LSAT 131 – Section 3 – Question 19

LSAT 131 - Section 3 - Question 19

December 2009

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Question QuickView	Type	Tags	Answer Choices	Curve	Question Difficulty	Psg/Game/S Difficulty	Explanation
PT131 S3 Q19	+LR	Must be true +MBT Conditional Reasoning +CondR Quantifier +Quant	A 39% 164 B 7% 158 C 7% 160 D 7% 160 E 41% 167	156 169 180	+Hardest	146.026 +SubsectionMedium

J.Y.’s explanation

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If understanding a word always involves knowing its dictionary definition, then understanding a word requires understanding the words that occur in that definition. But clearly there are people—for example, all babies—who do not know the dictionary definitions of some of the words they utter.

Summary

If understanding a word requires knowing the dictionary definition, then understanding a word requires understanding all the words in the definition.
Some babies say things. But they don’t know the dictionary definitions of the words they say.

Notable Valid Inferences

There are no clear inferences to draw from these facts. One thing that we should definitely NOT infer is the idea that babies don’t understand the words they utter. We don’t know this is true, because we don’t know whether understanding a word requires knowing the dictionary definition.

Some babies utter individual words that they do not understand.

Could be false. We don’t know whether understanding a word requires knowing the dictionary definition. The first sentence starts with IF. The IF part of the first sentence is not necessarily true. So maybe babies can understand everything they say. We just don’t know.

Any number of people can understand some words without knowing their dictionary definitions.

Could be false. We don’t know that it’s possible to understand a word without knowing the dictionary definition. And even if we did, we don’t know that “any number of people” can understand without dictionary definition.

If some words can be understood without knowing their dictionary definitions, then babies understand some words.

Could be false. We don’t know that babies understand words that might be understood without knowing the dictionary definition. Maybe some words can be understood by teenagers and adults, but not necessarily babies.

If it is possible to understand a word without knowing its dictionary definition, then it is possible to understand a word without having to understand any other word.

Could be false. If it’s possible to understand a word without knowing the dictionary definition, it still could be the case that we need to understand other words. The stimulus doesn’t tell us what happens if understanding doesn’t require knowing dictionary definitions.

If some babies understand all the words they utter, then understanding a word does not always involve knowing its dictionary definition.

Must be true. If some babies understand everything they say, and we know from the stimulus that they don’t know the dictionary definitions of those words, that means understanding does not require knowing the dictionary definition.

LSAT 131 – Section 3 – Question 19

LSAT 131 - Section 3 - Question 19

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J.Y.’s explanation

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Review Results

LSAT PrepTest 131 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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