PT9.S2.Q17 - Instruments used in veterinary surgery

BigJay20

Can someone let me if I did this question correctly? don't even know how to think normal anymore

This is a nasty question and I would appreciate it if anyone could let me know if my approach was correct.

For a set of 50 sterilization equipment made of nylon, it requires 3.4x the energy it takes to manufacture.
For stainless steel it requires 2.1 the energy it takes to manufacture

If it requires 100 watts to manufacture nylon, it takes 340 to sterilize the 50 set
If it requires 100 watts manufacture SS, it takes 210 to sterilize a set of 50

A is wrong because it makes a mistake of trying to compare the two. If it takes 200 watts to manufacture SS, the it would require 410 for the set of 50.

B is deadly confusing. I took a nap and came back to it. If it takes 340 to sterilize a set of 50, the it takes 6.8 watts for each complete sterilization (340/50 = 6.8). If I'm still sticking with 100 watts as a requisite to manufacture my nylon instruments, with an s, there it no way it requires more energy for each complete sterilization that it requires to manufacture the nylon instruments, with an s.

C. I don't even know why this is wrong. I was thinking this has to be false because the stimulus tells us it's 50.

D. This could be true because either one could require more energy.

E. Nobody mentioned cost. It felt good to call an answer "out of scope." Felt like I'm finally speaking LSAT language.

Can someone help me if my think on B is on track. Also, how do I eliminate C

Chris Nguyen

Let’s figure out what we don’t know:
First, we don’t know how much energy it takes to manufacture these tools. Second, we also don’t know how many tools are in a set.

I think your explanation of B is right on track.

With C, we don’t know how many tools are in a set for each nylon and stainless steel. What if a set of nylons contain 6 tools and a set of steel contains 5? Then C could be true. The stimulus tells us it’s 50 sets. But it does not tell us exact number of tools!

Tricky answer choice! These hard 5 star questions sometimes rely on an exact understanding of one word to get correct.

canihazJD

Instrument set can be SS or N

50x sterilizations of 1N require 3.4x 1N manufacturing energy

50x sterilizations of 1S require 2.1x 1S manufacturing energy

A. CBT depending on how much energy needed to manufacture each set.

B. More energy was required for each complete sterilization of N than was required to manufacture it. This cannot be true.

50 sterilizations expended a total of 3.4x the energy to manufacture. So if it took 10... kW? to manufacture, it took 34 kW for 50x sterilizations. So each individual complete sterilization expended an average .68 kW or what like 14-15x less than the manufacturing energy.

C. Possible, we don't know how many instruments are in a set or how many different sets they used.

D. Also CBT similar to A, we are not given any indication of how much energy is used to manufacture the instruments. I think this wants you to assume N instruments must take more energy to make because the greater magnitude of increase... which seems to be counterintuitive, so maybe not... anyway it's wrong.

E. CBT as we know nothing about cost, only energy expended. This wants you to assume and energy cost relationship.

@BigJay20 said:
B is deadly confusing. I took a nap and came back to it. If it takes 340 to sterilize a set of 50, the it takes 6.8 watts for each complete sterilization (340/50 = 6.8). If I'm still sticking with 100 watts as a requisite to manufacture my nylon instruments, with an s, there it no way it requires more energy for each complete sterilization that it requires to manufacture the nylon instruments, with an s.

They're not talking about sterilizing a set of 50 (we dont know how many instruments are in a set), nor are they saying 50 sets (we don't know how many sets they used). They're saying 50 sterilizations of a set (containing an unspecified number of individual instruments) expends 3.4x the energy it takes to manufacture that set.

Using your numbers of:
100 to manufacture
340 to sterilize 50x
6.8 average for each individual sterilization

Because the competing values are (X3.4) and (X3.4 / 50), there is no way the energy required for "each complete sterilization of the nylon instruments" (or the one set) can exceed the energy required "to manufacture the nylon instruments" (the one set). We don't want to assume they are talking about the energy used to manufacture all the instruments/sets they used because we don't know how many there are.

LogicFool-1

Wow, you really math'd the hell out of this. You must be really smart!

I'll try my best to help you although I fear my advice will just frustrate you more, but when it comes to the logic of the LSAT you really don't have to do any of the stuff you did above. You don't even need a baseline wattage to work off of to really make sense of it, but then again, everyone's thought process is different so take that with a grain of salt.

Basically, it will help your mental state/endurance throughout the LSAT to keep things as simple as possible so that you don't burnout halfway through the test. Often times when it comes to logic, you might find it helpful to approach an LR stimulus with a "rubberband" mentality. For example: Whenever you see that a store is having a sale offering 40% off on most of their t-shirts, your brain should automatically tell you that means that SOME t-shirts are not 40% off. See the rubberbanding here?

Going forward, I will just attempt to explain to the best of my ability re B.

is possible to ascertain as the correct answer choice without even having to do any calculations. You just need really basic math knowledge. Firstly you noticed that the key term here is each sterilization, meaning 1 sterilization where the stimulus only tells us about energy use with 50. It's saying that it takes more energy to do just 1 sterilization than it takes to manufacture those instruments. The thing is, the only way that this is logically possible is if it would take at least 1 x as much energy to do one sterilization as it takes to manufacture. That means this would only be possible if it literally took AT LEAST 50 x as much energy to do 50 sterilizations of that set, and yet we know it only takes 3.4 times to sterilize that set of nylon instruments 50 times than it takes to manufacture them. Just knowing this is sufficient for you to know this answer choice must be false/can't be true so it fulfills the EXCEPT of the stem.

If it helps, you can pretty much simplify this answer choice as basically saying: "it takes more energy to do 1 sterilization of the nylon instruments than it takes to manufacture that instruments". which means 1 sterilization's worth of energy must be =/> the energy it takes to manufacture them. When you phrase it in this equivalent way, see how this obviously seems absurd now? Notice how we didn't have to do any arithmetic here. Math is founded on logic, but you don't have to do math, you just have to do the logic, and by that I mean using the "rubberbanding" mentality I was talking about earlier. Instead of using 100 watts as a baseline to help you understand this, it would be even simpler to just do what the answer choice is saying and ask yourself what would happen if you assumed that the answer choice is actually true (that one sterilization takes more energy than manufacturing)

If this still doesn't make sense then let's actually do the math and use your benchmark as an example at 100 watts to manufacture the nylon instruments. is saying that a single sterilization needs to exceed 100 watts. So if we take the bare minimum of 100 watts per sterilization which is = to manufacturing energy, then 100 x 50 = 5000. This scenario would only be possible if the stimulus said it took 50 times the energy of manufacturing to sterilize 50 times, 1 per time.

P.S. get some rest! LSAT burnout is a thing.

pepperismydog

@logicfool-1 you slayed this.