LSAT 114 – Section 4 – Question 19

LSAT 114 - Section 4 - Question 19

October 2002

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Question QuickView	Type	Tags	Answer Choices	Curve	Question Difficulty	Psg/Game/S Difficulty	Explanation
PT114 S4 Q19	+LR	Evaluate +Eval Analogy +An	A 83% 163 B 3% 153 C 1% 153 D 8% 154 E 5% 157	136 146 155	+Medium	144.851 +SubsectionEasier

Anders: The physical structure of the brain plays an important role in thinking. So researchers developing “thinking machines”—computers that can make decisions based on both common sense and factual knowledge—should closely model those machines on the structure of the brain.

Yang: Important does not mean essential. After all, no flying machine closely modeled on birds has worked; workable aircraft are structurally very different from birds. So thinking machines closely modeled on the brain are also likely to fail. In developing a workable thinking machine, researchers would therefore increase their chances of success if they focus on the brain’s function and simply ignore its physical structure.

Summarize Argument

Yang concludes that researchers should focus on brain function rather than structure when trying to create thinking machines. This is because flying machines modeled on bird structures have never worked.

Notable Assumptions

Yang assumes that flying and thinking are similar. If flying depends more on function whereas thinking depends on structure, then Yang’s argument makes little sense. Yang also assumes that researchers should focus entirely on the aspect of the brain that will be most relevant to the eventual thinking machine (function) while totally ignoring another important aspect (structure). This means Yang thinks there’s little value at all in studying brain structure if the thinking machine won’t employ the brain’s structure.

studies of the physical structure of birds provided information crucial to the development of workable aircraft

If the answer is yes, then researchers should continue to study brain structure to avoid missing out on crucial information. If the answer is no, then studying structure would in fact be wasted time. The first answer weakens Yang’s argument, while the second strengthens.

researchers currently working on thinking machines take all thinking to involve both common sense and factual knowledge

Irrelevant. We have no idea how common sense and factual knowledge relate to structure and function.

as much time has been spent trying to develop a workable thinking machine as had been spent in developing the first workable aircraft

We don’t care how long researchers have spent trying to develop thinking machines and aircrafts. We care about whether they should be focusing on structure or function.

researchers who specialize in the structure of the brain are among those who are trying to develop thinking machines

These researchers don’t necessarily need to be specialists. Besides, Yang recommends focusing on function rather than structure.

some flying machines that were not closely modeled on birds failed to work

Yang doesn’t claim that all flying machines not focused on structure will work. He just says that structure isn’t useful for creating a flying machine or a thinking machine.

LSAT 114 – Section 4 – Question 19

LSAT 114 - Section 4 - Question 19

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Review Results

LSAT PrepTest 114 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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