PT42.S2.Q16 - there are two kinds of horror stories

islandersandyankeesislandersandyankees Alum Member
edited January 2017 in Logical Reasoning 65 karma
Hey Guys,

I am very confused on this question. I thought the answer would be A.

The paragraph says in the first sentence that there are two kinds of horror: mad scientist and monstrous beast. The last sentence then says that both kinds of horror stories describe violations of the laws of nature and are intended to produce dread in the reader. Therefore, why would the answer not be A?
https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-42-section-2-question-16

Comments

  • SamiSami Live Member Sage ⭐ 7Sage Tutor
    edited January 2017 10789 karma
    So the noun in answer choice "A" is "All descriptions of monstrous beast". But in our stimulus we only know about "Horror stories that describe a monstrous beast". So our stimulus tells us nothing about all descriptions of monstrous beasts that exists. We only know about a subset of descriptions of monstrous beasts, the one that are described in horror stories. That's what makes answer choice "A" wrong.

    The stimulus only talks about Horror stories that describe a monstrous beast. Answer choice "A" talks about all descriptions of monstrous beasts.
    What would make answer choice "A" correct would be if it read, "Some descriptions of monstrous beasts describe violations of nature".

    I hope this helped to see why answer choice "A" exceeds the subset of noun that are described in our stimulus.

    While answer choice "E" talks about some stories that employ symbolism describe violations of laws of nature. We know from our stimulus that horror stories that use monstrous beasts employ symbolism. That means some stories employ symbolism. Then the stimulus tells us that all these stories describe violations of laws of nature. So we can make that inference that at least some stories that employ symbolism also describe violations of laws of nature.

    Hopefully this helped : )
  • islandersandyankeesislandersandyankees Alum Member
    65 karma
    this helped so much! Thank you very much! How subtle that question was. I completely missed it! thank you!
  • SamiSami Live Member Sage ⭐ 7Sage Tutor
    10789 karma
    My pleasure <3 .

    and yes, it was subtle indeed! I recently made a similar error on a question in another PT. It wasn't exactly this but they switched the nouns slightly. They went from "Steve's friendship with Abella" in stimulus to "Steve's discussion with Abella" in answer choice. On one hand its the noun is the "friendship" on the other hand the noun is "discussion".

    So the lesson I have learned is to always pay attention to the noun. <3
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