User Avatar
Independent Tutor
atysonlsat

I've been teaching LSAT classes, hosting seminars, tutoring, and answering questions online since 2009, full time since 2016. Your success is my passion! Every time one of my students gets a good score, and every time they get an acceptance or scholarship offer from a law school, that makes it all worthwhile for me. I work with students at every level and with any learning style.

Discussions

User Avatar
atysonlsat
Tuesday, May 12

That's a clever trap answer, but it's wrong because the general conclusion in the first line is about being worthy of praise or blame, but the claim about nations is not about praise or blame. Thus, it isn't an instance of a group that cannot be worthy of praise or blame. For answer D to be correct, we would need to be looking at a statement like "nations, for example, cannot be blamed for the mistakes made by their leaders." Even better, an instance would be more specific, like "it would be wrong to praise Canada for their national health policy." I think your use of "example" in your question is the right one - an instance is an example, a particular case in which that thing occurred.

It's also not an instance of blameworthiness implying conscience, because it's not about blameworthiness, just about conscience.

Ask yourself why the author included that statement, and what other statement it relates to. Why tell us that nations do not have consciences? To connect to the claim that blameworthiness implies conscience. Why tell us that? To connect to the claim that groups cannot be worthy of praise or blame. And all of that is meant to support the conclusion in the final sentence.

2
User Avatar
atysonlsat
Tuesday, May 12

@elinaaa Perfect analysis of the stimulus! Well done!

1
User Avatar
atysonlsat
Tuesday, May 12

One way to improve on identifying the author's perspective is to actively look for it while reading each passage. The author chose their words in a way that indicates that they have thoughts and feelings, and if you read with empathy, trying to hear where they are coming from, you'll pick up on those clues.

Another is to base your answer on research in the text, because these answers aren't based on anything other than what the author said. If the question asks about their view of something specific, go back and check the text to see how the author spoke about that specific thing. Not just what they said, but how they said it - was there something positive in their word choices? Something negative? Are they amused, or concerned, or skeptical?

And when you find yourself stuck between two answers, you might consider revisiting the text one more time, because one of those answers has zero support in the text. Don't make any assumptions about what the author thinks, but base it solely on what they said.

3

Confirm action

Are you sure?