PT22.S4.Q19 - contemporary business firms

mt10087

I could not find anything to prove the conclusion > few people understand current events> and did not see the flaw the LSAT makers identified.

Here's is what I did:

Tried to create conditional statements but did not understand how to represent Appreciation of Significance.

TV --> DI and DOC
Newspaper --> DI and DOC

Fully understand current events ---> DI + Appreciation of Significance

Since > few people who seek out news sources other than newspapers and TV> was a premise I took it to be true. The conclusion jumped and inferred > few people ever understand current events>. There was nothing sufficient to prove the conclusion. Wasn't that the flaw?

Tried pushing forward to say that those other people must have been the few, but it still got me nowhere.

What all did I miss? Thanks!

https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-22-section-4-question-19/

thisissparta

Hey, I think you mis-numbered the question. PT22, S4, Q19 is a weakening question on the Iron Law of Responsibility.

Could you provide us with the right question number so we could help you out?

me.66371

Q9!

EvetteCee

The correct answer choice is A because in other words, the author is assuming that you can only either watch TV or read a newspaper. But, in reality, many people could use both sources and thus the conclusion would be fall apart

mt10087

Sure, I see how it could weaken the argument. I must be missing something from the approach I use because I am still confused. Wondering if anyone could see how I am not arriving at the answer from the thought process above? Is it that I am misinterpreting the question? The flaw looks only like a drawn conclusion that came out of nowhere.

BinghamtonDave

Hello, the flaw here is that we are told that a full understanding of something has two requirements.
We can map this statement out as follows:

Full understanding----->Appreciation of significance and direct involvement

So for the purposes of simplification we are told that in order to have a full understanding you need elements A and D.

We are told that a certain thing (television) gives us direct involvement but no appreciation of significance
We are told that a certain thing (newspapers) gives us an appreciation of significance but no direct involvement

So pausing here we have two things (television and newspaper) that on their own do not allow us to have a full understanding. Why? because each on their own fails a necessary condition of full understanding.

The allowable/valid conclusion this argument could draw is that on their own television and newspapers do not allow us to have a full understanding. Finding an allowable conclusion afford us the opportunity to locate precisely where the flaw takes place in an argument.

For this particular argument, the conclusion drawn is not one that is valid. Instead of drawing a conclusion like the one above our argument on question 9 says: Since people really don't stray from television and newspapers, most people never fully understand

That is a negation of the sufficient condition in our original argument. On the basis of that on their own newspapers and television fail to satisfy the necessary conditions of fully understand. The question we should be asking ourselves is why is the argument structured in such a way that it excludes the possibility of reading newspapers and watching television? There is nothing inherently contradictory about doing those two activities. In fact, if a person reads the newspaper and watches television don't they at least satisfy the necessary conditions for fully understand? Meaning if they did both, nothing prevents them from fully understanding. The assumption hidden deep within the reasoning of our argument is that (bizarrely) if one reads the newspaper then one does not watch television. (A) calls that assumption out.

I hope this helps, any follow up questions please reach out on this thread

David

Post script: I have thought of an analogous argument, I hope it makes sense and helps.

Pretend you needed an LSAT tutor and I said:
If one is to gain the most out of an LSAT tutoring experience, one's tutor must have both mastery of logic games and a deep understanding of logical reasoning.

Tutor 1 has a deep understanding of logical reasoning but does not possess mastery of logic games

Tutor 2 has mastery of logic games but does not have a deep understanding of logical reasoning

Therefore, because you will not choose any tutors besides 1 and 2 you will not be able to get the most out of an LSAT tutoring experience and neither will most people.

The question we should be asking ourselves is why have I assumed that you could not enlist both? There is no rule of the universe that says you cannot have two different tutors. In the reasoning above I have treated the selection of one tutor as excluding the selection of the other tutor.

BinghamtonDave

As far as your point of the "few" aspect of the conclusion, let me attempt to clear that up. First: this is an older test, often with older tests the language is not as tight as we would like it. We kinda have to take these test for what they are.

If I say: few people know a lot about boxing
what I mean is:
Most people do not know a lot about boxing.

Our conclusion in the question you asked about is:

Few people ever fully understand
meaning
most people never fully understand

Now, granting this argument the kindest interpretation I can muster, what I think they are trying to say is that we have a conditional:

If fully understand then A and D

We then deny the necessary condition by applying either television or newspapers on their own:
A -----> fully understand
or
D---->fully understand

Fully understand means that people cannot fully understand, which inherently means most people cannot fully understand (which we see above means "few people understand) which means some people cannot fully understand. The relevant lesson is located in the core curriculum here:
https://7sage.com/lesson/advanced-all-implies-most-implies-some/

Essentially, the best I can come up with for the specific conclusion in question 9 is that:
All implies most (which implies the construction of "few" we see above) and most of course implies some.

I feel as though we have to kinda play around with the grammar here a bit.

David

mt10087

A silver lining! You were a magician in revealing that flaw. I have asked questions before but you are the first to comprehend the question and express how to overcome confusion. When seeing how the valid conclusion is drawn alongside the way the invalid conclusion is drawn, you can spot the subtle error the LSAT writers make.

There are tiny details that could be overlooked in the lessons. When I originally did this problem, where the stimulus states "since few people....newspapers and television" I negated few to most but also negated the "and to or" in newspapers and television. When I made that negation, I could not see how the valid and invalid conclusions were any different. Thank you!

My only tiny concern is capturing the "Appreciation of Significance." The inference you made stating newspapers ---> appreciation of significance is very similar to Answer Choice E in PT 38 Sec 1 Q20. I am not sure if this question is even an embedded conditional, but I think it could be useful to see an embedded conditional example drawn from an actual LSAT problem. TV ---> DI + (Appreciation of Significance --> DOC ). Again, this is not very important because I do not think it impacts the answer choice on this particular question.