Q9 - The Jacksons regularly receive

[noah]

The Jacksons regularly get calls from folks trying to reach Sara. Sara asked the Jacksons to pass on her correct number to such callers. The argument concludes that it would be not wrong for the Jacksons to NOT do that (and only say "sorry, wrong number") and it would be laudable for them to do so. Why? For the first part, we are told that the Jacksons did not tell Sara they would inform callers of her correct number. For the second part, we are told that it would be helpful to Sara and pretty easy to do.

But, we really don't know what the argument uses as the rules (principles) for what is wrong and what is laudable. The gap is between those facts and the moral rulings. Analogously, I could say "Jim is able to lend Nora money, so he should," and it's clear that I'm assuming that Jim's ability to lend Nora money makes it a moral imperative that he do. The correct answer should provide the connection between the facts the conclusion:

Facts:
- it would be helpful to Sara for the Jacksons to give out her number.
- it's easy for them to do it
- the Jacksons did not say they would do it.

Conclusions:
1. It's not wrong for the Jacksons NOT to give out Sara's number.
2. It would be laudable if they did.

(A) does this. It states that something is laudable if it helps someone. That works, since the Jacksons would help Sara by passing her number to the callers mentioned above. Also, this answer deals with the first part of the conclusion - it is not wrong -- by explaining that not doing something helpful is only wrong if you told the person that act would help that you would do it.

(B) is tempting, however we don't learn that passing out Sara's number is not wrong, we learn that it's not wrong for them NOT do it. Furthermore, it bases one part of the conclusion on another. It would be as if I concluded from the facts that Greg was supposed to be here 10 minutes ago and that his blood alcohol level is at 1.2, that "Gregg is a drunk and he is irresponsible." If my intention was to say that his being a drunk shows he's irresponsible, then I would have used the word "thus", but instead I'm simply stating two conclusions that are based on the given facts.

(C) has a similar problem to (B). We do not learn that it would be not wrong for them to give out her number. We need an answer that explains why it's not wrong for the Jacksons NOT to give out her number.

(D) is too extreme. It's only laudable under those conditions? Furthermore, it's not difficult for the Jacksons to give out her number, so this answer is missing the point (out of scope).

(E) is tempting as it mentions a number of the facts. However, again, it's not necessary that something is laudable only if the conditions mentioned are in effect. We need an answer that uses the facts as sufficient conditions to reach the conclusion. (E) puts laudable as sufficient, and being not wrong to not do as the necessary. We don't learn what will definitely be laudable, only what a laudable action will definitely look like. Wit the latter, it's still possible to have those characteristics and not be laudable. Also, like (B), this bases one part of the conclusion on the other. To go back to Gregg, this would be like saying "one is late only if that person is drunk."

Tell me whether that helps or if you have further questions.


#officialexplanation

[dj_grey]

I have the book which states what the answer is but i just dont see it. Can you help explain this one.

What i do know:
I would eliminate D because of "laudable only if it is difficult for one to do so".........did not seem to fit passage.

But this leaves 4 possible answers which all seem could be the answer.........at least to me.

[bradleygirard]

Perhaps you can verify my thoughts on why it was that I tripped up on this one. I think that I tried to use the stimulus to effect the answer choices when it should have gone vice-versa. The reason that I got rid of (a) was because it seemed too strongly worded (i.e. always, only, etc.) and I didn't think that the stimulus supported that, but when indeed the 'if valid' part of the question stem means that even if it seems overreaching, if the principle in the answer choice validates the reasoning in the stimulus, then it is correct. I need to be careful of that.

[noah]

Yes, you're right that you should temper the "only" and "always" radar with some principle questions. Often a principle needs to be strong to justify a decision.

[cyruswhittaker]

Thanks for your explanation. I also answered this one incorrectly (choice C).

My thoughts/questions:

1. In general, with arguments that contain a term that might not be understood, I just substitute another word in it to take it's place. Is this a good strategy? It doesn't seem like the word's meaning itself is relevant to the structure.

2. You mentioned how principles are sometimes more extreme. So basically with a select-the-principle question, we just need to make sure it addresses the specifics of the conclusion. We don't need to be concerned whether it allows for cases that go beyond the conclusion itself?

I think this second part is what sometimes tricks me up. I'm so use to looking for specific relationships that the strong words can lead me to quickly eliminate those choices.

