PT57.S3.Q23 - I really don't understand how the answer is correct

camillebear2023

Hi everyone,

I just took LSAT 57 - Section 3 - Question 23 about "brushless car wash" and I really don't understand how C can be correct. To me all of the answer choices were wrong and C seemed to me like a big inference (i.e. both brush and brushless car wash could leave a visible scratches on new and old cars, but "brushless" could leave less).
Any tips on how to answer this type of questions?#help

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

KevinLuminateLSAT

@"camille.chabot" said:
Hi everyone,

I just took LSAT 57 - Section 3 - Question 23 about "brushless car wash" and I really don't understand how C can be correct. To me all of the answer choices were wrong and C seemed to me like a big inference (i.e. both brush and brushless car wash could leave a visible scratches on new and old cars, but "brushless" could leave less).
Any tips on how to answer this type of questions?#help

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

I agree that (C) is not as supported as the correct answer usually is on an MSS question. But it's a good reminder that they really are asking which answer is the most strongly supported. For the vast majority of questions (including MSS and all other LR questions), we can usually decide whether an answer is correct or wrong without caring about what the other answers say. But not always. In these cases, we have to rely on process of elimination.

There's a difference between answers that have no evidence, or contrary evidence, and answers that have some evidence, but require a stretch.

The stimulus tells us

(1) mitters are easier on most cars' finishes than brushes (easier meaning less rough or damaging)
(2) being easier on a finish is important with new clear-coat finishes found on many cars, because those cars are more easily scratched than those with older finishes

I don't think the stimulus is set up in a way that allows us to have a strong anticipation.
But since both of these facts are about scratching or roughness on a finish, I would expect the answer to be related to this. And both facts are comparisons -- one is about mitters vs. brushes, and another is about clear-coat vs. older finishes. So the answer might involve one or both of these comparisons.

(A) has two problems. Even though brushes are rougher, we know that finishes of the past were less easily scratched. So, without more, we have no basis for thinking that cars were more likely to be scratched in the past. This isn't an example of taking something that is supported, but stretching it too far. There isn't any support at all -- or to put it more precisely, we have one fact that would suggest scratches were more likely in the past (brushes are rougher) and one fact that would suggest scratches were less likely in the past (older finishes are less prone to scratching). There is no basis for deciding which one carries more weight. Nor do we have any basis for speculating about the time frames in a way that might support (A) (Ex.: "What if car washes all used brushes around the same time that many clear coat finishes were around?")

In any case, this answer is actually about the number of scratched cars. Even if we were to grant the unsupported assumption that scratches were more likely in the past, that doesn't support a claim about the comparative number of cars. It's a % (or rate) vs. amount issue. An increase in the overall number of cars on the road could easily mean that there are more scratched cars now, even if cars now are less likely to be scratched.

(B) is about the the cause of the modern car washes. We don't know why they came about. There's no statement in the stimulus that suggests a reason they were developed.

(D) involves a comparison of cleaning effectiveness. We have no support for a statement about effectiveness at cleaning.

(E) is about the comparative number of clear-coat vs. older finishes. We have no support for this. We know that there are "many" cars with clear-coat finishes, but we don't know whether that's a higher number than the number of cars with older finishes.

So that leaves us with (C). (C) would have been easier to pick if it said "Modern brushless car washes sometimes do not produce scratches on cars with older finishes." Are we OK with it saying "usually do not produce visible scratches on older finishes"? Not really. We do know from the stimulus that mitters are less likely to scratch than brushes, and that older finishes are more resistant to scratches than clear-coats. In addition, we know that having mitters are "especially important" for the clear-coats -- they're not especially important for the older finishes. So an answer like "modern brushless car washes are less likely to produce visible scratches on cars with older finishes than on cars with clear coats" would be much better. But at least (C) has a shred of support, and no countervailing evidence, unlike the others.

This is not the only time the LSAT will require you to pick the best of 5 bad answers. PT83 LR1 #15 is similar. The correct answer there uses a word that's similar to "usually" even though it's tough to say that the stimulus support that level of certainty. It would have been much easier to pick if it had said "sometimes" or "might" rather than the word it actually used. But the wrong answers have no support at all.