PT54.S1.Q08 - drilling fluids, including the various

Henry AnHenry An Alum Member
edited September 2017 in Reading Comprehension 123 karma

Hi all,

For question 8, I confidently picked answer choice E and was stunned that this was correct. Upon looking into the explanation for this it seems that the line reference was at 47 to 48. While doing this timed, this was the exact line reference that I thought made answer choice E the correct answer (unsupported from the text).

Lines 47 to 48 state that : For drilling deeper wells, OBM is normally used.
I thought answer choice E was too strong as it states "required." Normally just states that it is more generally used, while required states a necessary condition. While a different mud recipe can be used (or may be more preferable) for deep oil wells to that of shallow oil wells, I thought "drilling deep oil wells REQUIRING the use of a different mud recipe than shallow wells" was too strong. Who is to say that there aren't other conditions for a specific deep oil well that makes the mud recipe for shallow wells more preferable for a specific case?

Thank you for your help in advance!

https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-54-section-1-passage-2-passage/
https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-54-section-1-passage-2-questions/

Comments

  • WalliumsWalliums Member
    373 karma

    Hi there, I think you are referring to question 10 rather than question 8 (the two questions are the same, just have different answer choices).

    I think for this question you might have been too strict in your eliminations. The question stem says "each of the following is supported by one or both of the passages, EXCEPT." In your explanation it seemed you went more the "must be true" route than the "most strongly supported." It doesn't have to be absolutely airtight that the passage says that different mud recipes are required to be used -- but the support is absolutely there for it.

    I might focus here instead on why you eliminated B? Where did you find support in either of the passages for this?

  • Henry AnHenry An Alum Member
    123 karma

    @Walliums Thanks for your reply! Actually my PT says its question 10. The answer choices for this question for me were very detailed oriented, so during timed PT I had to skim through and reached answer choice E. I do see why answer choice B is not supported, but nonetheless, even as a most strongly supported answer choice, I equally cannot see how "requiring" the use of a different mud recipe can be supported by the passage. I took this question exactly how I would have done in a Logical Reasoning Most Strongly Supported question. Incorrectly inferring a necessary condition from a general trend, I thought was a typically trap answer choice in LR sections.

  • WalliumsWalliums Member
    edited September 2017 373 karma

    You've got a sufficiency-necessary hangup here that doesn't exist. Instead read the stimulus and AC like this: "Is it possible that drilling deep wells requires the use of different mud recipes than does drilling shallow wells?"

    We already know that in most instances, deeper wells do use a different drilling mud mixture than shallow wells. Is it possible that deep wells always use a different mixture than shallow wells? It certainly is, just as there is the possibility that deep wells sometimes use the same mixture as shallow wells. You got hung up on the possibility of the latter when the question is asking for the possibility of the former.

    Also I'm not sure how I responded to you with my analytics-only account when I was logged into this one...

  • Henry AnHenry An Alum Member
    edited September 2017 123 karma

    @Walliums Thank you for your insight! To be frank, I cannot see how we can interpret the stimulus and answer choice like that. Like you mentioned before, we should look at this question as a most strongly supported question. If a MSS question had a stimulus that stated A correlates with B, and an answer choice states A causes B, (to use your words) is it possible that A causes B? Yes! But would this be a most strongly supported deduction? No, because there could be a number of other possibilities that can explain the correlation. So, this would be a wrong answer choice.

    Just as this example, if a MSS stimulus stated that A is generally used with B, is it possible that A requires B? Yes! But this would not be a most strongly supported correct answer choice because it is just not implied in the stimulus their relation. We're going from a general trend, to a strict condition between the two

  • WalliumsWalliums Member
    373 karma

    I really do think you are looking at this too strictly. The passage already says that in most cases a different drilling mud is used in deeper wells than shallow wells. It is not a stretch to say that a deeper well would require a different drilling mud. Is that assumption logically impervious? No. But it is simply not a stretch to assume that.

  • Henry AnHenry An Alum Member
    123 karma

    @Walliums Thank you for the insight. I do agree with you that maybe I may be looking at this too strictly... I'll try to keep this one in the back of my head, and come back to this question after a few more PTs. Hope my view becomes fresh by then! Thank you for everything!

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