Q21 - Some people have been promoting

[vswamy]

Hi. For question 21 of section 1 of the logical reasoning(arguments), could you explain why the answer is A rather than B?

I chose B because he bases his claims of the effectiveness of the cold upon the number of people who choose to utilize the remedy and that sounded like the public opinion of the claim.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Good question.

I can see why answer choice (B) is tempting. I totally see the reasoning why you feel that there is an appeal to opinion in this matter. First, let me say that the way answer choice (B) would look in the stimulus, if it were the correct answer, would be "The vast majority of people believe that the herbal medication is not effective. Therefore, the herbal medication is not effective." It should be a direct restatement of the claim. In this case, the claim that the herbal medication is effective is denied, on the basis that most people behave in way other than what would be required if the conclusion were not true - best expressed in answer choice (B).

(A) correctly describes the flaw committed in the argument. A claim is denied because the consequences of the claim being true (people would be using the herbal medication), does not occur.
(B) has two issues. First, the argument does not accept a claim, but rather denies a claim. Second, the argument does not say that because people believe the herbal medication is not effective, it is in fact not effective.
(C) states the exact opposite of what occurs in the argument. The argument shows that necessary conditions are not met.
(D) is way off track. There is no appeal to a generalization to make this argument.
(E) is muddled at best. The argument states that the measure is not effective, whereas this answer choice states that the measure is effective.

Does this help clear things up? Let me know if you'd like me to elaborate anywhere!

[jasonxu89]

I can see why A is correct. But it is just hard to understand because the bizarre structure of the sentence ("it would if true have consequences that are false").

What exactly is it saying?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Yeah, sometimes the LSAT isn't as clear or doesn't use punctuation the way we would like.

I wasn't an English major so I'd be happy to hear from anyone who actually knows, but it seems like there should be two commas in there around "if true." Read it without those words and then see what you think of the answer choice.

I do this in LR and RC all the time. If I don't understand a sentence as clearly as I would like and it contains parentheses, a set of commas, or hyphens I try reading the sentence without the words in between.

Hope that helps!

[peg_city]

I had difficulty understanding what A was saying as well.

"Finding a claim (the mixture is an effective cold remedy) to be false on the grounds that it would, if true, have consequences that are false"

I don't get "if true, have consequences that are false"

what does that translate into

"If true (Mixture is an effective cold remedy), have consequences that are false (not everyone is using it??)"

I don't get it....

[bigtree65]

Yea peg I think thats exactly it.

if this claim that the mixture is an effective remedy was true, then the consequences (not everybody using it) are false (false meaning rather than ME->AEUM we have ME->~AEUM, so we have T-> F instead of T->T, and T->F is always false).

ME = Mixture Effective
AEUM = Almost Everyone Uses Mixture

Thats how I saw it,
Hope that helps.

[jgallorealestate]

"finding a claim to be false on the grounds that it would if true have consequences that are false"

This is misleading because it can be interpreted that the consequences would be false if the claim about the herbs were true.

"finding a claim to be false on the grounds that it would if true have consequences that are currently false"

That looks better. Leave it to the LSAT to test on details and leave out their own.

[joshtrbp]

This question is bullshit. That is all.

[tommywallach]

Ha! It happens.

[oscey12]

In regards to choice (D), can anyone show what a generalization would look like? I would really appreciate any feedback!

[GodLovesUgly]

In regards to choice (D), can anyone show what a generalization would look like? I would really appreciate any feedback!

Ex. Everyone in the grocery store at 7pm on the 15th of the month must be receiving government assistance, living paycheck to paycheck, etc and thus must be lazy and not willing to work very hard...

The set of instances are: 1) b/c people are shopping on payday (15th) they must be on welfare, living paycheck to paycheck, etc.



The generalization we are initiating is that b/c of the above instances or circumstances these people must be lazy, not willing to work hard, etc.

Not a very good example, but hopefully it demonstrates the point. I think an easier way of explaining why "D" is wrong is that in the passage the author says "since MOST..." What does "most" mean, we aren't really able to quantify the word, unless we use formal logic which states that "most" is 51-100%. "Most" can't be taken as scientifically valid for making a claim against the effectiveness of a specific remedy.

[jenniferreisig]

Is D wrong because the argument bases the generalization of a representative groups inactions/non-instances? If that is not the case then I don't fully understand why D is wrong.

[can_I_ever_reach_a_170?]

Hello!
I got this question right.

But now I have a question about a slight different version of the flaw, not the actual flaw, committed in the stimulus.
I think we cannot make a contrapositive from a “Most” or “Some” statement, unlike a statement that begins with “All.”

To put the relevant parts of the stimulus into the conditional logic form, I have
Most people with colds wish to recover fast -> Almost everyone with a cold would be using a herbal mixture
And if we have there are Many people who have colds but do not use the mixture,
Can we not logically say, maybe Most people with colds do not wish to recover fast?
I think the question I’m asking is different from a “Most” statement like Most As are Bs.

Is this logically correct that we cannot make a contrapositive of a “Most” sentence, but we can if a “Most” sentence is only in one (sufficient/necessary) side of a conditional logic statement?

Help me ohthatpatrick!

[ohthatpatrick]

Why are you creating a mess where there was none and then making ME clean it up?

I think I said this to you in a different post, but resist the urge to make things conditional, unless the test made them conditional.

Since _____ , it follows that _______ = an argument, not a conditional statement.

The author isn't saying "IF most people with colds wish to recover quickly".
He is presenting, as a fact, the idea that most people with colds DO wish to recover quickly.

=======

Can you have "most" on one side of a conditional? Sure, but it's very rare and it almost stops being helpful to hear it conditionally.

I could say:
IF it's a "Bachelor"-finale Viewing Party, THEN most of the attendees are female.

If we knew that at least 50% of a given gathering was male, then I could fairly trigger the contrapositive and know that this gathering was NOT a "Bachelor"-finale Viewing Party.

========

Let's suppose it HAD been a conditional:
IF most people wish to recover quickly, THEN almost everyone would be using this remedy.

When we learn that "MANY people aren't using this remedy", does that trigger the contrapositive?

Not really. I could say "Almost everyone believes that the Earth is round, but many people believe the Earth is flat."
MANY is such an unspecific quantity that it's compatible with fitting entirely into the EXCEPTIONS to the rule, "almost everyone".


But remember, this wasn't a Flaw question at all. So evaluating the argument's potential flaws is fun practice, but it would be wasted thinking while during the problem. We're just asking ourselves, "DOES this answer choice match what happened?"

[can_I_ever_reach_a_170?]

Thank you Patrick!

I'm working on looking at things conditionally only if the test used specific conditional terms.

I got this question right. But I just had one other question before moving on.
I didn't like the skeptical cold sufferer's reasoning used in the stimulus.

Thank you for your clear explanations! Very helpful!

[SJK493]

I know this is not a Flaw question, but I would just like to clarify if this is a valid form of reasoning. Because I don't think you can draw a conclusion that the claim is false based on a premise/hypothetical. Would anyone like to clarify?