The question stem reads: The reasoning in the board member’s argument is vulnerable to criticism on grounds that the argument… This is a Flaw question.
The board member begins by claiming that the J Foundation issued “you” this grant on the condition that the resulting work did not contain anything detrimental to the J Foundation’s reputation. In other words, meeting the conditions of the grant requires that “your” work not contain anything harmful to J Foundation’s reputation. However, the board member notes that the resulting work does not mention anything positive about the J Foundation. The board member concludes that “you” have failed to meet the conditions of the grant.
Here we have a very common flaw in the LSAT: assuming that negation and opposition are the same. The board member assumes that no positive information must mean the existence of negative information. However, positive information could also imply that the information in the work was simply neutral: the information was neither good nor bad for the J Foundation’s reputation. If the resulting work was neutral, then “you” would not violate the conditions of the grant. Let’s move to the answer choices.
Answer Choice (A) is incorrect. Whether or not the work has Intellectual value has nothing to do with the board member’s argument.
Answer Choice (B) is incorrect. The author does not confuse the necessary condition of “no harmful information” for being sufficient to issue the grant.
Correct Answer Choice (C) is what we discussed. The board member has assumed that failing to mention the laudable achievements of J Foundation amounts to harming the reputation of J Foundation.
Answer Choice (D) is something the argument fails to consider, but that is not why the argument is flawed.
Answer Choice (E) is also something that the argument does not consider, but (E) is not a problem for the argument. If you failed to satisfy the necessary condition of “no harmful information,” it would not matter how many other conditions were met. The problem is that we do not know if the work actually contained harmful information.
Really tough question. Reading only the question stem, it's not clear what type of question it is. Some general "principle" type, I suppose. So, you read the stimulus and then glance at the answers again. Notice there's an argument in the stimulus. Notice the answers are all conditionals. We're looking for a PSA answer choice. We can get away with fudging some ideas because the question stem has the word "most" in it.
So let's lay the argument out.
Sentence 1 zooms into the subset of "Most TV shows". What about them? They depend on advertising funding.
show alive --> funding
contrapositive
/funding --> /show alive (think canceled show)
Sentence 2 tells us a necessary condition of advertising funding.
funding --> many people buy product
Now we get to chain up:
show alive --> funding --> many people buy product
Sentence 3 runs the contrapositive on the whole chain.
/many people buy product --> /funding --> /show alive
[I think we really could have done without sentence 3 since it's not adding anything new. We could have chained up sentences 1 and 2 on our own and also ran the contrapositive on our own. Sentence 3 feels redundant to me.]
Now, sentence 4, the conclusion.
feel show worth preserving --> buy product
All together now:
[P] show alive --> funding --> many people buy product
__________________
[C] feel show worth preserving --> buy product
What's our most standard, cookie cutter formulation of a PSA or SA answer choice that we are trained to anticipate and look for?
IF P, THEN C
With some cleverly crafted referential phrasing, that's precisely what (B) is saying:
IF [a TV show would be canceled unless many people took certain actions], THEN [everyone who feels that the show is worth preserving out to take those actions]. IF [P], THEN [C]
Try to figure it out before reading on.
IF [P], THEN [C]
[P] is [a TV show would be canceled unless many people took certain actions]
[C] is [everyone who feels that the show is worth preserving out to take those actions]
[P] first. "unless" is group 3, negate sufficient. "not a TV show would be canceled --> many people took certain actions" =
"show alive --> many people took certain actions"
What could those actions possibly be referring to? Buy product.
"show alive --> many people buy product"
Now [C]. "everyone" is group 1, sufficient. "feel show worth preserving --> take those actions" Again, what could those actions possibly be referring to? Again, buy product.
"feel show worth preserving --> buy product"
The problem with answer choice (A) is that it's not describing the same shows that the stimulus is describing. The shows in the stimulus depended for their survival on MANY people buying a product. This conforms to our common sense expectations of TV shows. I would expect that the real life TV shows that depend on advertising funding would depend for their survival on MANY people buying whatever products they're meant to be buying.
