LSAT 129 – Section 2 – Question 11

LSAT 129 - Section 2 - Question 11

June 2009

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT129 S2 Q11
+LR
Point at issue: disagree +Disagr
Conditional Reasoning +CondR
A
3%
158
B
6%
160
C
89%
165
D
1%
155
E
1%
157
125
138
151
 +Easier 144.702 +SubsectionEasier

Pat: E-mail fosters anonymity, which removes barriers to self-revelation. This promotes a degree of intimacy with strangers that would otherwise take years of direct personal contact to attain.

Amar: Frankness is not intimacy. Intimacy requires a real social bond, and social bonds cannot be formed without direct personal contact.

Speaker 1 Summary
Pat argues towards the unstated conclusion that e-mail promotes intimacy with strangers. How so? E-mail allows anonymity. Anonymity removes barriers to self-revelation, and removing those barriers promotes intimacy. Chaining that together, we can infer that e-mail promotes intimacy.

Speaker 2 Summary
Amar claims that e-mail does not promote intimacy (although this conclusion is also unstated). In support, Amar says that a real social bond is necessary for intimacy, and in turn, direct personal contact is necessary for real social bonds. Since e-mail doesn’t include direct personal contact, we can infer that e-mail cannot foster intimacy.

Objective
We want to find a point of disagreement. Pat and Amar disagree about whether e-mail can lead to intimacy with strangers.

A
barriers to self-revelation hinder the initial growth of intimacy
Neither speaker makes this claim. Pat is the only speaker who talks about barriers to self-revelation, but it’s just to say that removing those barriers speeds up intimacy. Amar never discusses these barriers at all.
B
E-mail can increase intimacy between friends
Neither speaker talks about the effect of e-mail on intimacy between established friends. The conversation is just about whether e-mail can build intimacy between strangers.
C
intimacy between those who communicate with each other solely by e-mail is possible
Pat agrees with this, but Amar disagrees: this is the point of disagreement. Pat’s argument supports the conclusion that e-mail promotes intimacy between strangers, but Amar’s implied conclusion is that email cannot create intimacy due to a lack of direct personal contact.
D
real social bonds always lead to intimacy
Neither speaker makes this claim. Amar is the only speaker who talks about real social bonds, but the claim Amar makes is that real social bonds are necessary for intimacy, not that they’re sufficient.
E
the use of e-mail removes barriers to self-revelation
Pat agrees with this, but Amar doesn’t state an opinion. Amar doesn’t discuss barriers to self-revelation at all, so cannot be said to agree or disagree with this claim.

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LSAT PrepTest 129 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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