Q17 - Critic: works of modern literature

[yoohoo081]

I'm completely confused on this problem.
could sombody please help me?
Thank you!

[maryadkins]

This is a necessary assumption question, and we can get there through conditional logic.

The premise is:

Tragedy --> Nobility (if it's a tragedy, the protagonist possesses nobility)

Contrapositive: -- Nobility --> -- Tragedy

Conclusion is:

-- Fate --> -- Tragedy (we don't buy into fate so tragedies are impossible)

Compare the conclusion to the contrapositive of our premise. It assumes that because not having nobility leads to tragedies being impossible, not believing in fate also does. (D) captures this term shift, and is the only one that does. If you spot this, you can get to the right answer without even getting into conditional logic. But to complete the conditional logic explanation:

(D): -- Fate --> --Nobility

Premise: -- Nobility --> -- Tragedy

Conclusion: Therefore, -- Fate --> -- Tragedy

(A) is out of scope.

(B) is also irrelevant.

(C) is a premise debooster. We are told why old plays were classified as tragedies. We accept this.

(E) tells us -- noble --> -- tragedy. We're already told this so it can't be the assumption.

[LSAT-Chang]

(D): -- Fate --> --Nobility

Premise: -- Nobility --> -- Tragedy

Conclusion: Therefore, -- Fate --> -- Tragedy

Hi Mary, I have a quick question on this one.
How do you know which way the assumption goes?
Like for this one, it is NOT fate --> NOT nobility (so it goes from conclusion to premise).. but isn't it normally the other way around (premise --> conclusion)?
So we would have: NOT nobility --> NOT fate (since that goes from premise --> conclusion)..
I mean I correctly chose (D) because I spotted the gap and those were the two terms that needed to be connected, but I was just wondering what if we had two answer choices (I think I've ran into a couple of those) that both have two terms, then which one would be correct (since one would be a reversal - but I always thought it goes from premise to conclusion)?

[maryadkins]

Great question. The key here is not to think about whether you're moving from premise to conclusion or conclusion to premise, but how to connect the two so that you end up where the conclusion ends up (on the "therefore" end of it).

Remember that you can only move in the direction of the arrow, and you can only connect conditional statements in this direction as well. If we had what you wrote below (--nobility --> --fate), it wouldn't help us get where we need to go. You couldn't connect it to the premise in any way that would help us draw the conclusion. (Try!) Your assumption is going to be whatever missing piece (X --> Y) connects your premise to your conclusion, regardless of whether it's taking the "sufficient" part of the conclusion as its sufficient piece or the "sufficient" part of the premise as its sufficient piece.

The key to to connect the premise to the conclusion. You can only do this by moving the direction of the arrow. Whatever pieces you have to use to get there are going to compose your assumption.

[clayton.kshaw]

I got this question correct but was wondering if someone could help me with the negation potion of answer choice D:

D states: Those whose endeavors are not regarded as governed by fate will not be seen as possessing nobility.

My negation: Those whose endeavors are regarded as governed by fate will be seen as possessing nobility.

Both of the nots get negated, correct?

Negation always seems to stumble me in these kinds of questions.

[NatalieC941]

When answering this question, I was initially turned off by D because it seemed TOO strong, that it used "Idea Math" to fill the gap entirely, almost becoming a Sufficient Assumption answer. Would this answer also work for to make the argument logically airtight?

Thanks!

[ohthatpatrick]

Yeah, without getting too nerdy and granular, it's pretty close to Sufficient as well.

It makes sense to see strong language as a red flag, but it's not a dealbreaker in and of itself.

We are often allowed / expected to pick an extreme answer on Nec Assumption (particularly in the harder #14-21 zone).

You just have to check the argument again and make sure that the author was saying certain, unequivocal statements.

If she's thinking in black and white terms, her assumptions can sound categorical.

This author definitely is thinking in extreme terms, since we see stuff like
"cannot" / "unless" / "impossible".

[ArezooH738]

I chose D initially then changed my answer because I thought that answers that fulfill the role as if the question was a SA questions prove to be a trap answer for NA questions.

[MeenaV936]

Also E is wrong because "an ignoble character" is not necessarily a protagonist, right?

[ohthatpatrick]

Yeah, good point. The rule we're given about whether you're a "tragedy" is only concerned with protagonists.

[JorgeL203]

This is a necessary assumption question, and we can get there through conditional logic.

The premise is:

Tragedy --> Nobility (if it's a tragedy, the protagonist possesses nobility)

Contrapositive: -- Nobility --> -- Tragedy

Conclusion is:

-- Fate --> -- Tragedy (we don't buy into fate so tragedies are impossible)

Compare the conclusion to the contrapositive of our premise. It assumes that because not having nobility leads to tragedies being impossible, not believing in fate also does. (D) captures this term shift, and is the only one that does. If you spot this, you can get to the right answer without even getting into conditional logic. But to complete the conditional logic explanation:

(D): -- Fate --> --Nobility

Premise: -- Nobility --> -- Tragedy

Conclusion: Therefore, -- Fate --> -- Tragedy

(A) is out of scope.

(B) is also irrelevant.

(C) is a premise debooster. We are told why old plays were classified as tragedies. We accept this.

(E) tells us -- noble --> -- tragedy. We're already told this so it can't be the assumption.

Hi. Can someone please explain why the conclusion is -- Fate --> -- Tragedy? I had the conclusion as -- Tragedy (contemporary works of literature are NOT tragedies) only.

This is how I broke it down:

P: --Nobility --> --Tragedy
P: -- Fate
C: -- Tragedy

I understood "In an age that no longer takes seriously the belief that human endeavors are governed by fate" to be a premise.

Maybe the "therefore" in the last sentence confused me, but what makes the conditional statement (--Fate --> --Tragedy), rather than the condition (--Tragedy), the conclusion?

Thank you!

[Misti Duvall]

Hi Jorge! I agree with your interpretation, and also had - tragedy as the conclusion and - fate as the second premise. For this question, I don't think it's a huge deal as long as you follow the logic, but it's better to be precise about it.