PT43.S2.Q18 - editorial: it is clear that what is called "health education"

alexroark5

http://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-43-section-2-question-18/
Can someone look at this question and answer the following question for me:

Is repetition of simplistic slogans meant to be a sufficient condition for being propaganda?

nicole.hopkins

Yes—we had a verrrrrrry long discussion of this question during BR group on Saturday and got all Q's correct in our BR. There needs to be an ironclad link between health education and propaganda and that answer choice is the only one that provides it (I believe AC D).

alexroark5

@nicole.hopkins Did you guys decide that the relationship between propoganda and slogan repetition was biconitional? I think that's how I'm interpreting the phrase "the former is nothing but an attempt"

Propoganda <---> Repeat Slogans

originally I had Propoganda ---> Repeat Slogans (which obviously does not help) so I knew it probably had to be the reverse and just went with it.

Now that I'm taking time to look at it I think it might be a biconditional. Any thoughts?

nicole.hopkins

I'm not sure I see how that would reflect something discernible/effectual viz. element of reasoning structure but would love to know your thoughts as to why and what effect it would have! This was probably one of the hardest questions in the exam IMO and if you've found the key to unlocking it, I must learn your ways...

@amanda_kw @Jengibre @pseudonymous @mateofeo thoughts?

pseudonymous

Oh gosh. This question, aaaahhhhh. lol. Does anyone have the specific link to whichever lesson assigned "A is nothing but B" as a logical indicator to one of the groups? I probably need to review drill those again, and I don't want to lead Alex astray.

I kind of feel funny about saying propaganda <--> repeat slogans as a biconditional, just because the English doesn't suggest that to me. I mean, if I say "pseudonymous is nothing but an idiot", that doesn't really mean, "if you're an idiot, you must be pseudonymous", i.e. I don't have a monopoly on idiocy.

iiiSpoon

'Nothing but an attempt' = Propaganda is a repetition of simplistic slogans, and that's it, so we need not draw other arrows from P. That does not mean therefore simplistic slogans is propaganda. Ie, I use simplistic slogans because I can, since I'm funny like that, not for any other reason.

Why wouldn't a simple sufficient condition help? Health education is propaganda and propaganda is repetition of simplistic slogans. HE > P > RSS, so HE > RSS (which education does not have so there is no confusion between what is P and what is E), and that is D.

I think you (plural sense) are overthinking it. Is the confusion coming from trying to connect the premise into the conclusion, as sufficient into necessary?

alexroark5

@E.CH.Poon
He is my only concern with that explanation. The conclusion of the argument is the following:

HE---> P

if, as you say the premise supporting the above conclusion is P --> RSS, then the credited answer choice D, HE -->RSS, does nothing to connect HE to P. All it does is say that Both P and HE are sufficient conditions for RSS but that does not necessarily mean that HE --> P.

I think the premise we need to conclude HE--> P, would be either RSS-->P or RSS <--> P this way is HE --> RS in either case we safely conclude HE --> P

What am I missing? Perhaps an instructor @"Jonathan Wang"?

alexroark5

Technically this is how it should go I think

RSS --> P (it just isn't clear to me how we get this from the language in the stim)
H most RSS (missing premise provided by answer choice D)

therfore: H most P

argument form (A most B-->C, therefore A most C)

nicole.hopkins

I believe the conclusion of the argument is actually the first sentence. I don't have it in front of me but we discussed that on the call.

alexroark5

yes it is "health education is usually propoganda" meaning (H most P) that's what I have diagrammed above

my confusion stems from how to diagram the sentence "the former is nothing but an attempt to influence behaviour through repetition of slogans"

is it:

(P-->RSS) or (RSS-->P) or (RSS <--> P) ??

nicole.hopkins

Got it—just wanted to make sure.

iiiSpoon

My sandal is nothing but rubber. Therefore, rubber is a sandal?

alexroark5

right, so according to that we have propoganda is nothing but repetitive slogans (P-->RSS) so the argument can be diagrammed as follows:

P-->RSS
H most RSS (supplied by answer choice D)

conclusion: H most P

I don't think this is a valid argument, hence my confusion

Jengibre

@alexroark5 Because this is an SA question, I think you are right that it must be a biconditional. We could read it as "X is propaganda if and only if it attempts to influence behavior only by repeating simplistic slogans." In other words, by definition, anything that is propaganda MUST influence people's behavior through the repetition of simplistic slogans and anything that attempts to influence behavior solely through RSS is propaganda. Answer choices A and B only prove that "health education" is usually not "education," but are not sufficient to prove that "health education" usually IS propaganda. In order to be propaganda, it must RSS. C contradicts the stimulus, and E is irrelevant. But agreed, I would love @"Jonathan Wang" to weigh in on this.

