Q20 - Professor Chan: The literature department's

[geverett]

Alright here's the argument:

Chan: Undergraduate literature department should only cover "major literary works", and this precludes advertisements.

Wigmore: I'll concede that whether an advertisement could be classified as a major literary work is debatable, but advertisements have a negative effect on society because the population has a hard time distinguishing their real messages. The literature departments courses develop the critical skills in students to analyze texts. It is for this reason that the lit. department has a responsibility to include the study of advertisements in our coursework.

Question: Strengthen Wigmore's reasoning.

Prephrase: Okay, Wigmore is assuming a few things. 1. He is assuming that the fact that it's debatable whether or not a work of art is considered a major literary work is not sufficient to preclude it from being available in the undergraduate course work of the literature department. 2. He is assuming that the inclusion of the study of advertisements is necessary in the literature departments courses towards developing the critical skills to discern the real messages of powerfully detrimental advertisements.

This second point is noteworthy, because it's not that the study of advertisements is necessary towards developing critical thinking skills. In fact Wigmore says in the second sentence that "the department's courses give students critical skills to analyze and understand texts." The use of the term courses in it's plural denotes a broad interpretation of the literature departments courses so it is safe to assume that the departments courses in a holistic sense are developing critical thinking skills whether or not this debate between Wigmore and Chan centers around expunging the study of advertisements from the departments current curriculum or adding it to the departments curriculum.

We go to the questions with this in mind.

(A) This is irrelevant. There is nothing in the argument that sets rules or parameters for how ad agencies and/or companies should frame their messages. Get rid of it.
(B) This can not be inferred at all from Wigmore's argument. In fact he leaves the question of whether ads can be considered a "true literary work" up for discussion. This answer choice also talks about "forms of literature" where our stimulus talks about "true literary works". These things might or might not fall into the same category of literary works. Get rid of it.

(C) This answer choice is addressed to "All undergraduate students . . ." while Wigmore's argument is limited to the inclusion of a specific course in the curriculum of the literature department. It is a bit presumptuous, but I believe it is safe to say that Wigmore is arguing for the inclusion of this course in the literature department which would be an elective or a core requirement for a literature major. While I'm sure undergraduates of other majors could take this course as an elective Wigmore does not center his argument around the duty of "all undergraduate students" to take at least one course that "focuses on the development of critical skills."

Furthermore, we know that the literature departments courses in their current state give students critical skills to understand texts while this answer choice just addresses the "development of critical skills" which could be or could not be the same critical skills involved in analyzing and understanding texts.

In addition, Wigmore's argument focuses on including the study of advertisements in the literature departments course work to develop the critical skills to analyze and understand texts for the express purpose of discerning the real messages behind advertisements powerfully detrimental effect on society. This answer choice makes no mention of the course being taken for the purpose of discerning advertisements real message. Get rid of it.

(D) This is what we want. It's definitely supports Wigmore's argument. First off it limits it's scope to "The literature department's courses . . ." which is what the argument limits it's scope to. Second, the use of "any text" might at first seem too broad, but we are strengthening Wigmore's argument, and Wigmore's argument for studying advertising falls under the purview of "any text" as expressed in this answer choice. Also, this answer choice mentions enabling student to analyze and understand text that "have a harmful effect on society." This was the express purpose that Wigmore had for including the study of advertisements in the literature departments course work. Great answer choice. Select it and move on.
(E) ". . . ought to be free to choose the material to be covered . . ." Wigmore does not address the degree or lack thereof of autonomy that professors in the literature department should have. His argument is focused around the necessity of including the study of advertisements in the literature departments courses.

Read Aileen's addendum to my explanation. She has some really great insights that are definitely worth looking at.

[aileenann]

Overall, great job on this one. There are just a few things I'd tweak with respect to your explanation.

First things first, most of the time you rightly recognize that scope is not the real concern in a strengthen question. Rather, we care about *relevance* - these are certainly related ideas, but not the same. Something can be much broader or narrower than what we're concerned about but still strengthen or weaken an argument - so what we care about is whether it tends to make the conclusion stronger or weaker, not how it does so. Even if a right answer tacks on entirely new information, that's fine if it supports the conclusion on a strengthen question.

So I'd adjust your explanation for why (B) is incorrect. It's not that this "cannot be inferred" from Wigmore's argument. Rather it's that Wigmore doesn't really care about this - it simply has no impact on his argument whether it's true or not. He doesn't get into the debate as to what should be considered literature - rather he's just concerned about what should be taught. The only way someone would find this tempting is if they assumed "texts" and "literature" are the same thing. But of course that would be sloppy reasoning that has no place on the LSAT.

Similarly, with (C), I think you're overthinking this. Wigmore is concerned with what the literature department should offer students. The question of whether students - any or some - should have to take the literature department up on this offer is entirely irrelevant. Whether (C) is true or not doesn't affect Wigmore's argument.

So I think you should look back at our how you do strengthen/weaken questions generally, to make sure you are not making this mistake more often. It's very tempting to treat scope and relevance as the same thing, but they are actually distinct concepts. Something is surely more likely to be relevant if it's of the same scope, but this is not a strict requirement.

The rest of your explanation looks great. Keep up the good work!

