Self-study
Support Any literary translation is a compromise between two goals that cannot be entirely reconciled: faithfulness to the meaning of the text and faithfulness to the original author's style. █████ ████ ███ ████ ████████ ███████████ ████ ██ ██ ████ █ ██████ █████████████ ██ ███ ████████ █████
Objective: Pseudo Sufficient Assumption / Find The Rule Questions
A common misconception on the LSAT is that “principle questions” are a thing. In fact, the word “principle” appears in multiple question types which you should treat very differently. The most important thing to look for when you see the word “principle” is whether the principle points up or down. Some questions (PSAa or Rule Application questions) give us a principle in the stimulus and ask us to apply it down to the answer choices. These are akin to Most Strongly Supported questions, where we must be cautious of overstrong language and stick only to inferences supported by the stimulus.
This question (a PSAr or Find The Rule question) does the opposite: it presents a bunch of principles in the answer choices and asks us to apply them up to the stimulus in an effort to justify the argument. These are akin to Strengthen questions, where overstrong language is completely 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.
Argument Summary And Rule Anticipation
This argument is two sentences long, and involves only two claims, a premise and a conclusion, which makes our goal quite simple. The principle we need will fit the Premise → Conclusion template – it’ll say “When you’re in a situation like [the one described in the premise], [the claim in the conclusion] has got to be true.” Anticipating the exact principle means guessing which pieces of the premise and conclusion they’ll pick out as the most relevant ones to connect.
Premise: All literary translations involve compromise between meaning and style.
Conclusion: Even the best translations will be flawed.
There are many ways to bridge the gap between the premise and conclusion, but the key to guessing the one most likely to show up in the right answer is to spot the subtle introduction of the novel concept “flawed.” We can anticipate something along the lines of:
If a translation is compromised, then it is flawed; or Compromise stuff is flawed stuff.
19.
Which one of the following ███████████ ██ ██████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ █████████ ██ ███ ████████ ██████
a
A translation of █ ████████ ████ ██████ ██ ████████ ████████ ██ ███████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ████ ███ ███ ████████ ████████ ██████
On its strongest reading, (A) says “When compromising between meaning and style, don’t lean all the way in one direction.”
That would match a conclusion that said “the most skillful translation will involve flaws in both meaning and style.” But our conclusion is just that translations will be necessarily flawed – it doesn’t show any preference about how the compromise between meaning and style should look.
b
If a literary ███████████ ██ ██████ ██ ██ █████████████ ██ ███ ████████ █████ ██ ██████ ██ ████████ ██ █ ██████████ ██████████ ███████ ████████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ████ ███ ████████████ ██ ███ ████████ ████████ ██████
The expert reader will stop at “If a literary translation is flawed…” Why? Because it tells us (B)’s diagram looks like this:
Flawed → ???
But we’re trying to justify a conclusion that stuff is Flawed. Our principle needs to look like this:
??? → Flawed
(B) tells us that if we know something is Flawed, we can build on that to infer something else about it. We need a principle that gets us to Flawed in the first place.
To be precise, (B) is the converse of the claim we want.
(B): Flawed → /Successful Compromise
We Want: /Successful Compromise → Flawed
c
The most skillful ████████ ███████████ ██ █ ████ ████ ███ ███████████ ██ ███ ████ ████████ ██████████ ███████ ████████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ████ ███ ████████████ ██ ███ ████████ ████████ ██████
Like (A), this touches on the irrelevant question of what the compromise between meaning and style looks like. 100% style? 100% meaning? 50/50? Our conclusion doesn’t care – the point is just that whatever balance you strike will be flawed (because it can’t be 100/100).
d
Any translation that ██ ███ ████████ ████████ ██ ████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ████ ███ ███ ████████ ████████ █████ ████ ██ ██ ████ █ ██████ █████████████ ██ ████ █████
(D) provides a general principle that takes us from the situation in the Premise to the judgment made in the Conclusion. Remember our anticipation? Compromise stuff is flawed stuff.
Maybe the shift from “literary translation” in the stimulus to just “translation” in (D) gave you pause. Which like, good. Subtle concept shifts like that are super important and often matter a lot – they deserve to be doublechecked.
But this particular shift doesn’t matter because we’re looking for a general rule that applies to our specific situation and takes us to the conclusion “flawed.”
(D) applies to all translations. It says all translations [that do the compromise thing] are flawed.
So when we say “Hey how about this translation? It’s a literary translation!”
(D) replies “Yeah dude I just said this applies to all translations. So yes it applies to yours too.”
e
Not even the ████ ████████ ████████ ███████████ █████ ██ ████████ ██ ████ ███ ███████ ███████ ██ ███ ████ ███ ███ ████████ ████████ ██████
(E) is super tempting because it seems to close the gap between “the most skillful literary translation” and “translations that [do the compromise thing].” It ensures that the translations discussed in the conclusion (the skillful ones) match up with the translations discussed in the premises.
But the translations discussed in the premises are all of them. The Premise says all literary translations are subject to this impossible compromise between meaning and style. So reaffirming that even the most skillful translations fall under that umbrella doesn’t add any new information. The key question remains: Are compromised translations flawed?
Premise: All dogs are drooly.
Conclusion: Even the most well-trained dogs will be flawed pets.
(E): Even the most well-trained dogs are drooly.
(E) doesn’t help because we already know all dogs are drooly. The key question remains: Are drooly dogs flawed?