PT81.S2.Q22 - In a recent study, one group of participants

flashyyyy

Reposting from my comment

This question has one of the most insane assumptions I’ve ever seen on the LSAT, I’m sorry but this should of been taken off the exam. The assumption that a twin watching another twin would fall more (or completely) under the watching self category and than the watching other category would be like assuming both twins looking in mirror would have difficulty telling which one they are.

D) In the studies of Identical twins, participants who observed their twin reading overreported by a significant amount how much time they themselves spent reading in the days that followed.

This cannot weaken part of the argument without strengthening the other part. Is a twin watching a twin more like watching an other or watching oneself? you know the answer. So you plug this in, it would actually strengthen the argument.

You basically have to assume that group this answer effects for sure (the watching other group) is somehow effected less than the group that you have to make a massive assumption for, so that the argument can be weakened.

Admin note: edited title
https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-81-section-2-question-22/

drbrown2

J.Y. almost perfectly paraphrases your objection in the analysis of the question, so if you haven't watched that already I think his analysis pretty much covers the watching self objection that you've raised. The conclusion states that watching yourself motivates you to exercise more because of the self reporting of the participants, and D weakens the support for that conclusion by explaining that the results of the experiment were actually because of over-reporting. The video also brings up that maybe the underlying reason for over-reporting is watching a video of someone you identify with.

I originally chose C but switched to D on BR when I spotted the gap in the argument. It was a pretty tricky question but I don't think the assumption that a twin must not be able to distinguish themselves from their twin is necessary. The group thing almost doesn't matter because of the alternative hypo that watching a video of someone you identify with causes over-reporting.

Louislepauvre

It's been awhile since I did this question, but I also remember being furious at it because I weighed two answer choices it for a bit and decided it wasn't close enough for a twin to be looking at a twin. I don't remember what I did choose though...

NotMyName

I don't see how this is such an extreme assumption. They both play on viewing one's likeness.

Let's say it is, though, for the sake of argument. This is a phenomena/hypothesis structure (cookie cutter). There are plenty of ways to weaken this type of argument. Two common ways of weakening this structure are "alternative causation" or "reinterpreting the phenomena". AC D suggest the latter... a reinterpretation of the phenomena (over-reporting vs motivating). This is subtle and you're right to be suspicious. Let's look at our remaining options:

A. This is an apples to oranges comparison in an attempt to show something about bananas. Eliminate.

B. We don't care about charity.

C. This was tempting after the first few words but then fell apart. How were these folks distributed amongst the two groups? That's a big piece we're missing. But more importantly, these folks didn't report an increase in motivation and that means they are irrelevant to our aim. Eliminate.

E. This would seem to strengthen maybe? As in "watching yourself do a thing leads to you doing more of that thing". However, it's missing a comparative group so it's up for debate. Eliminate.

D. Although not a slam dunk, this does weaken the strength of that conclusion. We are likely to be more suspicious of the conclusion after reading and understanding this AC.

Remember, the test writers are smarter than us. If you think a question doesn't meet a bar of quality, it's FAR more likely that our stubbornness and shortcomings prevent us from seeing it in the correct light.

NotMyName

P.S.

Difficult weakening questions rarely "destroy" or clearly, unequivocally weaken an argument. We need to apply the same degree of criticism to all AC and choose the best one. In BR, we can get more familiar with the nuances of subtle correct AC choices, but in the meantime, process of elimination works just fine.

BinghamtonDave

@NotMyName and @drbrown2 you both write compelling posts and Mr. Ping's video on the question is superb, but the question remains one of only a few in LSAT history that I consider utterly ridiculous. The question makes me dizzy.

drbrown2

@BinghamtonDave said:
the question remains one of only a few in LSAT history that I consider utterly ridiculous. The question makes me dizzy.

I read that the LSAC LR writers get their questions purchased by LSAC (like subcontractors), but that the final questions used on the test are edited multiple times by a different team to make sure they don't have to remove questions and also to control the difficulty. This seems like a question that tried its hardest to disguise the correct answer choice by just making up something random that was meant to throw off the reader from what they were anticipating. Obviously just speculation.

flashyyyy

thank you for the answers everybody.

The problem i have with this question is that if you have twins watching another twin reading, and they grossly over exaggerate the amount of reading they did, this says that those who watched themselves (on the assumption of likeness of ones self) could have grossly exaggerated as well as those who watching other people grossly exaggerated.

to weaken this question a twin would have to look at another twin and identify with themselves more as watching somebody else. A twin watching another twin is watching another person do something without debate, however to liken to the people who watched other people, you have to make the assumption that the twin is identifying with them at some level. While it is understandable that they would, this doesn't mean that this statement would only affected the one group.

Even if the twin views this as watching themselves or identifying with the person at the same level with watching themselves, the argument would still imply that both groups are grossly over exaggerating what they are saying after watching themselves and others.

The only fact after this is that the people who watched themselves still statistically reporting working out for a longer period of time, meaning that the argument is not affected or its strengthened.

The only way I way i can think this argument is weakened is by the fact that answer choice D) says that people whether they watch themselves or somebody else, they will gross over exaggerate what they do, meaning that the whole study has a reason to not be believed.

NotMyName

@flashyyyy I want to make sure I understand your problem with D before I respond further.

You're saying that we do not know whether a twin watching their twin would see themself or see their twin. If they see themself, this weakens. If they don't, it does nothing. Since we do not know, we cannot say it weakens.

Do I have that right?