LSAT 108 – Section 3 – Question 26

LSAT 108 - Section 3 - Question 26

February 2000

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Question QuickView	Type	Tags	Answer Choices	Curve	Question Difficulty	Psg/Game/S Difficulty	Explanation
PT108 S3 Q26	+LR	Point at issue: disagree +Disagr	A 3% 160 B 1% 148 C 8% 161 D 85% 168 E 3% 156	144 152 160	+Medium	147.273 +SubsectionMedium

Anthropologist: After mapping the complete dominance hierarchy for a troupe of vervet monkeys by examining their pairwise interaction, we successfully predicted more complex forms of their group behavior by assuming that each monkey had knowledge of the complete hierarchy. Since our prediction was so accurate, it follows that the assumption we used to reach it was in fact true.

Primatologist: Although I agree that your assumption helped you make those predictions, your conclusion does not follow. You might as well argue that since we can predict the output of some bank cash machines by assuming that these machines actually want to satisfy the customers’ requests, these cash machines must really have desires.

Speaker 1 Summary

The anthropologist claims that an assumption about vervet monkeys’ knowledge of the hierarchy within their troupe has been proven true. How so? Because this assumption led to accurate predictions of the monkeys’ group behavior.

Speaker 2 Summary

The primatologist believes that the anthropologist’s predictions do not provide sufficient support to conclude that the anthropologist’s assumption is true. This is supported by an example: assuming that an ATM wants to help customers can lead to accurate predictions of the ATM’s outputs, but that doesn’t mean the ATM actually has desires.

Objective

We need to find a point of disagreement. The key disagreement is about whether the anthropologist’s predictions are sufficient support for the conclusion that the assumption about monkey knowledge is true.

whether the anthropologist successfully predicted the behavior of individual monkeys by use of the map of the troupe’s dominance hierarchy

The speakers agree about this point. The anthropologist claims that these successful predictions happened, and the primatologist accepts that the anthropologist was able to predict the monkeys’ behaviour.

whether the output of a bank cash machine can be accurately predicted on the basis of knowledge of the requests made to it by customers

The primatologist believes that such a prediction is possible. The anthropologist, on the other hand, never says anything about cash machines. There’s certainly no indication that the anthropologist disagrees with the primatologist on this point.

whether vervet monkeys can have knowledge of the complete hierarchy of dominance relations that exists within their own troupe

The anthropologist believes that vervet monkeys can have this knowledge. In fact, it’s a necessary assumption for the conclusion drawn. The primatologist offers no opinion; the disagreement is about having grounds to believe a claim, not whether the claim is actually true.

whether the fact that the anthropologist’s assumption led to such successful predictions provides sufficient grounds for the claim that the vervet monkeys had knowledge of their dominance hierarchy

The anthropologist thinks that the predictions are sufficient grounds—that’s the anthropologist’s entire argument. The primatologist thinks that the predictions are insufficient and that the anthropologist’s conclusion “does not follow.” This is the point of disagreement.

whether the behavior exhibited by vervet monkeys in experimental situations can be used as the basis for a generalization concerning all vervet monkeys

Neither speaker says anything about generalizing vervet monkeys’ behaviour in experimental situations to apply to all vervet monkeys. This simply isn’t discussed.

LSAT 108 – Section 3 – Question 26

LSAT 108 - Section 3 - Question 26

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Review Results

LSAT PrepTest 108 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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