PTB.S1.Q23 - Deep tillage is even more deleterious...

spencergodfrey

How did you guys determine C was the answer for PTB S1 Q23

Clemens_

PTB.S1.Q23: The author spells out an argument to the effect that deep tillage is bad. On this basis, the author infers the conclusion that farmers should not do tillage at all.

There is a gap in this argument: Why would the fact that DEEP tillage is bad suffice to establish the recommendation that ALL tillage should be avoided? Could there not also be other types of tillage that still might be acceptable?

(C) notices this gap and blocks this possible alternative. That is, (C) establishes that the badness of DEEP tillage indeed suffices to establish the recommendation that ALL tillage should be avoided. (C) does this by establishing that there is no non-deep tillage method apt to serve as an alternative to the deep tilling option.

To figure out questions like these, get at the notion of argumentative scope. Ask yourself: Are the premises and the conclusion of this argument really talking about the same thing? Or is there some subtle shift in the types of thing that the author is discussing in their argument? Oftentimes, questions like this will involve these sorts of subtle shifts in topic that you barely notice when reading a stimulus for the first time (e.g. tillage vs. deep tillage, news paper stories vs. important new paper stories, sounds that a machine usually makes vs. sounds that a machine usually makes when you insert a dollar bill). This sort of pattern occurs over and over again and is one of several techniques that the LSAT regularly uses to confuse test takers.