Q7 - Newsletter for community-center volunteers:

[mymansupa]

I'm having a hard time understanding these strong worded answers such as (E)... how do we KNOW that people with better resources, health, outlook, and functioning are more able to work as volunteers... what if these people have a job that restricts them from volunteering in the first place... it's like we have to assume that this is the case... Flaw in the Reasoning questions confuse me because I thought in the LSAT the reader is NOT supposed to assume... please help. Thank you.

[giladedelman]

You know, I agree with you. (E) is not a perfect answer because, like you say, we don't absolutely know that these people are better able to serve as volunteers.

But remember, we're looking for the best answer. Let's start by working from wrong to right to make sure that the other four are definitely incorrect.

So, the premise here is that retired people who volunteer display fewer and milder effects of aging overall. From this, the argument concludes that volunteering can benefit the well-being of the volunteer.

The assumption here is a common one: from a mere correlation between volunteering and well-being, the argument assumes a causal connection, that is, that volunteering causes the benefits. But couldn't it be the other way around -- that having fewer effects of aging makes you more able to volunteer your time for others?

Let's check out the wrong answers:

(A) is irrelevant. Whether the center has a motive in attracting volunteers doesn't affect the strength of its logic.

(B) is a funny answer. If "well-being" didn't include those things, what the heck would it mean?

(C) is tempting, but the argument tells us that the comparison is between volunteers and their non-volunteering "contemporaries," which means they're the same age.

(D) kind of attacks one little part of the premise, but it doesn't need to be true that growing older always changes one's mental outlook for it to be true that volunteering improves mental outlook in general.

Okay, so those four are definitely wrong. We're left with (E): the inference is unwarranted because those with better resources, health, outlook, and functioning are more able to work as volunteers. Now, you're right: this would be a better answer if it said "those with better blah blah blah may be more able to work as volunteers." But at the same time, this is not a very big leap. The list of "social resources, mental outlook, physical health, economic resources, and overall functioning" really covers a lot of bases. It's a baby step to suggest that these people are more able to volunteer.

So although it's not 100% perfect, this answer clearly addresses the argument's assumption about causality, and does it in a way that's not too extreme a jump.

Does that make sense?

[mymansupa]

Yes... this was very helpful... I can def. use this knowledge to answer other questions like this... Thanks a lot.

[moon]

Hi. Could anyone explain why (B) is incorrect specifically?

I thought (B) is essentially pointing out the term shift from "factors of social and economic resources, mental outlook, physical health, and overall functioning" to "well-being"

Isn't term-shift usually a flaw in logical reasoning?
Thank you very much!

[maryadkins]

Some term shifts are okay, because some terms actually ARE synonyms, and some words actually DO capture a category of more specific terms"”as is the case here.

As another example, if we had "lack of rain" and then later "drought," that would be okay. A drought IS a lack of rain.

Well-being is an acceptable descriptive term for these lists of factors, which is what Gilad was saying.