alexroark5

@Jengibre, thank you! haha I feel like people weren't understanding why I was so confused. Was starting to feel a little stupid lol. Come on @"Jonathan Wang" where you at?

alexroark5

I did pm Allison (sage status) so if/when she responds I'll let you know @Jengibre

iiiSpoon

This is getting more and more confusing but I think if you want to map it out it would simply be
P(HE) > RSS > ~E

Therefore
HE > P > RSS > ~E

We know from the conclusion that HE is P and that HE is not ~E, so all that is left to say is HE is RSS. It certainly would fit the formulaic strategy if you had a bi-conditional but I have a hard time believing 'nothing but' = bi-conditional.

alexroark5

@E.CH.Poon
So if you have it like you wrote above (P --> RSS --> ~E)

answer choice D (H ----(usually)----> RSS is only sufficient to show that H is usually not education. However it does not speak at all to whether or not it is propoganda (unless we assume that everything in the world is either propoganda or education)

iiiSpoon

Going to restructure this whole lawgic to what is essential:
P(rss) using bracket because I'm showing that the only way to be P is to be RSS
_______
H>P

If we know P is therefore RSS, then to be P, H must be RSS. And that's it. That is all that matters.

alexroark5

but in what you have above you basically just have A-->B-->C, a logical argument. You're not providing a missing sufficient assumption you're just correctly inferring what's already there. The stem says we need to provide a sufficient assumption that is not already provided in the stimulus.

Jonathan Wang

My read on sentence 3 is that they are just defining the terms. It's like when I lay out JY's favorite "All Jedi use the force. Luke is a Jedi. Therefore, he uses the force" argument. It looks like this:

J -> F
J <=== Think about this term
====
F

No, seriously - think about why I would point this term out. Education works better this way.

Why did we just write "J" instead of "L -> J"? Because "Luke is a Jedi" is not a conditional statement. Debating whether "Luke is a Jedi" should be mapped "L -> J" or "L <-> J" misses the mark completely, because the statement isn't conditional in the first place. L <-> J doesn't fly because the J -> L half is clearly wrong. L -> J also doesn't work because we're not conditioning being a Jedi on whether or not you're Luke Skywalker. Instead, notice what we DID do - having defined Luke Skywalker as a Jedi, we didn't have to invoke "Luke" in the argument - we substituted in the thing we defined him as, and it's now just understood that the argument refers to Luke. And again, in our conclusion, we just are left with the simple "F" - notably, not "L -> F" - but we read it "Luke is a force user".

So every time I see a reference to "Luke Skywalker", now that I've defined him as both a force user and a Jedi, I can substitute "a force user" or "a Jedi" for his name and nothing changes. This is the key.

When this question says "(Propaganda) is nothing but an attempt to influence behavior through the repetition of simplistic slogans", they are defining propaganda. It is NOT conditional, or biconditional, or any variation of conditional. It just means that's literally the definition of the word, and you can substitute it in any time you see the term 'propaganda' being used, just like you could substitute "an exercise in self-flagellation" any time you see the term "LSAT".

When the conclusion says "health education" is usually propaganda, you can plug in the definition of the word 'propaganda' that was given to us and have it mean exactly the same thing. Doing so, it reads: It is clear that what is called "health education" is usually nothing but an attempt to influence behavior through simplistic slogans rather than (whatever definition of education we don't care about).

The missing piece is information that links "health education" to attempting to influence behavior through simplistic slogans. (D) word-for-word gives us what we need, with the word "solely" mimicking the stimulus's "nothing but" pretty darn well IMO.

Even if you didn't bother reading all of that (or you disagree with the reasoning), that last bit is really all you need - 'solely' matches up with 'nothing but', and the rest of the answer choice matches up word-for-word with the stimulus.

And, as the last-ditch cop-out, even if you disagree with all of the above reasoning, the other answer choices are god-awful. I can't even see the path to making any of them right. At least with this guy, I can see what the LSAC might have been thinking. It may not be perfect, but the answer is still 100% clear, and that's all that matters.

This is what I do at 3pm when I can't sleep. I should start charging you all for this.

alexroark5

@"Jonathan Wang" thank you for the detailed response! Makes more sense to me now. I think this is what @E.CH.Poon has been saying.

Jengibre

I guess @E.CH.Poon was right, we were overthinking it! Thank you, @"Jonathan Wang"

nicole.hopkins

@Jengibre I'm relieved—I felt like I was staring into an alternate dimension in which I reallyreally need to do all logic, all the time to gain this secret knowledge!!!

Still doing all logic, all the time this week but feel less like I am entering the arcane sanctum.

alexroark5

Yeah going over it again its clear to me now. P (propoganda) and RSS are entirely synonmous and enterchangeable. Def made this question more complicated than it needed to be. Still, I've seen quite a few LSAT questions and can't think of too many SA questions that look like this one. If anyone can think of other examples, do please share!