The statements above, if true, serve LEAST well as evidence for which of the following?

selah403

Can someone explain the grammar of the question stem, "The statements above, if true, serve LEAST well as evidence for which of the following?"

I'm having trouble understanding what it's truly asking.

Thanks!

tae.d-22

Wow I haven't come across that question stem before, but I'm assuming it's a could be false question. Like in the way a "most supported" question asks for what could be true, this is a "least supported" question asking for what could be false.

sh.francis

Which question is that? Would be easier to say for certain if we could see the answer choices, but i'll take a guess.

It sounds like the stimulus consists of individual premises. (X, Y,, Z)

The answer choices are individual conclusions. (A, B, C, D, E)

You can construct an argument by combining each individual premise with each individual conclusion. Ie. X -> A
Y -> E

(note I am using the arrows in a the sense of whatever form the reasoning of the argument takes place, not conditional logic necessarily)

The correct answer is the answer choice which combines most poorly with X, Y, Z to produce a strong argument. Ie the weakest argument that results.

Jonathan Wang

treat 'least' like 'most' - both are the LSAT covering its collective posterior. when they want something 'least' supported, what they mean is they want the thing that isn't supported at all, but if by some oversight they failed to consider an obscure corner case or something like that, they still have an out. similar to when they want the thing that's 'most' supported, it's supposed to be the only answer choice that derives support at all.

so in this case, the correct response will not be supported, meaning the four wrong answers will each derive some support from the given premises and the odd one out will not.

selah403

@"Jonathan Wang" Awesome. This helped a lot. Thanks!

@"tae.d-22" yeah! that's what I was thinking, and @"Jonathan Wang"'s explanation was muy bueno