Q6 - Antonia: The stock market

[LSAT-Chang]

I chose (D) over (E). Here is my thought process:

Antonia would disagree with (D) since she states that "the stock market is the BEST place to invest money" whereas Maria would agree with (D) since she basically states that "it is better to invest in saving bonds than stock market". So I don't see why (D) would be wrong.

If (D) is wrong because we can't infer what Antonia thinks of saving bonds since she doesn't mention about it -- then I think (E) would be wrong too since she doesn't mention anything about "picking an investment offering a reliable income". Do you see my point?

Or is (D) wrong because of the word "safer"? Because Antonia just says that the stock market is the "best place" not the "safest", whereas "safer" is implied in Maria's argument. I don't get it.. I seem to have a lot of trouble with these point at issue questions for some reason. Am I inferring too much?

[timmydoeslsat]

I would break down the dialogue like this:

Antonia: I think that Action A is the best way to invest your money. Yeah, it can be wacky and wild, but it provides the best opportunity to make a large profit quickly.


Maria: I totally agree that Action A provides the best opportunity to make a large profit quickly, but a person can just as likely lose money doing Action A! I prefer to do Action B because it can provide a steady and reliable income over many years.

Think about what these two disagree about.

Let us see what we can state that they disagree about.

Does Antonia disagree with Maria that Action B is safer? We really do not know. All Antonia really talked about was Action A. I know that Maria would feel that Action B is safer than A. I would probably guess that Antonia would more than likely agree with that, although we do not know for sure her thoughts on that. The best we could come up with on this idea is total agreement.

Antonia's whole concept behind why Action A is the way to go is because it gives you a chance to make a lot of money quickly.

Maria does not disagree that Action A can do that! She just believes that Action B is preferable because you do not have that really risky behavior that Action A induces.


As for your point about E. We can infer what Antonia thinks of B! We know that it is not preferable to Action A! Why is this? Antonia stated that Action A was the BEST place to invest your money. While Maria thinks that Action B is BETTER than what Antonia thought was "best."

[LSAT-Chang]

Does Antonia disagree with Maria that Action B is safer? We really do not know. All Antonia really talked about was Action A. I know that Maria would feel that Action B is safer than A. I would probably guess that Antonia would more than likely agree with that, although we do not know for sure her thoughts on that. The best we could come up with on this idea is total agreement.

I definitely overlooked the word "safer"! I assumed (which I wasn't supposed to) that Antonia would think that stock market's are safer than saving bonds because it is the "best" but we actually do not know at all whether she thinks it is safer or not! Thanks for the great explanation!

[timmydoeslsat]

Exactly. I'd be willing to bet that Antonia would agree that Maria's method is safer than her's. It is just that Antonia thinks her way is the best because, in her mind, it is all about making money quickly.

[LSAT-Chang]

Exactly. I'd be willing to bet that Antonia would agree that Maria's method is safer than her's. It is just that Antonia thinks her way is the best because, in her mind, it is all about making money quickly.

YES! I totally agree -- since Antonia does take into the fact that "it is often volatile" -- so regardless of that, in her opinion, it is still the "best" since like you said, it is all about making a large profit quickly.

[donghai819]

One of distinctive features of some Disagreement questions, especially in first 10 questions, is that one of two people often says something arbitrary by saying something is the "only", "best", etc. What makes this a helpful clue is that if there is such an arbitrary word, the correct answer choice often has something to do with it. The answer choice could address that the other person actually disagree such an arbitrary conclusion made by one.