PT6.S3.Q12 - Arguing that there was no trade between Europe and East Asia

sarahhiiii

Can someone go over the answers please? I was between A and C but ended up choosing A. The right answer is C.

Admin Note: Edited title. Please use the format: "PT#.S#.Q# - brief description of the question"

Chris Nguyen

Hey there!

I think in this question, the conclusion isn't exactly stated, it's more like it's implied. The author states an analogy in the first sentence between evidence regarding trade and evidence regarding the yeti, and then ties in a characteristic of the yeti evidence to most likely say the unstated conclusion "Hey, you can't do the same thing with the evidence from the Middle Ages."

Answer choice "A" says the evidence from the Middle Ages is like the evidence for the yeti. But I wouldn't say that's the reason why the author wrote the stimulus. He's not writing the argument to conclude that these two evidences are similar. Actually, he uses this to conclude his implied conclusion "You can't conclude there was no trade just because you don't have evidence for it."

C sounds much more like the point the author's trying to make. Just because we have no evidence about trade doesn't mean we can say that there was none in the first place.

This one's a little weird because it's from a PT that's so old. I wouldn't worry too much about the older PTs like this one because the LSAT has changed a lot over time!

I hope this helps!