Q7 - Recent biography of Shakespeare

[smiller]

Question Type:
Sufficient Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Premise:
recent biography of Shakespeare does not explain what made him different from contemporaries

Conclusion:
the biography does not explain what is of most interest about Shakespeare

Answer Anticipation:
The premise is about a biography failing to explain what made Shakespeare "different from his contemporaries;" the argument then shifts to a conclusion about failing to explain what is "of most interest" about Shakespeare. These two concepts aren't necessarily the same. We need an answer choice that links them.

Correct Answer:
(E)

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Premise Booster. This answer choice might explain why the recent biography doesn't explain what made Shakespeare different. However, this doesn't guarantee a relationship between what made him different and what is of most interest about him.

(B) Detail Creep. Choice (B) is about the life of the "average" Elizabethan man. What does this have to do with Shakespeare? The premise tells us that he was a man of that time. Does it tell us that he was "average?" No, it doesn't.

(C) Premise Booster. This supports the idea that Shakespeare was different, as is already suggested in the premise. However, like (A), this does nothing to guarantee a relationship between what made him different and what is most interesting about him.

(D) Premise Booster. This indicates that the biography should have explained what made Shakespeare different (distinctive). Shame on you for not doing that, biographer, shame! But again, this doesn't show a relationship between Shakespeare being different, and what is of most interest about him.

(E) Correct. This gives us the connection we need.

Takeaway/Pattern: In many Sufficient Assumption questions, the key to success is to understand the "new concept" in the conclusion—a concept that isn't supported by the premises. The correct answer connects the premises to that new concept. We can often eliminate answer choices because they don't address the new concept in any clear way.

#officialexplanation

[jessicajoly88]

I got the answer (E) right for this one but was wondering if anyone could break it down for me?

[ohthatpatrick]

Sure thing, Jessica!

Question Type: Sufficient Assumption

Task: Figure out which answer choice, when added to the premises, creates an AIRTIGHT argument!

I always start from the conclusion and work backwards, because ultimately my goal is proving the conclusion. I want to find out what ideas are in the conclusion, see if we've defined/discussed those ideas in the premises, and then figure out what's missing to create a closed circuit of logic.

What's the conclusion?

Conc: Recent bio of Shakespeare does not explain what is of most interest about him.

(I know this is the conclusion because it is an opinion supported by the final sentence)

Okay, this means I need to define/discuss at least two things to prove this conclusion:

1. "What DOES/DOESN'T the recent bio of Shakespeare explain"

2. "What is of most interest about Shakespeare"

Looking through the evidence, we see answers to #1.

The recent bio DOES explain what life would have been like for a man of Shakepeare's time.

The recent bio DOES NOT explain what made Shakespeare different from his contemporaries.

Since the author never defined #2, "what is of most interest about Shakespeare", that wording or that idea MUST be in the correct answer choice.

The author goes from saying
"The recent bio does not explain what made S different from his contemporaries"
to concluding that
"The recent bio does not explain what is of most interest about S."

So the author needs to assume that "what made S different from his contemporaries" is "what is of most interest about him".

Scanning for that answer, we find (E), the correct answer.

You may have noticed that with Sufficient Assumption, we can treat the argument a little more robotically / mathematically than usual.

That's because our task is purely mathematical. We're supposed to create a perfect argument: no wiggle room, nothing undefined.

So we approach Sufficient Assumption differently from pretty much every other LR question, in the sense that we should actively organize the argument and determine (before looking at answers) what THE correct answer is.

This is the one question type where I would never need to work Wrong to Right. The four wrong choices will always be wrong because they DON'T create an airtight argument. They're not the missing piece we needed.

The big shortcut that's often available on Sufficient Assumption is to recognize new wording in the conclusion (a term or idea that is ONLY mentioned in the conclusion). In this case, "what is of most interest about him" appears only in the conclusion, so we MUST see that wording defined in the correct answer choice.

Using only this, we could get rid of (A) thru (D) without reading them. We need only scan for "what is of most interest about him", and if we don't see it, then the answer choice has no chance of creating an airtight argument.

Hope this helps.

[billyye125]

Sure thing, Jessica!



So the author needs to assume that "what made S different from his contemporaries" is "what is of most interest about him".

Hi Patrick I have yet one question:

Clearly (E) is THE answer...but I cannot help but being concerned about the order of the conditionality, namely E reverses the sufficient and necessary conditions, so would that be a reverse logic, even though it absolutely outwits the rest? Or we rather should be flexible in this case?

Thank you!

[fmuirhea]

There is no conditional relationship* stated in answer choice (E), so the logic cannot be backwards. The sentence construction uses the linking verb "is," which you can think of as functioning as an equals sign: it indicates that the two terms/phrases on either side of the verb are complementary.

There is no semantic or functional difference between these two statements:

What made S different from his contemporaries is what is of most interest about him.

What is of most interest about S is what made him different from his contemporaries.

