Q11 - After examining the options

[funner567]

I completely understand why "E" is correct, but for some reason cannot eliminate "A"...

Thank you in advance.

[Nathen.Alan]

So it seems that answer choice A actually exhibits a level of flawed reasoning, although the argument in the stimulus does not.

Take a look at it. Just because Marissa is tall enough to touch the ceiling when she jumps, & Jeff is taller, doesn't mean he would be able to touch the ceiling when he jumps. Maybe Marissa is just an exceptional jumper, while Jeff can hardly jump at all.

Hopefully this helps. As you know, E doesn't exhibit any flaw & fits perfectly.

[noah]

Great explanation of (A) above!

In case any future students are struggling with this question, here's a full explanation.

The stimulus provides us this basic argument:

Corelink must be cheap enough to be within budget.

Why? Because it's cheaper than QI, which is in within budget.

If you wanted to boil it down further, it could be: C is low enough, because C is lower than Q and Q is low enough.

Let's do a conclusion match sweep. We're looking for something with an entity passing muster:

(A) OK
(B) OK
(C) IFFY since it's illegal, but OK
(D) Eliminate - "just right"? What is this, Goldilocks?
(E) OK

Now let's do a premise match sweep. We're looking for something else to be "passable" -and the thing we're discussing in the conclusion to be more passable than that.

(A) OK
(B) OK
(C) Eliminate - "even if it turns out" is a mis-match
(E) OK

Now, let's look at the logic of (A), (B) and (E).

(A) and (B) are both about ability to do something, and this prevents the premise from truly supporting the conclusion, since ones ability to perform an action - be it jumping or running a marathon - probably depends on more than one factor. Just because someone is taller than someone who can jump X feet high, doesn't mean this taller person can. Same thing applies to marathon-running!

(E) is a match: one thing must pass because it is even lower than another thing that passes on that criteria. No cow jumping over the moon required.

[Shiggins]

For answer choice A. I thought about what you had said about Marissa being a better jumper while doing this question. I kept A at first and later eliminated it becase it says Marissa touches the ceiling "when she jumps as high as she can." For Jeff it only says "when he jumps." Is it ok to eliminate A based on that difference of wording?

[noah]

For answer choice A. I thought about what you had said about Marissa being a better jumper while doing this question. I kept A at first and later eliminated it becase it says Marissa touches the ceiling "when she jumps as high as she can." For Jeff it only says "when he jumps." Is it ok to eliminate A based on that difference of wording?

Me goodness that's a close read! Nicely done. I probably wouldn't eliminate based on that sort of thing, as it's not the main thing the LSAT would use, but you're right - that's answer choice lacks internal parallelism and thus would be incorrect.

[nflamel69]

I got rid of A because the stimulus says something its lower than the other thing, while A is saying jeff is taller, in other words, more than the other thing, is that reasonable?

[noah]

I got rid of A because the stimulus says something its lower than the other thing, while A is saying jeff is taller, in other words, more than the other thing, is that reasonable?

Good question. I'd be careful with that line of thinking. It's true that switching from high to low (or positive to negative) is rare, but it's not a rock-solid approach--especially since we're looking for the answer that "most closely" parallels.

I'd pull that strategy out in a pinch, but otherwise I'd just note the concern and defer judgement/look for other reasons to eliminate. If I were down to two answers, and the only issue was that, then I'd use it.

In this case, "X is enough" is the general structure, and that part of (A) seems OK to me.