"This is Wrong" Type Conclusion

theo1106

For conclusions that are along the lines of "this theory/explanation is wrong", I have a tough time keeping the entire idea in my head. For most questions, I will highlight just the conclusion. However, when I just highlight "this is wrong", I cannot reference the idea quickly enough. Are there any helpful tips to overcome this issue?

IOnlyAnswerC

Try highlighting the conclusion to the other person's argument, and look for the AC that says "X is not the case."

Grain-of-salt tip: oftentimes, the real conclusion will use words like "unfounded" or "erroneous". Correct AC's often use the word from the stimulus or a very close synonym, from what I've seen.

valentina.soares-1

Hi @theo1106 ,

These can definitely be tricky. Usually what I’ll do is take the color that I usually use to highlight my conclusion and begin highlighting the claim that they are saying is “wrong” and then highlight the words “is wrong” or “unfounded” or whatever they use, in the same color. That tells me that purple, for example, is my authors conclusion (even though it includes part of the OPA). Anything else you highlight (usually just the premises backing up why they believe this theory/explanation is wrong) should be in a different color.

The important thing to remember with these is that the conclusion is not saying anything more than that the explanation is not correct, or not proven, or lacking something. This will depend on the language that the author uses, but you don’t want to assume any extra meaning.

For example, imagine a main conclusion question where they tell us about a theory where “anyone who plays guitar, eventually develops arthritis”, and our author says something like “they only tested this on people living in Iceland, therefore, the theory lacks the relevant evidence needed to be taken seriously”. A trap answer choice might try and trick you by saying “It is not true that everyone who plays guitar develops arthritis”. BUT, all we know is that the author thinks the theory lacks evidence, that the study wasn’t ample enough. So, our answer choice has to be as basic as “ the study conducted in Iceland was not sufficient to prove the theory that anyone who plays guitar, eventually develops arthritis” or “the study provided does not have enough evidence to prove the claim that anyone who plays guitar, eventually develops arthritis”. The arthritis part is the claim made by the other person and the part talking about lacking evidence is our author’s conclusion about that claim.

When it comes to keeping track of the entire idea in your head, don’t! Use your highlighter tool to help you do that. Let me know if you have any further questions on this.

Valentina

KevinLuminateLSAT

@theo1106 said:
For conclusions that are along the lines of "this theory/explanation is wrong", I have a tough time keeping the entire idea in my head. For most questions, I will highlight just the conclusion. However, when I just highlight "this is wrong", I cannot reference the idea quickly enough. Are there any helpful tips to overcome this issue?

OP, I think one issue might be that you're just highlighting the conclusion, but not actually putting the substance of it into your own words. When you see a conclusion like "This is wrong", you have to immediately take the time to identify the "this", and then you have to negate the idea.

If the "this" was the view that "Some entrepreneurs can be successful without hard work", then when you see "This is wrong", you have to take the time to say "Ok, so the conclusion is that NO entrepreneurs can be successful without hard work. Or, in other words, that hard work is required for entrepreneurs to be successful."

And, ideally you would do that translation before you even read the next line, if there's any line that follows it. If you do this, then you don't need to reference anything later because you already understood the conclusion and know what it means. Whether you highlight the line or not isn't really important to the process of taking the time to break down the "this" and negate it once you see it.

(By the way, as other commenters have pointed out, be careful about conclusions that just say "This is unpersuasive" or "This is unfounded", as they are not exactly the same as saying "This is false" or "This is wrong".)