Q8 - John of Worcester, and English monk

[smiller]

Question Type:
Strengthen

Stimulus Breakdown:
Premises:
1. An English monk reported large sunspots in 1128.
2. An aurora borealis was reported in Korea five days later.
3. Sunspot activity is typically followed by an aurora that appears approximately five days later.

Conclusion:
The aurora helps confirm the monk's sunspot sighting.

Answer Anticipation:
We're told that sunspot activity is "typically" followed by an aurora, but that doesn't mean this always happens. Furthermore, auroras might frequently appear at times when there is no sunspot activity. An ideal answer choice will make it more likely that these two events are related.

Correct Answer:
(C)

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) This weakens. If an aurora sometimes occurs without recent sunspot activity, the Korean aurora becomes less convincing as evidence for the monk's sighting.

(B) This is irrelevant. We don't care if other sunspots had been sighted in the past. We're interested in the relationship between the monk's sunspot sighting and the Korean aurora sighting.

(C) This is correct. If the aurora sighted in Korea could only have been caused by heavy sunspot activity, We at least have evidence for strong sunspot activity in the days preceding the aurora. This makes it more likely that the monk actually saw sunspots.

(D) Choice (D) is irrelevant. This only describes the circumstances that would have allowed the monk to see the sunspots. We have no idea how this connects to the aurora in Korea.

(E) Like choice (D), this is irrelevant. We have no idea how the monk's drawing is related to the sighting in Korea.

Takeaway/Pattern: When the argument in a Strengthen question uses the occurrence of one event as evidence for another, we're looking to strengthen the idea that those events are related.

#officialexplanation

[seychelles1718]

Is it a logical leap when we think John of Worcester really did saw the sunspots only from the fact that he RECORDED the sighting?
When I read the stimulus, for some reason I got really caught on the word "recorded" because I thought just because he REPORTED sighting, doesn't mean he REALLY did see it. What if he were simply not telling the truth?

so my question is: suppose we have an additional answer choice (F) that doesn't necessarily relate auroa borealis to sunspot as the correct answer does but only states that John of Worcester only records what he really see and never tells a lie. Would this also be a strengthener?

For some reason I was stuck on this idea and picked E because I thought E helped confirming JofW recorded what he truly saw but now I see that including a drawing of the sunspots doesn't necessarily help confirm JohW's sighting.

[ohthatpatrick]

Two separate issues going on with your question, I think.

1. The common sense interpretation of "John recorded the sighting of two sunspots" is that John himself did the sighting. We would be telling ourselves a pretty exotic story if we cooked up a story in which either 'someone ELSE did the sighting, and John just recorded it' or 'John didn't see anything, but recorded a sighting anyway'.

LSAT warns us at the start of each LR section that we "should not make assumptions that are by commonsense standards implausible, superfluous, or incompatible with the passage".

I think you're venturing into that territory with what you're focusing on.

2. Let's say there really IS a missing link/idea about whether John really saw the sunspots or just made them up.

The correct answer (C) wouldn't solve that, but who cares? This is a Strengthen question, not a Sufficient Assumption question.

It's important to realize that correct answers to Strengthen never prove the conclusion, nor do correct answers to Weaken questions refute the conclusion.

They just ADD to or SUBTRACT from the plausibility or coherence of the argument.

[MeghanC389]

Question on this one.. how does "two unusually large sunspots" translate to "Only heavy sunspot activity"

I see that this is the best answer, but since I'm always telling myself to read very carefully so as to not miss a small detail, this would have thrown me off during an actual exam. Does heavy in this case simply mean more than one?

[ohthatpatrick]

I think even one "unusually large" sunspot would qualify as "heavy sunspot activity".

There aren't that many sunspots on the sun at any given time (sometimes none). And they lead to these gurglings called "coronal mass ejections" where the sun spews out a bunch of material (five days later it gets to Earth and interacts with our magnetic field, giving an intense aurora borealis show).

A little outside knowledge there definitely makes it easier to interpret. You're wise to be questioning that language move, but you would want to focus less on the idea of "Does TWO spots really = HEAVY activity?" and lean on the idea of "Yes, UNUSUALLY LARGE sunspots = HEAVY sunspot activity".