PT69.S4.Q21 - skiff's book published this year

vania.f.jiang

http://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-69-section-4-question-21/
Can someone please help me out with this question? It's really doing my head in.
Would A still be correct if it was phrased: Skiff's book will be published this year if it is as important as he claims it is.

Many thanks.

J.Y. Ping

This question is difficult because of the obscuring of the premises and conclusion. The video for it is broken (I'll fix it soon) but here's the brief version of the premises and conclusion distilled.

published --> prof. N promise to urge dean to promote S --> prof. N urge dean to promote S --> S promoted
_________
S book import & well written as S claims --> S promoted

What's missing?

S book import & well written as S claims --> published

vania.f.jiang

Thanks for the reply JY.

I made a mistake in my post--what I was meant to say was would A still be correct if it was phrased: Skiff's book will be published this year if it is as well written as Skiff claims.

I'm still having trouble understanding why A is correct. I don't see how 'important' alone would trigger 'published' when the stimulus clearly states both 'important' and 'well-written' are needed for the promotion and hence for the book to be published.

Thanks.

J.Y. Ping

Very good question! I didn't address it in my response and honestly, I didn't even notice it when I took the test timed. That I got this question right owes to eliminating the wrong answers and perhaps some good fortune.

In any case, the short answer to your question is "Yes." The reason why.

We know that the major premise is: published --> promoted
We know that the conclusion is: import & ww --> promoted
Formulaically, we need to supply the missing premise: import & ww --> published.

But, the LSAC did something new this time. They gave us: import --> published.

That works!

Let's think about an analogous argument.

If you buy milk, then you will use cash. Therefore, if you go to store & gas station, you will use cash.

Formulaically, we want to supply the missing premise: if you go to store & gas station, you will buy milk. But, doesn't that feel a little redundant? What if I just said "if you go to store, you will buy milk."

That also allows us to validly draw the conclusion that "if you go to store & gas station, you will use cash."

In fact, it'll even allow us to validly draw the conclusion that "if you go to store & gas station & mars & russia, you will use cash."

Very clever, those LSAT writers.