I don't really see how B is supported in the situation nor how D does not. Can someone evaluate my reasoning?
The question stem is pretty weird. My best guess is that this is a MSS question or a principle question. According to Google, proposition means "a statement or assertion that expresses a judgment or opinion."
Industrialists address problems by simplifying them. In farming, this tends to lead to oversimplification. To illustrate, industrialists think water retention and drainage are two independent/unrelated things. That isn't true. Thus, more farming farming problems are created than solved when industrialist get involved in farming.
What I am looking for: My best guess for a principle would be that farmers shouldn't listen to industrialists when they suggest things about farming issues.
Answer A: Most important? No.
Answer B: This is the correct answer choice, but I don't understand how the passage illustrates this proposition. Viewed in all of their complexity? Where is this idea in the passage?
Answer C: Anyone else? No.
Answer
I I felt pretty good about this one during the exam, and I kept it during BR. Isn't this pretty much verbatim stated in the final sentence of the passage?
Answer E: This was difficult to eliminate, but it is too broad. We know that industrialists oversimplify things, but we only know that it creates problems in the realm of farming, not everything. Plus, you would have to assume that oversimplifying something is fundamentally flawed. Maybe it is or maybe it isn't.
Comments
(B) Seemed a little wishy-washy-weak to me but JY said this. (B) stated another way simply says: “Problems of farming should not be simplified (or ignore complexity)” which is exactly what industrialists do.
http://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-58-section-4-question-16/
I still am not 100% certain with D though. To me, the passage starts by saying that industrialists "usually" oversimplify things in farming. We then have one example where this is bad (the water retention/drainage thing). But isn't the last sentence a (pretty poorly supported) conclusion? It states that therefore, more problems are created than solved when industrialists get in the way of farmers. To me, this is a pro vs. con sort of argument where Madden's goal/entire point is to say that industrial solutions shouldn't be sought for farming since they create more problems then they solve. I'm just still reading D as a pretty decent paraphrase of the MP.
I think B is a pretty wishy washy answer, too. I guess "ignoring something in all its complexity" means "oversimplification," but I thought that was a pretty non-obvious equivocation that the LSAT was making. I Googled oversimplification flaw, and pretty much found "something that ignores something in all's complexity" as a definition, so what's fair is fair. This is supported, but I still am pretty unclear how D is 100% not supported.
Maybe D is not correct due to the difference between "industrial solutions" vs. "solutions thought of by industrialists"? This seems like a pretty trivial distinction to me, though.