PT54.S4.Q9 - the jacksons regularly receive wrong-number calls

civnetn

https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-54-section-4-question-09/
I've spent about 2 hrs dissecting this question and I just DO NOT understand it. At all. I've looked at discussion boards, books, everything. Please, for the love of God, HELP!

legal_name

Hi @civnetn

Could you clarify what about this question is confusing you. Is it the stimulus or the answer choices?

I eliminated answer choices B through E because they were contradictory to what the stimulus presented - the language was too extreme and generalized in most cases. A was perfect for filling the gap between premise and conclusion.

runiggyrun

So, this is a very long winded stimulus and "which principle would most justify" questions are not the most common, but at the end of the day it's a Pseudo Sufficient Assumption question, so we have to treat it the same way we'd deal with an SA, except with a less "airtight" requirement for the correct answer.
In all that long stimulus, they give you essentially two useful premises.
1. The Jacksons didn't lead Sara to believe they would forward her number.
2. It would be helpful for Sara if they did forward.

Then you have a two part conclusion:
It would be laudable if they did forward the number, but it wouldn't be wrong if they didn't.

You have to find the correct answer that bridges the gap between the premises and the conclusion, and it's easier to do it if you separate the conclusion in it's two components.

a. It wouldn't be wrong if they didn't forward the number
b. It would be laudable if they forwarded the number.

Answer A bridges premise 1 to part a of the conclusion (not being helpful would be wrong only if you led the person to believe you would be i.e not forwarding the messages would only be wrong if you led the person to believe you would) and premise 2 to part b of the conclusion (it is always laudable to be helpful i.e. it is laudable to forward the number because it would be helpful for Sara if they did)

civnetn

@legal_name The whole problem is confusing me. There's absolutely nothing about it that I understand.

@runiggyrun Thank you for breaking down the stimulus into it's components. I got that far, but I'm having trouble seeing how they relate to each other and then to the answer choices.

(A) I understand the first part "it is always laudable to do something helpful to someone." The second part however, I do not understand. How can we tell that not doing something laudable (forwarding the number) would be wrong if one has led the person to believe one would forward the number.

The second half of this answer choice basically contains the principle, "If you tell someone you'll do something and then don't, that is wrong." When on Gods green earth were we told that? As far as I can tell, nothing in the stimulus shows conditional reasoning.

(B) Wouldn't this be correct? I don't understand the explanations for why this is wrong.

C D and E I eliminated easily. However, I just don't understand A and B.

BinghamtonDave

I believe what is confusing you here is the second part of answer choice (A). It is actually stated as the contrapositive. What we are looking for is "Jacksons did not lead Sara to believe...------>Not wrong for Jacksons to tell callers..." that is precisely what the stimulus says. This is given to us in the second half of answer choice (A) in the contrapositive form.

What makes this question tough in my estimation are the following things:
1.Convoluted/tricky language in the stimulus: what is "not wrong" about what the Jacksons did.
2.The presence of (A) taking care of both elements of the conclusion, with the second half being in the contrapositive form and the first half being in the form it appears in the stimulus.
3.The presence of always in (A) as one of those necessary indicators that I constantly forget. lol
4.The presence of a very cleverly construed wrong answer choice with (C) in which "not difficult" in the stimulus is not alright to equate with "easy" in the answer choice, even given the relative wiggle-room for a PSA.

All of these things combined make this a tough one. But know what you are looking for, know your conditional indicators, know what slides in language are unacceptable and you should be fine.

runiggyrun

I think the confusion might come from not quite understanding what the stem is asking you to do. Basically, it's saying: Which of the following statements (answer choices) would make the stated conclusion be true, given the two premises (garnished with a lot of junk, granted).
It's really just a combination of two SA questions in one.
The first one can be boiled down to:
Premise: Sara would find the forwarding helpful.
Conclusion: It would be laudable for the Jacksons to forward the number.

What's missing from here? What can we insert between that premise and that conclusion to make the conclusion true?
"It is always laudable to do something helpful".

Now the first part of the argument would read: Sara would find forwarding helpful; it is always laudable to do something helpful. Therefore it would be laudable for the Jacksons to forward the messages.

The second one can be restated as:
Premise: The Jacksons didn't lead Sara to believe they will forward the number.
Conclusion: It wouldn't be wrong for the Jacksons to not forward the number.

What can we insert in the middle there to make the conclusion true? Something like "it's never wrong to do something you didn't lead people to believe you would do" would be very similar to what we did for the first half. (/lead to believe will do --> /wrong not to do)
Alas, they are not going for that; they are going for a little twist: "wrong to not do something only if you led someone to believe you would" (wrong not to do --> lead to believe will do). This is essentially the contrapositive of what we were expecting - a pretty common trick the writers use.

B doesn't bridge the gap because stating "it's laudable if it's not wrong" doesn't deal with the possibility of "well, what if it IS wrong?". The premises ONLY tell us that Sara would find it helpful and that the Jackson's didn't promise anything. The premises don't tell us if any of it is wrong - the concept of wrong only comes into play in the conclusion, and that's why you need a bridge. Answer B connects the two parts of the conclusion with each other (laudable and wrong), but it doesn't connect the premises with the conclusion ("helpful" and "not promised/led to believe" to "laudable" and not "wrong"). Answer A is the only one that does that.

extramedium

@runiggyrun said:
I think the confusion might come from not quite understanding what the stem is asking you to do. Basically, it's saying: Which of the following statements (answer choices) would make the stated conclusion be true, given the two premises (garnished with a lot of junk, granted).
It's really just a combination of two SA questions in one.
The first one can be boiled down to:
Premise: Sara would find the forwarding helpful.
Conclusion: It would be laudable for the Jacksons to forward the number.

What's missing from here? What can we insert between that premise and that conclusion to make the conclusion true?
"It is always laudable to do something helpful".

Now the first part of the argument would read: Sara would find forwarding helpful; it is always laudable to do something helpful. Therefore it would be laudable for the Jacksons to forward the messages.

The second one can be restated as:
Premise: The Jacksons didn't lead Sara to believe they will forward the number.
Conclusion: It wouldn't be wrong for the Jacksons to not forward the number.

What can we insert in the middle there to make the conclusion true? Something like "it's never wrong to do something you didn't lead people to believe you would do" would be very similar to what we did for the first half. (/lead to believe will do --> /wrong not to do)
Alas, they are not going for that; they are going for a little twist: "wrong to not do something only if you led someone to believe you would" (wrong not to do --> lead to believe will do). This is essentially the contrapositive of what we were expecting - a pretty common trick the writers use.

B doesn't bridge the gap because stating "it's laudable if it's not wrong" doesn't deal with the possibility of "well, what if it IS wrong?". The premises ONLY tell us that Sara would find it helpful and that the Jackson's didn't promise anything. The premises don't tell us if any of it is wrong - the concept of wrong only comes into play in the conclusion, and that's why you need a bridge. Answer B connects the two parts of the conclusion with each other (laudable and wrong), but it doesn't connect the premises with the conclusion ("helpful" and "not promised/led to believe" to "laudable" and not "wrong"). Answer A is the only one that does that.

This question is an absolute nightmare. I just spent 30 minutes like OP did. Problem is you have to assume that the Jacksons telling callers they reached the wrong number is the same as not doing something that they did not lead Sara to believe they would do. I'm moving on before I grab the gun.