stephanie broadened the scope to say "they all agree that healthy is good."

I hope that helped

[nju.guyan]

I have an alternative explanation for answer (C). The first thing is that the word "counter" does not necessarily mean "object", but it could mean "say something in response to", or "address". What answer (C) says is that Stephanie does not address the fact that Parent A's good discipline may be different from Parent B's good discipline. Obviously, though parents all rank good discipline very high on the list, it still could inevitably result in resentment because parents have diverse standards of what constitutes good discipline. Without taking this point into consideration, Stephanie's objection to Sydonie's conclusion is flawed.

I considered answer (B) correct because I think "general issue" refers to "good discipline", and Sydonie's argument addresses the existence of different rules, which act as sub-categories under good discipline. However, this kind of wording is too weird.

The reason why I missed (C) is because I misunderstood the word "counter". My paraphrase is pretty close to what (C) says if I understood "counter" correctly.

Hope this helps!