[noah]

Good questions.

For the first question, if you can't figure out a word, I would first try to figure out the word from context clues, or from "back-solving" from the answer choices, then your strategy is the next best thing. There are definitely times when knowing the word is crucial. I was just working with a student on a problem with the word "obviate" and she didn't know what it meant and she assumed it meant "to use it." As you can imagine, that really skewed her understanding of the problem.

As for principle question answers, yes, they can be more "extreme" than other assumption family questions. In fact, we should expect something a bit broader than is needed. I like to say that a principle is "an assumption with an ego."

While we're talking about what to expect, with strengthen/weaken questions, you can expect at you'll see some correct answers that feel out of scope. That's because the question is using the seemingly out-of-scope fact to attack or strengthen an assumption.

I hope that's helpful. - N

[cyruswhittaker]

Yes, thank you for your insight.

I'm noticing that now I generally only a miss a couple questions on the arguments section, largely because I have an instinctive grasp of the the answers/questions.

However, there are still some questions that I don't feel 100 % certain they are correct, and this can make me feel uneasy. Generally, I get them correct but while I'm taking the test I like to be able to pinpoint the precise reason.

On this note, how do you feel about this? Just more practice? Think through the questions more while reviewing? Sometimes there's just not a lot of time to nail out the exact reason why a choice is correct.

As an example, take a parallel reasoning question. I'm generally more of an abstract thinker, so I usually do these quite quickly by quickly grasping the "overall" structure and narrowing the choices down by elimination, then (if necessary) using specifics to get the correct one. The weakness I've noticed in this approach is that sometimes I can get tricked by a detail error. If I had more time, I would meticulously structure the argument, etc., and certainly sometimes I will if it's causing me trouble or it's a simple structure like causal conditional/contrapositive.

Thank you for your views on this, as I feel that a large part of this test is learning how to "think" through the questions in different ways according to different situations, largely as a result of the time limitations.

[noah]

I think overall, an intuitive grasp of arguments is better as it's usually faster, but the key, as you're getting at, is to have other tools in your kit. Part of the trick is to know whether you're facing a question that requires a more formal tool.

The other key is to speed up on the easier questions so that you have more time to play around on the tough ones.

Sounds like you're doing great - nice!

[irenaj]

Hi noah, I am still confused by A.

I understand why the other four are flawed but I have issue with "not doing so would be wrong only if one has led...believe...". Because I only find "the jacksons did not lead...to believe" but I can't find any backup of the logic relation "only if" in the stimulus.

Could you specify how to discern it is a correct answer even though there's no "only if" in the stimulus?

Thanks very much!

[porsupuesto3798]

Hi noah, I am still confused by A.

I understand why the other four are flawed but I have issue with "not doing so would be wrong only if one has led...believe...". Because I only find "the jacksons did not lead...to believe" but I can't find any backup of the logic relation "only if" in the stimulus.

Could you specify how to discern it is a correct answer even though there's no "only if" in the stimulus?

Thanks very much!

Irenaj, the stimulus does not have only if but it has its equivalent.
The stimulus says
Did not let them believe --> not doing so NOT wrong

which is the same as

Not doing so wrong ONLY IF let them believe

The problem with (A) is that it inverses a necessary condition with a sufficient condition.

[eunjung.shin]

The stimulus says
Did not let them believe --> not doing so NOT wrong

which is the same as

Not doing so wrong ONLY IF let them believe

The problem with (A) is that it inverses a necessary condition with a sufficient condition.

I am not sure how you got
did not let them believe --> not doing so NOT wrong

the argument says
"Jackons did not lead Sara to believe that they would pass along the correct number, but it would be helpful to Sara and of no difficulty for them to do so. Thus, it would not be wrong to tell caller trying to reach Sara that they have dialed the wrong number...."

how did you make this into conditional?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

The stimulus does not have a conditional statement. It has an argument. Most of the time you can look at these arguments as a premise and a conclusion.

A
--
B

Where A is the evidence and B is the conclusion. The principle that justifies such an argument would be

A --> B

So in this question, there is no conditional in the argument. Instead the the answer choice represents a conditional that bridges the gap between the evidence and the conclusion.

Does that answer your question?

[calebrosser]

I realize there have been many replies to this thread, and that this might be a bit redundant, but perhaps this may be of some use to those who think like me. Feel free to point out any errors if I have made them.

