quantity

[aradunakhor]

Hi, I had a question about quantity words. I found this helpful blog post, which talks about the different quantity words, and saw that it lists 'all' as the max for the word 'most'.

This seems reasonable to me, but in the 3rd edition of the Manhattan RC book, on pg 61 I see the following statement:

'For example, if a piece of text states, "Most people prefer Brand X to Brand Y", we can infer:

1) Most people do not prefer Brand Y.
2) At least some people prefer Brand Y to Brand X.'

The book writer here does NOT allow for 'most' to actually describe 'all' since he/she infers that there is at least one person who prefers Brand Y to brand X.

Have I misread the statements, or do we have two conflicting definitions of 'most'. If that's the case, are there examples of LSAT questions where the correct answer can definitively point out what the LSAT test writers understand the definition of 'most' to be?

[christine.defenbaugh]

An excellent observation!

First, I'm so glad you found Mary's blog post - she really lays out the LSAT quantity terms neatly there! And I'd also like to commend you for picking up on the disconnect here. That kind of critical eye for inconsistencies is precisely what you need to foster in order to master the LSAT - in every section.

I completely agree that these two definitions are inconsistent. The Reading Comprehension strategy guide here is playing too loose with the terms. In fact, that example is getting taken out of the book! 'Most' can always potentially mean 'all', even on RC!

Sometimes people think that because RC subjects are typically more complex 'real-life' topics, that the terminology rules for LR don't carry over, but that's simply not the case. While it would be quite rare for an RC question to explicitly test this kind of formal logic distinction (they'll save it for LR!), it's absolutely NEVER permissible to infer that 'most' necessarily means 'not all'.

As a practical and strategic point, I can't think of an example in RC where this kind of bad inference would lead you directly to a wrong answer, but it's possible, so your guard should always be up. Additionally, you should be practicing the same critical analysis on the entire LSAT; allowing yourself to follow a fuzzy inference on RC, even if it doesn't ruin a question, is bad training for LR!

You've got a great eye for detail and inconsistency, and that will serve you well! Please let me know if this completely answered your question.

[aradunakhor]

Hi Christine -- that definitely does clear everything up for me. Thanks!

Btw, I realized that I mistyped the second sentence in my first post, which originally read "lists 'all' as the max for the word 'all'". I've corrected it.