Q15 - Among the many temptations of the digital

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Necessary Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
It has been discovered that scientists are photoshopping images in their articles. Therefore, fraus is a problem.

Answer Anticipation:
Fraud? That came out of nowhere. This argument is making a jump between photoshopping and fraud. Maybe the photoshop was just to crop an image, or to add in a description of what's seen. The correct answer will probably connect the idea of image manipulation with fraud.

Correct answer:
(D)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Out of scope. Their awareness of the journal's protocols doesn't speak to any fraud.

(B) Degree/scope. This answer choice is trying to get you to connect to the "widespread" portion of the conclusion, and think that it's necessary for many articles to be submitted with images. While it's definitely necessary that articles have been submitted with images, we already were told that in the stimulus. Additionally, it's not necessary for all articles to have images for it to be a widespread issue.

(C) Reversal. While it is necessary to know fraud is possible if there are images (i.e., images are sufficient to create the possibility of fraud), it isn't necessary to know that fraud is possible only if there are images (i.e., images are necessary to create the possibility of fraud). If there are other ways to commit fraud, that doesn't impact whether images are on the list.

(D) Bingo. While this answer choice doesn't use the word "fraud", it brings up the idea when it states "in order to misrepresent". This answer connects the photoshopping with a necessary element of fraud (intentional misrepresentation). Negating it - Scientists using photoshop had no intention to misrepresent information - and you can't get to fraud.

(E) Degree/reversal. Similar to (C), fraud doesn't have to be limited to cellular biology magazines ("only among") for this argument to work.

Takeaway/Pattern:
While directionality is generally an issue in Sufficient Assumption questions, it can matter in Necessary Assumption questions as well. Here, two answers reverse the direction with "only/only if" statements, creating incorrect answers.

#officialexplanation

[andrewgong01]

On the LSAT does "Widespread" ( "fraud is a widespread problem...in the journal") mean most (50%+) or is "Widespread" a word that acts more like "many" where although colloquially "many" has a connotes "a lot" it really only,logically, means "some".

Assuming that the photos are indeed fraudulent in the stimulus, 20% of all submissions being fraudulent sounds "widespread" if we go with the "some" meaning but does the LSAT require 50% as the threshold to be "Widespread"?


My thinking is that had "B" not said "all" and instead said "most articles" and widespread means 50%+ then "B" would ( I think) be an assumption that is needed where you need to first know that at least the vast majority of your articles contain something that has the potential to be fraudulent.
But if widespread only means "some" then assuming "most" is no longer necessary. In fact, since the stimulus already said manipulated photos were sent in (and lets assume they were fraudulent ) we do not need any assumptions on how many photos were actually sent in because the very fact that some articles were sent in with these fraudulent images is enough to claim it is "widespread" practice, albeit it does sound extreme if it was only 1 photo and we claim a practice is wide spread.

New Edit for the post: I saw a similar issue on Prep Test 64 Sec 1 Q19 on the Court allowing DNA and one of the premise was "unless there is widespread agreement on reliability it is unreasonable to...[use DNA]" was contrasted directly to the other premise that "there exists considerable controversy", where considerable controversy does not need to imply at least 50% disagree with the view to generate the controversy but it seemed like in that question widespread agreement does not need to be set at 50% either for the answer choice to hold