Difference between main point and main conclusion questions?

shrek takes the lsat

It appears in the core curriculum it's taught there is no distinction between main point and main conclusion questions, i.e when a question asks "whats the main point" or "whats the conclusion." However, I find the "main point" questions will be a lot more general and doesn't strictly adhere to "summarize the one sentence that is the conclusion" in this argument. Am I misunderstanding the core curriculum? Does anyone agree with this observation?

sarahblair

Hi Julia!
Not sure if my take on this subject is actually correct, but I usually approach the questions worded in these two ways with a basically identical manner. I think you're right in the observation that main point may be more general since main conclusion questions want you to be able to literally parse out the conclusion from the premises/sub-conclusions in the argument. Main point you can kind of use the premises more without being penalized by a trick answer choice as often it seems. Main conclusion I always focus pretty much on just what I know the literal sentence that plays the role of the conclusion. Hope this helps a bit!

Learned Astronomer

I've actually never made a distinction between "main point" and "main conclusion" question stems. And I haven't made the same observation that you have based on that distinction.

However, I do know what you are referring to when you say that some of these questions seem to have a correct answer that seems to summarise the whole argument. Some Main Point/Main Conclusion questions can be surprisingly tricky, while others straightforward, so I've always just dealt with them on a case-by-case basis. In other words, I would not assume that, just because you are seeing a Main Point/Main Conclusion question, that it will be easy.