I think I can help provide some guidance for anyone who got stuck between A and B like I did and went with A:
The reason that A is not the answer is that although the option of "requiring costly repairs" seems alluring in the weakening of the economic development, you are weakening the analogy used by the columnist and then have to infer that the columnist's city may also require costly repair. However, option B more directly criticizes the support between the premise of "Other cities have earned large returns on such an investment." and the conclusion that this city also investing in this adviser by bringing the scope out to say "well ok but you're comparing the economic development of New York and Boston to the economic development of Bangor Maine"
So, while both A and B are weakening the supports of the premises, B does so much more directly so that you don't need to infer that because some cars do still break down despite receiving preventative maintenance, this city's economy will also incur major costs despite the economic adviser.
So the reason it's not A and is instead B, is becasue A does not widen the gap between Motorists and the city council. Instead it provides facts about A, but dosen't compare that to B so we can't use it?
Confused as to why C is irrelevant. I thought it would be the right answer given it says it is for non-financial reasons and they just hired a financial advisor. So regardless of what they do, it won't affect auto maintenance given that it is not done for nonfinancial reasons rather than because of finances, so how would the financial advisor help? This question really confused me. I didn't fully understand the stimulus.
I was thrown off by this question. I skipped past B, bc I thought, in terms of LSAT logic, "smaller" doesn't quite cut it. We don't know how this one difference impacts the columnist's claim, if at all. Therefore, I thought E was the answer, bc it provides something that directly answers to the stimulus (or, at least, one part of it), which is that the investment "is likely to have a big payoff in several years." I thought E weakens this statement bc it says that those other cities didn't see any returns in the first few years, and I equated several and few, so I took E to be the most powerful answer in weakening the columnist's claim.
Are there situations where the analogy is there and doesn't necessarily contribute to the conclusion, but an answer choice referencing, or talking about it is the correct choice?
I'm quibbling with this question. In order for B to be correct, it seems as if we have to assume that the size of the population and economy is meaningfully linked to the returns on the city's investment in an advisor. This assumption isn't present in any form in the stimulus.
I still think this is the correct answer choice, as the others are less relevant to the stimulus, but B could also as easily be irrelevant, if we ultimately find out the population and size of the economy are irrelevant to the return on investment.
I got it right but I disregarded the answers involving the car analogy as I identified that as context and thus irrelevant to the argument's structure. Did anyone else think this way?
I understand why all the other options are wrong, but I am still not fully convinced I understand why B is right. Could anyone try explaining it in a different way? #feedback
So is it a fair thing to say that if we have multiple premises, and one of them is much stronger than the other, it is almost always better to weaken the stronger premise? Like in this one, the similarities between a car and a city are huge and comparison's between a city and another city will naturally be smaller. Therefore, arguments from analogy between cars and cities can never be as strong as an argument from analogy between city and city. So inherently, the second premise is stronger and if we weaken that one we will weaken the argument more?
How this would play into the test would be this strategy: if we can identify the strongest premise in the argument (it just has to be strongest in the argument, doesn't have to be a strong or airtight argument) then we should weight our answers towards those that attack the stronger premise?
it’s reasonable to assume that population size and current size of the economy both do matter for return on investment. --this is a nonsensical assumption -where does this information come from?
why assume that the cost is financial? Wouldn't dying or killing somebody in a car accident caused by one's lack of maintenance also be a cost? This was stressed in an earlier question so why make this assumption now???
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84 comments
This whole premise and answer choices, including the correct answer choice, are really weak....Not a fan of this question or explanation
wait highkey why is this explanation 16 mins long, i feel like i can't retain any of it
Why not just give us the whole stimulus? It was way harder to identify which sentences were premises and conclusion this way.
I think I can help provide some guidance for anyone who got stuck between A and B like I did and went with A:
The reason that A is not the answer is that although the option of "requiring costly repairs" seems alluring in the weakening of the economic development, you are weakening the analogy used by the columnist and then have to infer that the columnist's city may also require costly repair. However, option B more directly criticizes the support between the premise of "Other cities have earned large returns on such an investment." and the conclusion that this city also investing in this adviser by bringing the scope out to say "well ok but you're comparing the economic development of New York and Boston to the economic development of Bangor Maine"
So, while both A and B are weakening the supports of the premises, B does so much more directly so that you don't need to infer that because some cars do still break down despite receiving preventative maintenance, this city's economy will also incur major costs despite the economic adviser.
gonna pretend i understood any of this for my own sanity
This question hurts my whole body
Am I the only one that thought all of these answers sucked? 😂
So the reason it's not A and is instead B, is becasue A does not widen the gap between Motorists and the city council. Instead it provides facts about A, but dosen't compare that to B so we can't use it?
what the hell is this stimulus
Can someone simplify B and how it weakens the analogy
Confused as to why C is irrelevant. I thought it would be the right answer given it says it is for non-financial reasons and they just hired a financial advisor. So regardless of what they do, it won't affect auto maintenance given that it is not done for nonfinancial reasons rather than because of finances, so how would the financial advisor help? This question really confused me. I didn't fully understand the stimulus.
I was thrown off by this question. I skipped past B, bc I thought, in terms of LSAT logic, "smaller" doesn't quite cut it. We don't know how this one difference impacts the columnist's claim, if at all. Therefore, I thought E was the answer, bc it provides something that directly answers to the stimulus (or, at least, one part of it), which is that the investment "is likely to have a big payoff in several years." I thought E weakens this statement bc it says that those other cities didn't see any returns in the first few years, and I equated several and few, so I took E to be the most powerful answer in weakening the columnist's claim.
does anyone know how to see the question in its entirety before watching the video?
Not really a fan of how he broke up the question throughout the video without us being able to see it
Are there situations where the analogy is there and doesn't necessarily contribute to the conclusion, but an answer choice referencing, or talking about it is the correct choice?
I cannot believe I got this correct
population has literally NOTHING to do with this.
I'm quibbling with this question. In order for B to be correct, it seems as if we have to assume that the size of the population and economy is meaningfully linked to the returns on the city's investment in an advisor. This assumption isn't present in any form in the stimulus.
I still think this is the correct answer choice, as the others are less relevant to the stimulus, but B could also as easily be irrelevant, if we ultimately find out the population and size of the economy are irrelevant to the return on investment.
How can we tell the difficultly level of this question?
I got it right but I disregarded the answers involving the car analogy as I identified that as context and thus irrelevant to the argument's structure. Did anyone else think this way?
I understand why all the other options are wrong, but I am still not fully convinced I understand why B is right. Could anyone try explaining it in a different way? #feedback
So is it a fair thing to say that if we have multiple premises, and one of them is much stronger than the other, it is almost always better to weaken the stronger premise? Like in this one, the similarities between a car and a city are huge and comparison's between a city and another city will naturally be smaller. Therefore, arguments from analogy between cars and cities can never be as strong as an argument from analogy between city and city. So inherently, the second premise is stronger and if we weaken that one we will weaken the argument more?
How this would play into the test would be this strategy: if we can identify the strongest premise in the argument (it just has to be strongest in the argument, doesn't have to be a strong or airtight argument) then we should weight our answers towards those that attack the stronger premise?
What an insane question this is.
it’s reasonable to assume that population size and current size of the economy both do matter for return on investment. --this is a nonsensical assumption -where does this information come from?
why assume that the cost is financial? Wouldn't dying or killing somebody in a car accident caused by one's lack of maintenance also be a cost? This was stressed in an earlier question so why make this assumption now???