I initially selected ''C'', for this problem, but I understand why A is correct.

If it were true that ''It is always laudable to do something helpful to someone, but not doing so would not be wrong only if one has led that person to believe one would do it,'' then the reasoning in the stimulus is justified. This principle is like an umbrella and the stimulus fits under this umbrella. The umbrella is ''bigger'' than need be, but that is okay, because it is assumed valid and all of the stimulus fits underneath it.

I initially rejected A because I took issue with the fact that it said ''only if one has led that person to believe it,'' which I thought was stronger than what the argument allowed. However, I realize that this irrelevant, because this part of the principle in no way conflicts with the situation outlined in the stimulus. In the stimulus, the Jacksons did NOT lead Sara to believe that they would pass her number on. Perfect, because the principle only refers to those situations when you HAVE led someone to believe something. No harm, no foul. It works!

It reminds me of sufficient assumption questions. Many times the correct answer for sufficient assumption questions goes well beyond what the reasoning needs, but it completes reasoning nonetheless.

/rant

[nflamel69]

Good call on the sufficient assumption. In fact, justify principle questions should be treated exactly like sufficient assumption questions

[stol1989]

Can someone check my reasoning for ruling out "C" and choosing "A"?
There are two conclusions in argument (As noah pointed out)
1. It's not wrong for the Jacksons NOT to give out Sara's number.
2. It would be laudable if they did.

"C" Says that If one can do something that would be helpful to someone else and it would be easy to do, then it is laudable and not wrong to do so.

From premises we can conclude that sufficient conditions are met: "it would be helpful to Sara and of no difficulty..." "C" is overreaching original conclusion but still guarantees that it would be laudable to pass along Sara's number (second conclusion).

The problem is that this question asks to justify COMPOUND conclusion, something that I didn't expect to face on this type of question. "C" Justifies only 1 part of conclusion.
"A" differs from "C" in justifying both conclusions. It actually consists of two separate principles connected by "But" (which is equal to "and").

- "It is always laudable to do something helpful to someone" justifies second conclusion.

- "Not doing something helpful to someone would be wrong only if one has led that person to believe one would do it" justifies first one. The tricky part is that this principle is given in counterpositive form.
Wrong -->led to believe one would do it
From premises we know that "The Jacksons did not lead Sara to believe that they would pass along the correct number". Therefore:
~led to believe one would do it --> ~Wrong

[gwc8]

I originally chose B assuming that the argument had ONE conclusion: "it would be laudable if the Jacksons passed along Sarah’s correct number."

I assumed that the "although it would not be wrong for the Jacksons to tell callers trying to reach Sarah merely that they have dialed the wrong number" was merely a premise. I was taught that "although" is a premise indicator and thus, assumed that part wasn't the conclusion and did not need to be justified.

This has left me baffled when I see examples with two clauses like this in principle-justify questions and I am unsure which part I am to justify because I don't know how many conclusions there are!

Can anyone clear this up for me?

[kyuya]

Since there has already been a good discussion breaking down what the stimulus states and what is known about this situation, I'll go right into the answer choices.

I'll first begin with the wrong answers.

(B) This as a principle is too broad in this scenario. In the latter part of this answer choice, "whenever it is not wrong to do so" is where this goes wrong. As we know, it is laudable for the Jackson's to pass along Sara's correct number - however, that does not mean that simply not being wrong is sufficient for being laudable. We know this because the stimulus clearly differentiates from from NOT passing along the number and ACTUALLY passing along the number, describing not passing along the number as simply "not wrong", but passing along the number as "laudable". This suggests that taking that little of of an extra step makes the act laudable, and therefore, not everything can be considered laudable.

(C) This is the same thing that is wrong with (B). If you refer back to what I just wrote about there being a clear difference the stimulus makes about what makes the act laudable and what simply makes it "okay", this answer choice is wrong for the same reason.

(D) The key for the answer being wrong is found in the "ONLY IF", which is very restrictive. In the stimulus, it clearly states that giving the number to people who call is easy, but also laudable. That goes directly against this answer choice which states that it is laudable ONLY IF it is difficult. The stimulus directly contradicts this.