Just as there is no difference between these two equations:

4 + 2 = 6

6 = 4 + 2

Although most sufficient assumption questions will make use of conditional relationships in the stimulus and/or answer choices, it is not a requirement. We could, however, rework these answer choices to include conditional language. Imagine if, instead, you had been presented with these two answer choices:

If a book about S does not explain what made him different from his contemporaries, then it does not explain what is of most interest about him.

If a book about S does not explain what is of most interest about him, then it does not explain what made him different from his contemporaries.

Which would be correct? In this case, instead of having a complementary relationship with the linking verb "is," you have a conditional relationship with the "if...then" structure, so your question about the order of necessary and sufficient conditions would be relevant. If the answer choices had been phrased like this, the first one would be correct, and the second incorrect.

Hopefully this clears up your question!

*Someone with more rigorous training in formal logic would be able to show that any sentence can be constructed as a conditional statement, but it is confusing and far beyond the scope of what is tested on the LSAT!

[billyye125]

Thank you fmuirhea!

Could you help me check with the following thinking? (I apologize if I am being nitpicky with the long post)

I have considered this when I reviewed this question, and the structure "A is B" is kind of tricky to me: sometimes it means "A is a subset of B" (e.g. "a Labrador is a dog" does not mean "A dog is a Labrador"; we cannot reverse the subject and object); sometimes it means "A is equivalent to B," especially for definitions e.g. "Oxygen is O2".

(Though I guess semantically, "a Labrador is a dog" is only good for colloquial use, since the proper way to use "is" is to say "a Labrador is a dog which xxx(characters that defines a Labrador)". "Is" technically should not be used to implicitly present the meaning of "is a subset of"...)

In this case, if (E) means "What is most interesting about Shakespeare is (part of, or a subset of) what made him different from his contemporary," then I suppose we cannot reverse. If it follows the idea of equivalence, then by all means this works.

It is insightful that you said "any sentence can be constructed as a conditional statement"! I guess in this case we "assume" that the "is" means equivalence?

Sorry if I am being annoyingly nitpicky...Thank you!

[fmuirhea]

I'll try to explain, but it might be better explained by someone with a stronger philosophy/linguistics background.

The sentence you proposed, "A Labrador is a dog," can be reversed and maintain its meaning, but you have to add in some of your parenthetical information that's implied but omitted in the phrase as currently constructed. As you said, the implied meaning is that a Lab is a subset of the set of dogs. So, we might think of the sentence as meaning:

A Labrador is one type of dog.

It's unlikely we'd phrase it that way, because it's easier to say, "A Labrador is a dog", but you can see that if it were reversed:

One type of dog is a Labrador.

The meaning is identical. I understand that simply reversing the original to produce, "A dog is a Labrador," seems incorrect, but that's because the implied meaning of the verb changes slightly; here, instead of taking "is" to mean "is a subset of," it impies something closer to "must be."

The verb "to be" does not take a direct object; it takes a subject complement.

It's possible I'm way off, so I encourage others to weigh in, but that's how I'd parse these sentences!

[lolandrew321]

I'm having a hard time eliminating "C"...any thoughts?

[ohthatpatrick]

Sure thing.

How do you test an answer choice on Sufficient Assumption to know whether it's right?



(got your answer?)


You add it to the premises and see if it PROVES (mathematically) the conclusion.

Suff Assump: S was diff from other men of his time
+
Prem: Bio doesn't explain what made S different
=========================
Bio doesn't explain what is of most interest about S.


Does that work as an airtight argument?

If you're not sure what an airtight argument looks like, it's like this:
A is B
B is C
thus, A is C

The important feature here is that the two ideas in the conclusion (A and C) are DEFINED in the evidence.

You CANNOT have an airtight conclusion if there's anything new in the conclusion.

So, again, if we look at (C):
Suff Assump: S was diff from other men of his time
+
Prem: Bio doesn't explain what made S different
=========================
Bio doesn't explain what is of most interest about S.

There's this new term "what is of most interest about S" that has never been defined.

ANY answer that fails to define this term is completely useless. It would never allow us to create a complete circuit, in which every term in the conclusion has been separately defined and linked to each other.

Contrast this with the correct answer, (E).

Prem: Recent bio of S doesn't explain what made S diff from contemp's.
+
SA: What is most interesting about S is what made S diff from contemp's.
=============================
Conc: Recent bio does not explain what is most interesting about S

So you see how mathematically identical (and boring) an airtight argument is?

That's what Sufficient Assumption, and Sufficient Assumption alone, is all about. Make sure you realize this question type is math, not debate.

You could pick (E) with 95% or better security purely based on the fact that it is the only answer choice that defines the 'new guy in the conclusion', the idea of "what is of most interest about Shakespeare".

Don't get overly excited about that "cheat code" ... most Sufficient Assumptions have 2 or 3 answer choices that contain the "new guy in the conclusion".

But now and then we get lucky like this one and can steal quite a bit of time if we understand the rules of Sufficient Assumption.

[lolandrew321]

Thank you for your explanation, Patrick. It's quite clear now. I guess, I have to review the Sufficient Assumption questions.