Q9 - Martin: I have heard it argued that

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Match the Reasoning (Implied Principle)

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Even though diet/exercise changes usually don't result in weight loss, doctors should continue to advise diet/exercise changes.

Evidence: Diet/exercise have other benefits beyond potential weight loss.

Answer Anticipation:
The principle seems to be that "Even if Thing A doesn't accomplish Result X, we should still do Thing A, since it has some other Result Y we would want."

Correct Answer:
B

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Huh? This doesn't sound like even if Thing A doesn't do X, it still does other cool stuff.

(B) Maybe (ultimately YES). Even though the engineers didn't solve the problem, they still did some other cool stuff. I would assume this will end up wrong because the conclusion here is about judging the work a failure/success, while the original conclusion was a normative claim about whether we should/shouldn't continue a practice.

(C) This doesn't have a premise that sounds like, "even though it doesn't do X, it does Y"

(D) This doesn't have a premise that sounds like, "even though it doesn't do X, it does Y"

(E) This doesn't have a premise that sounds like, "even though it doesn't do X, it does Y". It's more like "even though it does this bad thing, it does this cool thing". The original and (B) both have the sense of "even though it fails to do this good thing, it does this other good thing".

Takeaway/Pattern: Tough match to love, but it's the closest option we have. Perhaps because it's a principle version of Match the Reasoning, LSAT is wiling to take more liberties with the conclusion being a different type of claim.

#officialexplanation