(E) This has a similar flaw to both (B) and (C) in that it makes the scope too broad. Again, the stimulus differentiates between simply saying "you have the wrong number" and giving out the correct number, calling the latter laudable, while the other is considered acceptable. If we used this answer choice as the principle, it would not make that key differentiation that is made in the stimulus about what is laudable and what is not, thereby conflating both of these acts, making this answer choice wrong.

Now, onto the right answer.

(A) It is always laudable to do something helpful (which giving the number out would be sufficient for, but simply telling people they have the wrong number would NOT) but not doing so would be wrong ONLY IF one has led the person to believe one would do it (since the Jacksons didn't tell Sara they would pass the number along, it is not WRONG for them not to do so). So, with this answer choice we have a principle that properly fits the stimulus.

[cacrv]

I got this question wrong, because I mis-identified the conclusion. I didn't realize that "it would not be wrong to not do something" was part of the conclusion, and thought that the conclusion was limited to how it would be laudable. Once I read Noah's identification of the conclusion, I was able to get to the right answer.

Am I way off in thinking that the first half of that conclusion sentence sounds more like context, and not really the conclusion? I can't think of any right now, but I'm rather certain that i've definitely seen similar sentence/argument structures, in which the phrase starting with "although" was not part of the conclusion. Am I crazy or am I missing something?

Thanks a lot in advance!

[phoebster21]

The Jacksons regularly get calls from folks trying to reach Sara. Sara asked the Jacksons to pass on her correct number to such callers. The argument concludes that it would be not wrong for the Jacksons to NOT do that (and only say "sorry, wrong number") and it would be laudable for them to do so. Why? For the first part, we are told that the Jacksons did not tell Sara they would inform callers of her correct number. For the second part, we are told that it would be helpful to Sara and pretty easy to do.

But, we really don't know what the argument uses as the rules (principles) for what is wrong and what is laudable. The gap is between those facts and the moral rulings. Analogously, I could say "Jim is able to lend Nora money, so he should," and it's clear that I'm assuming that Jim's ability to lend Nora money makes it a moral imperative that he do. The correct answer should provide the connection between the facts the conclusion:

Facts:
- it would be helpful to Sara for the Jacksons to give out her number.
- it's easy for them to do it
- the Jacksons did not say they would do it.

Conclusions:
1. It's not wrong for the Jacksons NOT to give out Sara's number.
2. It would be laudable if they did.

(A) does this. It states that something is laudable if it helps someone. That works, since the Jacksons would help Sara by passing her number to the callers mentioned above. Also, this answer deals with the first part of the conclusion - it is not wrong -- by explaining that not doing something helpful is only wrong if you told the person that act would help that you would do it.

(B) is tempting, however we don't learn that passing out Sara's number is not wrong, we learn that it's not wrong for them NOT do it. Furthermore, it bases one part of the conclusion on another. It would be as if I concluded from the facts that Greg was supposed to be here 10 minutes ago and that his blood alcohol level is at 1.2, that "Gregg is a drunk and he is irresponsible." If my intention was to say that his being a drunk shows he's irresponsible, then I would have used the word "thus", but instead I'm simply stating two conclusions that are based on the given facts.

(C) has a similar problem to (B). We do not learn that it would be not wrong for them to give out her number. We need an answer that explains why it's not wrong for the Jacksons NOT to give out her number.

(D) is too extreme. It's only laudable under those conditions? Furthermore, it's not difficult for the Jacksons to give out her number, so this answer is missing the point (out of scope).

(E) is tempting as it mentions a number of the facts. However, again, it's not necessary that something is laudable only if the conditions mentioned are in effect. We need an answer that uses the facts as sufficient conditions to reach the conclusion. (E) puts laudable as sufficient, and being not wrong to not do as the necessary. We don't learn what will definitely be laudable, only what a laudable action will definitely look like. Wit the latter, it's still possible to have those characteristics and not be laudable. Also, like (B), this bases one part of the conclusion on the other. To go back to Gregg, this would be like saying "one is late only if that person is drunk."

Tell me whether that helps or if you have further questions.

I'm sorry, perhaps I am mistaken, but aren't strongly worded answers OKAY for strengthen principle question types? I know they are bad for most strongly supported, but with regular strengthen and weaken questions, you want a strong answer choice. With a strengthen principle, isn't it the same? Aren't we looking for an encompassing, forceful principle, that sort of justifies this one instance of something?

[tommywallach]

I don't see how Noah contradicted what you're saying...