LSAT 126 – Section 3 – Question 01

LSAT 126 - Section 3 - Question 01

October 2008

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT126 S3 Q01
+LR
Resolve reconcile or explain +RRE
A
1%
156
B
97%
163
C
1%
153
D
1%
154
E
0%
144
122
131
139
 +Easiest 144.364 +SubsectionEasier

Aristophanes’ play The Clouds, which was written when the philosopher Socrates was in his mid-forties, portrays Socrates as an atheistic philosopher primarily concerned with issues in natural science. The only other surviving portrayals of Socrates were written after Socrates’ death at age 70. They portrayed Socrates as having a religious dimension and a strong focus on ethical issues.

"Surprising" Phenomenon

Portrayals of Socrates written after his life are markedly different than the one written during his life.

Objective

The right answer will be a hypothesis that explain why the portrayals of Socrates after his life attribute a religious and ethical dimension to his philosophy, whereas the contemporaneous one ascribes him a strictly atheistic, scientific outlook. We’re looking for something that either says the portrayals had different motivations, or that Socrates himself changes after his portrayal in Aristophanes.

A
Aristophanes’ portrayal of Socrates in The Clouds was unflattering, whereas the other portrayals were very flattering.

The portrayals are diametrically opposed. Whether or not they’re flattering doesn’t explain the vast differences in who they say Socrates really is.

B
Socrates’ philosophical views and interests changed sometime after his mid-forties.

Aristophanes portrays Socrates at age 40. If his views changed afterwards, and if those are the views he’s remembered best for, then it absolutely makes sense later portrayals would emphasize those. This explains the discrepancy in the stimulus.

C
Most of the philosophers who lived before Socrates were primarily concerned with natural science.

We don’t care about other philosophers. We need to know why later portrayals of Socrates differed from the contemporaneous one.

D
Socrates was a much more controversial figure in the years before his death than he was in his mid-forties.

We need to know more about Socrates as a controversial figure for this to be right. How did the controversy influence those later portrayals? Why were they so different than the one in Aristophanes? We simply don’t have enough information to choose this answer.

E
Socrates had an influence on many subsequent philosophers who were primarily concerned with natural science.

This doesn’t explain why Socrates was portrayed as an ethical and religious philosopher after his life. If this answer were true and he influenced philosophers concerned with natural science, why didn’t later accounts portray him as the scientific figure in Aristophanes?

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LSAT PrepTest 126 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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