[Spoiler Alert] LR Issues PT 69 - Section 4

ethaaaan

There were several questions in this section that seemed to provide answers that I could not seem to justify even after BRing, not sure if this type of post is an issue because of its detail on specific questions, if so I apologize in advance and please remove.

9.
The correct answer seems to require that if the people who occupied the site were using a "wider variety of wild plants than did any other people at the time", then they would have "used some plants in ways that no other people did at that time."

In my opinion, using a "wider variety" in no way implies or supports the contention that this society was utilizing previously unused/discovered plants; it would mean that this society was eating a using a wider range of plants than any other culture, but each plant they used was also being used by some other culture.

Society "X" could eat wild mushrooms, apples, pears, spinach, bananas, and pineapples; while each of these plants was also eaten by at least some other society in existence.

Thoughts?


19.
The correct answer introduces this concept of "well-being" that appears no where in the argument of the professor, how would this weaken the argument?


21.
When I did this question it seemed as if it presented 2 necessary conditions for the book to be published this year -
1. important;
2. well written.

I selected the correct answer (A) in timed, but switched to (D) in BR, because (A) seems to lack the condition of being well written.

What would be the correct logical representation for this question?

danielznelson

For 19:

Weakening/Strengthening Questions are tough, because they can and often do introduce new concepts in order to weaken/strengthen. This makes pre-phrasing a bit harder, in my opinion, and allowing yourself to choose an answer choice with information not within the passage is hard!

Conclusion of the argument: the reasoning (that buying lottery tickets is an unwise use of resources due to their low payoff relative to the price of tickets) is faulty.

Why? Because something not considered unwise to purchase, insurance, has a much lower payoff relative to its price.

"E" challenges the conclusion and the reasoning linking the premises to it by indicating that what insurance has to offer is much more valuable than what a lottery ticket has to offer - what insurance offers being protection against loss and what lottery tickets offer being unexpected gain.

Because of this, insurance, despite having a lower payoff relative to its price, provides something more important than what lottery tickets offer. The two aren't on the same plane; thus, simply showing that insurance has a lower payoff doesn't mean it should be considered in the same way as lottery tickets should be considered.

danielznelson

Your question for 9 is another good one. MSS questions don't require air tight arguments (why MSS questions are hard), so your contention with the correct answer choice nails the possible hole in the argument.

The other answer choices are clearly wrong, and while "B" isn't perfect, it unfortunately doesn't have to be. This is a case of your supreme pinpointing working against you (seriously, great catch! I didn't think of the issue you brought up), but it's crucial to realize that that tiny assumption is okay to make. Eliminating the other ACs is always crucial, but it is very much so for MSS questions.

danielznelson

https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-69-section-4-question-21/

Looks like JY may have the answer to your last question. His diagramming of the logic is below the two videos.

ethaaaan

@danielznelson thank you for providing those insights, definitely clears things up!

runiggyrun

For 9, in addition to an MSS question not having to be airtight, as @danielznelson points out, I think the stimulus strongly suggests that the scientists are indeed using the phrase "ate a wider variety of plants than any other people" to mean "they ate wild plants not eaten by anybody else", rather than "they ate a combination of wild plants not eaten by anybody else".
Why do I think that? Let's say I'm a scientist and find these spinach and barley remnants from the paleolithic. If I had previously found wild spinach and wild barley (separately) on other sites, I would have no reason to state to myself and the world "these guys either cultivated this spinach and barley, or they ate a wider variety of stuff than any other paleo people.
I would just say "these guys ate a wider variety of stuff than any other paleo people" (cause I've never found the spinach and barley together). The idea that an alternative explanation would be the use of agriculture strongly suggests that these plants that were found were not known to be eaten wild by anybody else. So, either these guys eat them wild when nobody else does, or they cultivate them.
For 19, the flaw in the professor's argument is that he only takes into account two factors: the cost of the ticket and the average payout. A weaken answer would be one that points out that these are not the only two things to consider when investing in something, and E does just that. The use of "well-being" is not crucial to E - it could have simply stated "price and average payout are not the only important considerations when purchasing things like lottery tickets and insurance". They go one step further and elaborate, saying essentially: if you don't buy a lottery ticket, and someone else wins the jackpot, you're no worse off. If you don't buy insurance and your house burns down, you're in a really tough financial spot. So yeah, price and average payout are not the only things that matter:
For 21, I'm going to assume that you got the logical chain between the book being published and the promotion down pat, and you got tripped by the dual sufficient.
Premises (shortened from the chained conditionals):
Book published -->Skiff promoted
Conclusion:
Book well written+Book important-->Skiff Promoted.

Because this is a Sufficient Assumption, we need an assumption that would bridge the gap between "BWW+BI and BP)
It's very tempting to think that you need both BWW and BI to bridge the gap, but you don't. If you independently make either one of those conditions sufficient for the publishing of the book, you've automatically made the sum of them sufficient.

If it's important it will be published and he'll be promoted.
How about if it's important AND well written? Yep, still published, still promoted

ethaaaan

@runiggyrun Thank you for your explanations! I was still unsure about 21, but you cleared it up for me, thanks!