PT73.S2.Q20 - The advent ofchemical fertilizers led

Sam Tyler

I know it's a bad idea to argue with LSAT answers, but I find it's the best way to improve - I want to really understand exactly why my thinking is wrong. I can't seem to find out an adiqute explination for why D is wrong for this question, would love some input, I have scoured the forums but cant seem to find anyone discussing this line of attack. Thanks in advance if you take the time to look this up!

The arguement is:

1. chem fert caused farmers to switch from alfalfa

2. Alfalfa caused good soil.

C: We must Abandon chem fert in order to get good soil back.

necessicary assumption?

Evaluating this argument, it seems like the obvious consideration is that farmers could use both chems while renewing the soil. Why would we need to abandon chems? The answer needs to say that. And that sounds like what E is saying.

But when you consider this further, theres litterally nothing in the argument that says the only way to improve soil is GM method. it's easy to imagine another way to renew soil, maybe soil rotation or something. Maybe they could grow soybeans, which cause very little soil degradation when compared to other cash crops, like corn, which doesnt stand up to soybeans in both financial benefits and environmental considerations. The point is that there's really no reason to think GM is necessicary to improving soil health at all. When we consider the many potential, possibly infinite ways to improve soil health, having a single one be incomparable with chems seems to do little to improve are argument at all.

another assumption which would make the conclusion follow would be if soil improvement cannot happen as long as these chems are present in the soil. the very presence of these chemicals in the soil insures the soil cannot improve. A perfect answer could be.
"no matter what methods the farmers persue, their can be no soil improvement as long as chemical fert in question are present in the soil"
Theres no answer that says this, but D says
"chemical fert have a destructive effect on soil".
destructive is a strong word, and this holds in every case- regardless of what you do to improve the soil health, as long as their is chemicals in the soil, these chems will have a destructive effect which could conceivably limit improvement.

E is right and D is wrong. What am I failing to consider here? Thanks again if you took the time to address my question!

Admin note: edited title
https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-73-section-2-question-20/

Sami

@"Sam Tyler" said:

The arguement is:

1. chem fert caused farmers to switch from alfalfa

2. Alfalfa caused good soil.

The words "As a result" are referential phrasing for the abandoning use of green manure. So abandoning the use of green manure crops caused poor soil.

C: We must Abandon chem fert in order to get good soil back.

Before reading the conclusion you want to ask: What do I know from the premise that farmers need to do in order to significantly improve the soil structure?

We know that abandoning the use of green manure caused the soil to become poor, so it must be that we need to remove the cause of the poor soil. Which means that in order to significantly improve the soil structure farmers should grow green manure crops back.

But we end up concluding: We must abandon chemical fertilizer. Because of the conclusion and what we could infer from the premises the soil needs in order to improve it must be that growing green manure results in abandoning chemical fertilizer. (Answer choice E).

But when you consider this further, theres litterally nothing in the argument that says the only way to improve soil is GM method. it's easy to imagine another way to renew soil, maybe soil rotation or something. Maybe they could grow soybeans, which cause very little soil degradation when compared to other cash crops, like corn, which doesnt stand up to soybeans in both financial benefits and environmental considerations. The point is that there's really no reason to think GM is necessicary to improving soil health at all. When we consider the many potential, possibly infinite ways to improve soil health, having a single one be incomparable with chems seems to do little to improve are argument at all.

You are right, it doesn't say in the argument that the only way to improve soil is GM method. But we still have to respond to the situation the farmers are facing and why the author concludes from the facts he is given. In our situation the farmers poor soil is caused by stopping the planting of green manure. If something is causing a bad outcome that we do not want, we can infer that to get the opposite effect we should stop the cause of that bad outcome. In our case we must stop not planting of green manure crops. This is what the author uses to help conclude his conclusion. As such we need to link these two.

For example, if in premise we have smoking causes cancer, we can conclude that to not get cancer we shouldn't smoke. It doesn't mean other things won't cause cancer just that in this instance we can avoid the effect by not having that cause.

another assumption which would make the conclusion follow would be if soil improvement cannot happen as long as these chems are present in the soil. the very presence of these chemicals in the soil insures the soil cannot improve.

We actually don't get that in the argument. The only thing the use of chemical lead to was abandoning the planting of green manure. It doesn't say that its the properties of the chemical that's causing the soil degradation. The stimulus only says that its the result of abandoning the planting of green manure that caused the soil degradation.

A perfect answer could be.
"no matter what methods the farmers persue, their can be no soil improvement as long as chemical fert in question are present in the soil"
Theres no answer that says this, but D says
"chemical fert have a destructive effect on soil".
destructive is a strong word, and this holds in every case- regardless of what you do to improve the soil health, as long as their is chemicals in the soil, these chems will have a destructive effect which could conceivably limit improvement.

They definitely baited you here. The stimulus says chemical use led to a certain practice -stopping use of green manure, which resulted in poor soil. Not the chemical use itself, by being bad for the soil, lead to the poor condition. There is a difference in what you can infer based on what actually was the cause of the poor soil: was it the properties of the chemicals that lead to poor soil or the use of chemicals lead to abandoning a certain practice that lead to poor soil?

LSAT writers are really good at grammar and there are a lot of nuances in the way they write the stimulus which can make a big difference.

Sam Tyler

this is a great explination. You're right, specifically they never said that the soil was caused by the chems, and I'm making a leap. Thanks for taking the time to write a great response, it's much appreciated .

Sami

Thanks . I really liked the question you had. I think the test writers were really nuanced in their sentence structure here and are hoping to target students who have studied causation.