Q21 - Clearly, fitness consultants who smoke

[aileenann]

This is an assumption question. The argument might look a bit more difficult than usual because there is a long string of conditional statements, but sometimes this can actually make it easier to figure out specifically what the assumption is. Let's see if we can break down this argument:

Conc: Smoker fitness consultants cannot help clients become healthier (note the strong degree of this statement with the "cannot")

Premises: If not care self health -> cannot care client health
(let's add the contrapositive of this) If can care client health -> care self health
If do not care for client health -> cannot help clients become healthier
(let's add the contrapositive of this too) If can help clients become healthier -> do care for client health.

Interestingly, what seems to be missing here is the bit about smoking - nothing in the premises tells us explicitly about smoking, but we need that to draw the conclusion. The author seems to be saying that if a fitness consultant is a smoker, the fitness consultant does not care about his or her own health. I think in this case, where's it's so logically clear what's called for, we can afford to be quite demanding with our answer choices. Let's check them out:

(A) doesn't get to smoking (or any broader category that includes smoking), so it's out.

(B) is out for the same reason.

(C) is out for the same reason.

(D) is worth a look. This answer choice says that if not smoke -> cares about health of others. The contrapositive is if does care about health of others -> smokes. However, neither of these has a trigger (an if condition) of being a smoker, so neither the statement nor the contrapositive guarantees that if you are a smoker than you don't care for your own health or then you don't care for the health of others. It's important to see here where the directionality is. If this doesn't make sense, make sure to think about it before you move onto (E).

(E) must be our answer, so I sure hope it works out! This answer choice says if care about own health -> don't smoke. The contrapositive here is that if smoke then don't care about own health. BINGO! That's exactly what we said we were looking for. This is the answer.

This has been a great example of what I said at the beginning of this post - often these conditional logic/more formal arguments are actually easier to break down and easier to analyze in terms of identifying a specific necessary assumption. This is a really important concept, so please write in if you have specific questions about this!

[ptraye]

thanks.

[marcus.v.p.]

Great reponse!

Quick question: On the LSAT would you recommend us writing out the formal logic as you have shown above?

Thanks.

[ohthatpatrick]

The decision whether to write out conditional logic or just to try to figure out the missing link in your head is definitely one that varies person to person.

Some people, in going from the 1st sentence to the 2nd sentence here, would just naturally hear the "cheating" move that it makes.

"Wait a sec --- who said they don't care about their own health? You think just cuz they smoke they don't care about their own health?"

So on some arguments involving conditional chains, you might get lucky and just hear the illegal leap as it happens, in which case you probably don't need to symbolize that question.

BUT, if there is one question type I am MOST likely to diagram, it is by far this type (Sufficient Assumption), in which 90% of the arguments we read will contain conditional statements and 90% of the answer choices are conditional statements.

The majority of Sufficient Assumption questions are highly mathematical/logical in nature, so I think approaching them that way is appropriate. But for people who struggle with conditional logic, even after giving themselves ample time to practice it and get used to it, it might be more trouble than it's worth.

Although it takes longer to diagram an argument than merely to read it, by diagramming something we can usually see the missing link and know exactly what we need in the correct answer choice. So you may spend more time up front than usual, but you'll spend WAY less time looking at the answer choices, because you've already "solved" for the missing connection ... you're just scanning the answers until you find any possible contenders and then checking the logical order of the answer to make sure it fits your chain.

Good luck.

[courtney_chrusch]

Hi I still don't understand where the gap is linked up. Can someone please lay this out more succinctly and demonstrate where the contrapositives and such link up to the conclusion? I still don't see it and I'm concerned about reverse logic. Thank you!

[ohthatpatrick]

The conclusion we're trying to derive is
"Fitness consultants who smoke cigs can't help their clients become healthier".

Conc:
"Fitness consultants who smoke cigs---------------------> can't help clients' healthier"

Evidence:
"don't care own health -> don't care client's health -> can't help clients' healthier"

We see that the evidence chain takes us where the conclusion wants to go.

But the new term in the conclusion that we never discuss in the evidence is
"Fitness consultants who smoke cigs"

What do we need to know about "Fitness consultants who smoke cigs" in order to prove "can't help clients' health"?

We either need to know
fitness consultants who smoke cigs -> don't care about their own health
or
fitness consultants who smoke cigs -> don't care about clients' health

Either one of those ideas would take us all the way to "can't help clients become healthier".

[PeterV313]

Thank you so much for the detailed explanation, Patrick. All makes perfect sense excluding the part that I was under the impression the conclusion has to be proven by the premises. So, the structure is PREMISES (therefore) ----> CONCLUSION.

Accordingly, what seems to be the case for me is that NOT CARE (about own health or clients' health) -----> SMOKE applies here to link the premises and the conclusion.

This is the contrapositive of answer D, while answer E essentially has the opposite structure: CONCLUSION ----> PREMISE

Would you be able to help me what I am getting wrong here?