PT26.S2.Q7- Speakers of the Caronian language constitute a minority

Comments

• 1 Like

  Nicolekh Alum Member ⏰

  January 2019 335 karma

  Hi! Its good to ask questions and get clarification- don't worry about how much you are posting, we are all in the same boat:)

  So let's recap the question. We know this is a NA question.
  The core of the stimulus is:

  Caronian speakers live in several widely scattered area that cannot be united within a single continuous boundary while at the same time slowing caronian speakers to be the majority population.

  Therefore: the recommendation cannot be satisfied.

  With NA, what I like to do is to always be critical of the argument. The conclusion is the recommendation (to make them an independent nation in which Caronian-speakers would be the majority) cannot be satisfied. Why? Because they are widely scattered and cannot form a continuous boundary.

  This question is playing on the assumption that nations cannot be widely scattered, i.e. that they have to be in one continuous boundary in order to be a nation. What if we didn't need all the speakers to be all together, they could be scattered and still form a country? Then the premise would be must less supportive of our conclusion, and our argument would be gone.

  When looking at C and

  C: negate this: The recommendation would be satisfied if the nation had disconnected regions. Yes, this destroys our argument because who cares if they are disjointed and scattered? They can still form a nation being that way so our argument is ruined.
  Let's say the new nation will include people who do not speak this language. So. The argument said they would be the MAJORITY, not the entirety of the region, so even if they don't make up the majority, they could still be disjointed and therefore not make up a nation. See how this doesn't impact the argument at all? Hope this helps.
• 1 Like

  BlindReviewer Alum Member

  January 2019 855 karma

  @Nicolekh sums it up nicely, and just to add in:

  It might be helpful to rewatch JY's video in the curriculum about Necessary Assumption questions because D is very clearly not an NA but could be seen as a kind of Sufficient Assumption. I think the LSAT writers like to bait you into confusing the two.

  What I mean by saying D is like a SA is that it's much, much, stronger than C. If D were true, it's saying that this new nation would not just be "majority" Caronian but ENTIRELY Caronian. So if the question were something like "Which of the following, if true, would make the argument logically follow" and the conclusion was something along the lines of a majority Caronian nation being possible to make, then D would be a great sufficient assumption to cover your bases. Having a 100% Caronian nation would be sufficient for making a "majority" Caronian nation.

  Meanwhile, C is weaker, and that's exactly what we look for in NA questions. I think in the video JY explains NA questions, he says they fall into two types -- "bridging" and "defending." In this question you're defending the argument against assumptions that would weaken the conclusion of "Hence, this recommendation cannot be satisfied." As Nicole says, if C is true, then your argument is destroyed. Other necessary assumptions here would be something like "Caronian speakers cannot all just move to the same place," because that would be another way to attack the argument.

  I think also if you chose D instead of C, you weren't as focused on the conclusion, because D actually has nothing to do with why the recommendation can't be fulfilled?

  Hope this helps!
• Shrilaraune Alum Member

  January 2019 edited January 2019 169 karma

  @BlindReviewer said:
  @Nicolekh sums it up nicely, and just to add in:

  It might be helpful to rewatch JY's video in the curriculum about Necessary Assumption questions because D is very clearly not an NA but could be seen as a kind of Sufficient Assumption. I think the LSAT writers like to bait you into confusing the two.

  What I mean by saying D is like a SA is that it's much, much, stronger than C. If D were true, it's saying that this new nation would not just be "majority" Caronian but ENTIRELY Caronian. So if the question were something like "Which of the following, if true, would make the argument logically follow" and the conclusion was something along the lines of a majority Caronian nation being possible to make, then D would be a great sufficient assumption to cover your bases. Having a 100% Caronian nation would be sufficient for making a "majority" Caronian nation.

  Meanwhile, C is weaker, and that's exactly what we look for in NA questions. I think in the video JY explains NA questions, he says they fall into two types -- "bridging" and "defending." In this question you're defending the argument against assumptions that would weaken the conclusion of "Hence, this recommendation cannot be satisfied." As Nicole says, if C is true, then your argument is destroyed. Other necessary assumptions here would be something like "Caronian speakers cannot all just move to the same place," because that would be another way to attack the argument.

  I think also if you chose D instead of C, you weren't as focused on the conclusion, because D actually has nothing to do with why the recommendation can't be fulfilled?

  Hope this helps!

  Hey there. Yup, that's exactly what I mentioned in my original post haha. I keep falling for answers that fix the argument--that are too strong. Like an SA answer. To your last point, I think I filtered out the actual impact of the word majority on the argument. When you look at it that way D does actually have lot to do with why the recommendation can't be fulfilled. If the country needs to be mostly/all (why I assumed only the latter meaning is anyone's guess) Caronian speakers then D would definitely need to obtain (in the case of all). Of course that's too strong an assumption and isn't necessarily necessary when you take into consideration that they only needed to be a majority. But still.

  I think if anything, I didn't pay enough attention to the argument the author was countering/discussing. Inherent in the definition of a nation--according to them--was that the Caronian speakers be the majority. So my asking "what if they didn't need to form the majority" in addition to, "what if they didn't need to be in a contiguous country" was unhelpful. Because the need for them to be the majority didn't just come from the author, it came from the original argument as well. But now this begs the question, how much attention should I pay to the "some people say" parts of arguments in general?

  Thanks for the suggestion. I'll take a look at JY's videos on NA again.
• Shrilaraune Alum Member

  January 2019 169 karma

  @Nicolekh said:
  Hi! Its good to ask questions and get clarification- don't worry about how much you are posting, we are all in the same boat:)

  So let's recap the question. We know this is a NA question.
  The core of the stimulus is:

  Caronian speakers live in several widely scattered area that cannot be united within a single continuous boundary while at the same time slowing caronian speakers to be the majority population.

  Therefore: the recommendation cannot be satisfied.

  With NA, what I like to do is to always be critical of the argument. The conclusion is the recommendation (to make them an independent nation in which Caronian-speakers would be the majority) cannot be satisfied. Why? Because they are widely scattered and cannot form a continuous boundary.

  This question is playing on the assumption that nations cannot be widely scattered, i.e. that they have to be in one continuous boundary in order to be a nation. What if we didn't need all the speakers to be all together, they could be scattered and still form a country? Then the premise would be must less supportive of our conclusion, and our argument would be gone.

  When looking at C and

  C: negate this: The recommendation would be satisfied if the nation had disconnected regions. Yes, this destroys our argument because who cares if they are disjointed and scattered? They can still form a nation being that way so our argument is ruined.
  Let's say the new nation will include people who do not speak this language. So. The argument said they would be the MAJORITY, not the entirety of the region, so even if they don't make up the majority, they could still be disjointed and therefore not make up a nation. See how this doesn't impact the argument at all? Hope this helps.

  You hit the nail on the head. For some reason, I filtered out "majority" and that's what did it. Thank you so much! It's helpful to see your process, actually. In theory, I'm doing the same things, but I can see where I'm moving past steps too quickly for the sake of time.
• nye8870 Alum ⭐

  January 2019 1749 karma

  The recommendation would not be satisfied by the creation of a nation formed of disconnected
  regions "negated" sounds like: a nation can be formed even though regions are disconnected. This destroys the conclusion therefore C is necessary.