LSAT 120 – Section 4 – Question 04

LSAT 120 - Section 4 - Question 04

October 2005

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT120 S4 Q04
+LR
+Exp
Main conclusion or main point +MC
Conditional Reasoning +CondR
A
87%
162
B
7%
154
C
3%
158
D
2%
154
E
1%
156
129
140
151
 +Easier 146.628 +SubsectionMedium

J.Y.’s explanation

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The purpose of the physical sciences is to predict the order in which events will succeed one another. Human behavior, also, can sometimes be successfully predicted. However, even successful predictions of human behavior do not provide an understanding of it, for understanding a human action requires knowing its goal, even though such knowledge of goals either cannot or need not be obtained in the case of nonhuman behavior.

Summarize Argument
The argument concludes by saying that successful predictions of human behavior don’t necessarily mean that the behavior is understood. The argument provides the following conditional relationship:
Understanding human action→ Know its goal
The contrapositive of the relationship is:
/Know the goal of an action→ /Understand human action
When taken with the assumption that we don’t know the goal of an action when we predict it, we reach the conclusion that predicting human behavior does not come with an understanding of the behavior.

Identify Conclusion
The conclusion is that successfully predicting human behavior does not mean successfully understanding it: “Even successful predictions of human behavior do not provide an understanding of it.”

A
Successful predictions of human behavior do not constitute an understanding of that behavior.
This is the conclusion. Along with the assumption that we don’t know the goal of an action when we predict it, we come to the conclusion that successful predictions of behavior don’t necessarily mean understanding the behavior.
B
One cannot predict an instance of human behavior without an understanding of the agent’s purpose in engaging in that behavior.
/Understanding the agent’s purpose→/Predict the behavior
The contrapositive is:
Predict the behavior→Understand the agent’s purpose
This claim is a contradiction of the claims made in the argument, so it is not the conclusion.
C
In some cases, but not in others, understanding an event consists in the ability to predict the occurrence of that event.
This conclusion is about human behavior, so this claim about understanding and predicting events is irrelevant to the argument. Further, this claim about understanding events sometimes being related to predicting an event is not supported by the information in the argument.
D
The goal of the physical sciences is to predict the order in which events will occur.
The information about the purpose of the physical sciences serves as context for the argument, so this is not the main conclusion.
E
The methods used to predict human behavior must involve reference to the psychological states of human agents.
The argument does not mention the psychological states of human agents, so this claim is not supported by the argument.

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Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

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Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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