PT June 2007.S2.Q24 - car companies solicit consumer information

attorneysomerville

I have been analyzing all the June 2007 (public domain) questions one by one, and find that they all neatly fit into very neat symbolic argument patterns--except for Section II Question 24. I would appreciate any comments on this particular question, especially if someone can help me write up a symbolic logic representation of it.

Please don't post full questions on the discussion forums, even if this is a free PT! You can see the question and explanation here:
https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-june-2007-section-2-question-24

Cant Get Right

So the first sentence is just context. The rest of the passage is the argument, beginning with the conclusion and then following up the the premises. There are no conditionals, so I'm not sure how I'd write this out into lawgic, except maybe just drawing arrows from the premises to the conclusion. It's great that you're taking the time to go so in depth with each question, that's a really great way to build your understanding. Not every passage will neatly diagram out though, so don't let yourself get too frustrated on questions like these. Keep at it, hope this helps.

Oh, and we aren't allowed to post full questions, as it is copyrighted material. When you get the chance, you'll need to go back and edit your post to remove the question and answer choices. Just make sure you've got the test number, section, and question number so people can find it!

attorneysomerville

Thanks for the tip to not post questions... every newbie gets to make that mistake once, I hope.

Can't_Get_Right, you say, "Not every passage will neatly diagram out though, so don't let yourself get too frustrated on questions like these."

I'm not frustrated. Quite the opposite. What I have been seeing is that a startling number of passages WILL diagram out if you know what you're looking for. On questions that present complete arguments, I find passage after passage falling into a very small handful of patterns (hypothetical syllogism, modus ponens, modus tolens, or something I call a "counter-conditional," which is the negation of a conditional in the form of "A and NOT B").

I am not saying these are obvious patterns. They are anything but obvious. But if you look at a conclusion and see something that MIGHT be a conditional ("A->B"), take a second look at the evidence and see whether you can characterize it as two more conditionals with common terms. No matter how offbeat the connecting verbs may be, you may find (as I have done) that you're staring at a hypothetical syllogism in disguise. For me, at least, that has transformed my take on LR questions.