LSAT PrepTest 159 - Section 1 - Question 20

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Conclusion It should be illegal to patent an organism's genes, for Support a person should not be regarded as the inventor of something he or she merely discovered. █████████ ████████████ ██ ███████ ███████████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████████

Argument Summary And Rule Anticipation

Right off the bat, the argument’s normative conclusion should make us suspect that our answer might bridge the is-ought gap. But it’s immediately followed up by a normative premise, so in this question the is-ought gap doesn’t apply – going from normative premises to a normative conclusion is fine.

Here’s the overall structure:

Premise 1: Discovered shouldn’t mean invented.
Premise 2: Exploiting genes for profit is selfish.
Conclusion: Patenting genes should be illegal.

There are tons of gaps between concepts here, and closing any of them would help the argument. For example, a correct answer could say…

Selfish stuff should be illegal
Patenting genes counts as exploiting genes
It should be illegal to patent stuff you haven’t invented.

Or, spoiler alert: if you merely discovered something, it should be illegal to patent it.

Note here that while there’s a world in which any of the above anticipations could be correct, in this question our correct answer follows the very common pattern of Premise → Conclusion.

20.

Which one of the following ███████████ ██ ██████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ █████████

Question Type

PSA - find the rule

Objective: Pseudo Sufficient Assumption / Find The Rule Questions

These questions present a bunch of principles in the answer choices and ask us to apply them up to the stimulus in an effort to justify the argument. They're akin to Strengthen questions, where overstrong language is often fine and we’re hoping to bridge any gaps in the argument we can find.

PSAr questions tend to follow routine patterns, and our approach can therefore be similarly routine. First, it’s critical to identify the argument’s conclusion and the premise(s) that seek to support it. In a shockingly high proportion of PSAr questions, the correct answer will take the form: Premise → Conclusion.

Like in normal strengthen questions, though, it’s also important to note any common flaws you see, or (especially) subtle jumps from one concept to another (e.g. from talking about athletes to talking about professional athletes). Correct answers that address weaknesses like these are common as well.

Any person who ████████ ███████ ███████████ ███ ██████ ██████ ██ ██████████ ████████

This merely restates Premise 2 – reaffirming a premise doesn’t strengthen the argument, since we’re already obligated to take all premises as true.

(Well okay technically (A) isn’t an exact restatement of Premise 2, but the difference – between selfish behavior and being a selfish person – isn’t relevant to this argument.)

Discovering something should ███ ███████ ███ ██ ██████ ███

Here’s the simple Premise → Conclusion structure: merely discovering something shouldn’t give you the right to patent it.

Is there still a gap between not being entitled to do something and that thing being illegal? Yes! But this isn’t a Sufficient Assumption question – our job is to help the argument, not completely fix it.

60%

Discovering something does ███ ██████ ██████████ █████████ ███

This merely restates Premise 1 – reaffirming a premise doesn’t strengthen the argument, since we’re already obligated to take all premises as true.

(Actually it’s a weaker version of Premise 1, which is worse.)

28%

No person should ██ ███████ ██ ██████ ████ █████████ ████ ███ ████████ ██ ███████ ███████

Here invented by another person is the killer.

If (D) said “No person should be allowed to profit from something they merely discovered,” it would be arguably fit the bill.

And it’s not just that the concept “invented by another person” doesn’t appear in the stimulus, it’s that a reasonable interpretation of Premise 1 is that an organism’s genes are not invented at all, by anyone.

A person or ███████████ ███ ███████ █████████ ██████ ██ ████████ ██ ██████ ███

(E) says that if you do invent something, you should be able to patent it. This is the inverse of the principle we want, which is that if you don’t invent something, you shouldn’t be able to patent it.

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PrepTest 159 - Section 1 - Question 20

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PrepTest 159 - Section 1 - Question 20

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