[geverett]

Please tell me more about the distinction between scope and relevance. Basically in strengthen/weaken something can be considered "out of scope" but still relevant to our argument core so it could be considered a correct answer? If I understand properly then, in regards to strengthen/weaken questions, there will hardly be a time where an answer can be classified as wrong on the basis that it is "out of scope" since strengthen/weaken questions allow us to cast a wider net then assumption and flaw questions in choosing an answer that addresses the core. However, they will more often be classified as irrelevant since they will fail to address the authors reasoning in the stimulus. I am going to revisit this question a little more. Thanks for the reply!

Also, I am still trying to wrap my head completely around C. So the fact that C addresses "All undergrad students . . ." is not reason for dismissing it since while that is too broad it could still be considered relevant to our argument. Rather, it is wrong because the stimulus conclusion is centered around allowing advertisements for the purpose of discerning "real messages" while this answer choice's conclusion is focused around "students taking at least 1 course that develops critical skills" which could or could not be the advertisement course - we just don't know. Answer choice C's conclusion then is too ambiguous to be able to ascertain the relevance.

thoughts?

[aileenann]

First, your question about scope v. relevance. If something is within scope, it's usually relevant because the answer choice will then be talking about the same things as the argument. However, something can be narrower or broader in scope and still relevant. For example, if I tell you that all girls like ice cream, and you tell me that no fifth grade Brazilian girls living in the south of France like ice cream, that is relevant even though on scope considerations I'd throw it out. Why? Because I'm making a claim about all girls, and you pointed me to a group of girls that disproves my claim.

Similarly, I could also go to a very broad level - again a level we'd sweep aside with scope considerations but that would still be relevant. For example, relating to the same claim that all girls like ice cream, I could tell you that no one under the age of 40 in Louisiana likes ice cream. Again this might seem totally out of scope, but it tells us that all the kids in Louisiana dislike ice cream, and some of those kids must be female, so again this disproves my claim even though it would be ruled out if we were thinking in terms of typical LSAT scope considerations.

Then for (C), you wouldn't want to get rid of this purely because it refers to "All undergraduate students." Sure that could be out of scope or not - it surely uses strong language. But strong language is a concern when we need to prove an answer choice, not when we can assume the answer choice is true and just need to determine whether it strengthens W's argument.

So here the question is do we care whether this is true of all students? Sometimes I like to think about negating it. If negating it doesn't seem to matter either, then this is a clear sign it's not relevant. Or you can just think whether this being true makes it any more likely or not that W is correct. Here what students *ought* to do is not necessarily related to what the literature department *ought* to do.

Hope that helps!

[geverett]

I'm really sorry Aileen, but I don't think I am understanding the difference between scope and relevance. If you said that all girls like ice cream, but then I cited a counter example of a particular group of girls - 6 year old taiwanese girls living in the north pole that do not like ice cream then I would think that would be both relevant and within scope because the argument was made in regards to something that's very broad in scope - all girls, and I replied with a counter example of a sub group of girls - 6 year old taiwanese girls living in the north pole. So my sub group would fall within the scope of the broader group you cited. yes? no? Help me with what I'm missing here.

I love the explanation you gave on C. What proves C wrong is that C focuses on what students out to do whereas the stimulus is concerned with what the literature department ought to do. Really great.

[aileenann]

No worries - you gotta grill me until this is clear. I probably haven't describe it sufficiently.

When I talk about "scope" I'm more referring to a process students use where they look for the same language or language very near in meaning to what they see in the stimulus when they then move on to evaluating answer choices. That tends to work pretty well on assumption family questions in particular, where we need to be very careful to stay within the bounds of the argument. (There are exceptions, but they are rare).

On the other hand, relevance considerations are less mechanical. They are when we say not whether we've seen an idea before but whether, if that idea is true (as we take it to be in strengthen and weaken questions), does it matter to our conclusion? This is where we look at the world a little more broadly, considering not just what is implied but what we know already but entirely new ideas that could nonetheless matter. It's when we open up the argument to vulnerabilities from outside attacks.

So for your Taiwanese ice cream example, you are right -there are many examples where scope and relevance considerations both matter. And frankly they are not entirely separate - it's just that many students would apply scope overly narrowly and say well I don't care about Taiwanese anything when we're talking about all girls in the whole world and then they might incorrectly eliminate an answer choice because of overly specific warning. If you wouldn't, great - then for your purposes scope and relevance are very closely related. But for students who look only for words and their synonyms from the original syllabus, the concept of relevance can back them up to a broader perspective, which can be helpful when assessing answer choices with unexpected but nevertheless logically relevant ideas.

I hope this makes things clearer. If not, let me know!

[geverett]

Aileen,
That was perfect! So scope and relevance can both apply to an argument, but they can also be distinct concepts. If something is "within scope" then it deals with subject matter, terminology, etc. that is similar to the stimulus. It could, however, deal with the same subject matter but employ it in such a way that is not relevant to the argument the author is making.

When talking about relevance we can cast a much wider net, and this is especially helpful in strengthen/weaken questions in which we are allowed to employ outside information to address the argumentation the author uses. This information could be seemingly tangential in which case it could be considered out of scope, but still relevant if it manages to cast even a bit of doubt or manages to strengthen the argument even a little bit. However, it could be relevant and employ terminology similar to that in the stimulus in which case it would be both in scope and relevant.

Let me know if I'm missing something. This is really good stuff.