(A) however talks about a set of TV shows whose survival depends on ONE single person buying a product. "would be canceled unless one took certain actions" What show in the world's survival is dependent on a single person taking some action? I have no idea. But whatever the TV shows (A)'s talking about, they're not the same TV shows that the stimulus talked about.
The passage starts by telling us that maybe it's a good idea to teach high school kids calculus. Okay, let's explore. Is it a good idea?
Well, it might "benefit them" but it didn't specify in what way. So some unspecified benefit on the one hand.
Then, the passage turns around and tells us that there's some "level of abstraction" involved in calculus. Okay, like a high level or a low level? Don't know. But, if these high school kids aren't ready for whatever that "level of abstraction" is, then they may "abandon the study of mathematics".
So, if we're going to teach them calculus, we better make sure they're ready to handle that "level of abstraction".
Why? Because if they aren't ready, they might abandon the study of math. I mean, god forbid they decide to take up acting or some such non-sense.
Okay, I'm kidding, but you see the assumption right?
The assumption is that we don't want them to abandon the study of math. In other words, teach math to students only if it won't lead the students to abandon it. In other words, if you introduce calculus to students, then make sure that they can handle the "cognitive challenges" (or "level of abstraction") "without losing motivation" (or "without abandoning it"). That's (A). (A) tightens up the space between the premises and conclusion.
(C) is problematic for two reasons. First, is calculus a "cognitive task that requires exceptional effort"? We don't know. So we have to presume that it is. Okay, that's bad enough.
But, even if we presume that it is. Then all (C) tells us is that it undermines the motivation of those who attempt them. In other words, calculus just straight up hurts your self esteem and motivation. Never mind be ready to handle the "level of abstraction". It just hurts you. So... how does this help our argument?
The question stem reads: Which of the following is most strongly supported by the statements above? This is a Most Strongly Supported question.
These types of questions will contain a set of facts that will Support a claim found in the answer choices. In other words, the stimulus of an MSS question will make the correct answer choice more likely to be true. The stimulus reads the "star-nosed mole" has a nose with tentacles that are crucial for hunting because the moles have terrible eyesight. The stimulus then goes on to explain that the tentacles work by detecting electric fields produced by other animals. The detection enables the moles to find and catch prey like worms and insects. It's hard to see exactly where this is going. Before we dive into the answer choices, let's take a quick recap:
- The star-nosed mole has poor eyesight.
- It uses its nose to hunt.
- The nose works by detecting electric fields produced by other animals.
- The nose enables the mole to catch suitable prey, such as worms and insects.
Correct Answer Choice (A) looks great and is supported by the stimulus. It is more likely to be true that worms and insects produce electric fields because the star-nosed moles hunt them. The mole has bad eyesight, so the way it hunts is by detecting the electric fields procured by its prey (worms and insects).
Answer Choice (B) could be tempting, but it is far too strong to be supported by the stimulus. The stimulus only mentions that the moles are poor-sighted, not that they are entirely blind. So while we know that their eyesight is not the primary method for hunting, it is still possible the mole uses its eyesight in some way while hunting. Furthermore, there is more to survival than just hunting. Maybe the mole uses its poor eyesight to determine the time of day.
Answer Choice (C) is unsupported because we know nothing about the mole's sense of smell or how it does or doesn't use that sense of smell for hunting.
Answer Choice (D) is unsupported because it draws a general rule from a single instance in the stimulus. (D) claims that only animals that hunt have these eclectic tentacle noses. Sure, that might be true in the case of the mole, but how can we then make that claim about all electric tentacle nose animals?
Answer Choice (E) is unsupported because we cannot determine from the stimulus if an animal does not have an electric field. The stimulus only offers a way for us to determine whether an animal does have an electric field.