Evaluation Questions

Comments

• neil4833 Alum Member

  August 2014 40 karma

  Find the loophole while reading->Predict the right answer->Select. The pre-finding of the loophole mentality is crucial for quick and correct selection. In this question, it is possible to smell that the second most read book may not be a very influential book. It is always a problem asserting absolute values based on relative standards.
• MississaugaMike Alum Member

  August 2014 14 karma

  Thank you for your response! however I am still unclear as to what the loophole in a question like this is. By loophole, do you mean flaw/assumption?
• inactive Alum Member

  September 2014 12637 karma

  Bumping this to the top! Any help/advice for Mike?
• 3 Likes

  David Wayne Free Trial Member

  September 2014 571 karma

  Hello Mike,
  
  Let me begin by telling you that an evaluate question requires you to assess the strength of an argument in much the same way you would for a flaw/strengthen/weaken/necessary or sufficient assumption/ question. We're being told straight out to identify a factor whose answer would be helpful to our evaluation of the argument at hand, so you know you need to start looking for assumptions or flaws in your argument.
  
  Before i say more about the question type itself, we'll look at this argument. The first sentence is the conclusion of this argument, as the ensuing survey the columnist analyzes is designed to substantiate this claim. Why are we to believe 1984 has had a strong impact on the readers? A survey reported that 1984 was the second most commonly chosen book in a survey of 1000 people asked what the most influential book on their life was.
  
  The flaw is not obvious, but the trick is to always be suspicious of any and every LSAT argument that requires assessment (as opposed to a question that merely asks for the main conclusion, or for you to state the method of reasoning, where you need to be less evaluative than you'd need to be on, say, a necessary assumption question). The scenario the argument is tempting you to believe from this survey is that the bible was chosen by about 400 people, 1984 by 300, and the remaining 300 favorite books were comprised of a vast array of different books. In this situation, the significance of 1984's impact on the columnist's readership is undoubtedly significant, as his conclusion states.
  
  But what if 995 of the 1000 selected the bible, 3 people selected 1984, and 2 people selected 50 shades of grey? Is it then obvious that 1984 has had a great degree of influence on the readership? Absolutely not. The argument is manipulating some facts about a survey - facts that are compatible with either of these results. In our first scenario, the argument's conclusion is supported; in our 50 shades of grey scenario, not at all! (no offense to any fans of that book, of course!)
  
  The only way to get this question correct was to identify the argument's flawed nature. Evaluate questions' answer choices capture the flaw at hand through presenting a question. One extreme of the question's answer (in this case, scenario 1) would strengthen the argument considerably. The other extreme (in this case, the 50 shades scenario) would weaken the argument considerably. Always look at each question in terms of its having two polar opposite answers, and think about whether the opposites would strengthen and weaken in this 'opposite' manner.
  
  Is that clear? JY does a video on this question by the way, and it does an excellent job explaining this if you need more help.
• kellysmelly Alum Member

  September 2014 84 karma

  A correct evaluate Answer choice (AC) is one that in the most extreme case (e.g. all of the time, 110%, a billion ) the AC -- strengths the argument. And when you put it in the other opposite extreme condition (e.g. almost never, 0.1%, 1) the AC ---weakens the argument.
• 1 Like

  MississaugaMike Alum Member

  September 2014 14 karma

  Thanks for the really good advice guys! It really cleared things up. Thanks for bumping this up Dillon
• inactive Alum Member

  September 2014 12637 karma

  No problem! Hope that answered your questions.
• LSATKingsman Alum Member

  July 2016 1024 karma

  Bumping this. I can't find the video in question that describes how to attack them.
  
  ex. "The answer to which one of the following questions would be most helpful in evaluating the argument?"