Q24 - One is likely to feel comfortable

[dina]

Could you explain why D is not a flaw? If people approach strangers whether or not they feel comfortable (eg because they're assigned to the same team at work), people would have friends of different ages...

[danitay]

I think it's not a flaw because the stimulus says, "most long term friendships began because someone felt comfortable approaching a stranger." So people could approach strangers when they're not comfortable with it, but those approaches won't result in friendship, so it wouldn't affect the argument.

[dtangie23]

Can someone go through all of the answer choices and rule out why (A) through (D) are incorrect? I guessed on this one. And even when I took the time to try to figure it out, choices (A) through (D) just confused me.

Here's how I looked at it:

Premise:
approximately same age --> comfortable approaching stranger

Conclusion:
comfortable approaching stranger --> approximately same age

This is a mistaken reversal. I was looking for the "mistakes a sufficient condition for a necessary condition" to no avail.

However, (E) makes perfect sense. The premise notes "comfortable approaching stranger" as a necessary condition. So, it's not sufficient to lead to anything else.

The conclusion takes it upon itself to say that "comfortable approaching a stranger" leads to friends of "approximately same age."

But you could be comfortable approaching any stranger of any different age. Remember, the premise just guarantees comfort if the stranger is the same age.

So suppose I'm comfortable approaching a 46 year old stranger (I'm 23), by the conclusion, that would mean that we're the same age, which, obviously, we are not.

[itzakadoozie412]

Yes could someone explain why E is correct? I chose C first, but realized this is not a flaw, because its the contrapositive of the premise (stranger approx. age--> comfortable approaching stranger), so it's already implied.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Answer choice (E) is correct because addresses the assumption of the argument.

The argument asserts that if you are of the same approximate age, then you feel comfortable approaching strangers. It also says that most friendships began when someone felt comfortable approaching a stranger, and it concludes that most friends are of the same approximate age.

This is a classic reversal!

AA ---> CAS
CAS
-------------
AA

The argument assumes:

CAS ---> AA

and by contrapositive

~AA ---> ~CAS

Answer choice (E) addresses the flaw in that the argument assumes that if you are not the same approximate age, then you do not feel comfortable approaching strangers. The argument fails to address whether this assumption is true - and thus answer choice (E) represents something the argument should have considered.

I'll run through the incorrect answers on this one:

(A) is not assumed in the argument. This can be seen in the Negation Test. One could feel uncomfortable approaching a person who was not a stranger and the reasoning would not be affected.
(B) goes too far. The argument never implied that the characteristic is present but rather that it's "probably" present.
(C) is an irrelevant comparison - just as farhadshekib suggested.
(D) doesn't connect the correct terms and places the evidence - comfortable with approaching a stranger - not as a sufficient condition but as a necessary one. Evidence should correlate with the sufficient condition, not the necessary one, since it's the trigger.

Does that answer your question?

[skapur777]

I thought D was wrong because he never says anything about how a necessary condition to approaching a stranger in general is being comfortable doing so.

is that right? i feel like he widened the scope a bit in that answer choice

[enigma644]

Answer D is wrong because D says that one NEVER approaches a stranger unless one feel comfortable doing so. There is no evidence to support this. The stem only talks about when people feel comfortable approaching strangers, not when they feel uncomfortable. This is why A is wrong too.

E is the correct answer because the argument never suggests any situation where one would be UNcomfortable approaching a stranger. People could be comfortable approaching strangers of much different age. So, to conclude that all long-term friendships come from a certain type of meeting is wrong.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

The stem only talks about when people feel comfortable approaching strangers, not when they feel uncomfortable. This is why A is wrong too

You are correct in that answer choices (A) and (D) put the condition that one feels comfortable approaching a stranger on the wrong side of a conditional relationship. The argument's assumption rests on feeling comfortable being a trigger, not an outcome - as these answer choices have it.

Though it might be easier to see that answer choice (D) is too strong in that it says "never" and answer choice (A) relates a new term - that of being a "stranger." None of the terms in the argument are about being a stranger, but rather how one relates to a stranger.

Hope that helps!

[tuh119]

Hi,

I agree that (E) is the correct answer, however I can't really tell why (B) is a wrong answer.

Can someone please explain?

Thanks in advance!

[farhadshekib]

Hi,

I agree that (E) is the correct answer, however I can't really tell why (B) is a wrong answer.

Can someone please explain?

Thanks in advance!

I'll give it a shot, although I struggled with this Q.


B _ The argument does not really discuss one specific situation. Rather, it makes a generalization about most, if not all, long term friendships (i.e. the friends are the same age as each other).

For B to be correct, the argument would have had to read something like this:

Most long term friendships begin when one stranger feels comfortable enough to approach another stranger. Thus, Homer and Apu’s friendship must of started when one of them felt comfortable enough to approach the other.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

B _ The argument does not really discuss one specific situation. Rather, it makes a generalization about most, if not all, long term friendships (i.e. the friends are the same age as each other).

That's exactly right. The argument states in the conclusion that long-term friends are "probably" of the same approximate age.

Nice work farhadshekib!

[zainrizvi]

This question tripped me up a bit.

I immediately recognized the mistaken reversal present (i.e the necessity was confused for the sufficient). So I thought, mistaken reversal = assumes that there aren't other conditions that are also necessary (i.e being comfortable approaching is the only factor necessary)

So I began searching the answer choices - to no avail.

Turns out, as mshermn, pointed out that the answer choice instead dealt with the CONTRAPOSITIVE of the flaw, which is in the fact a mistaken NEGATION. Logically, these are equivalent statements. So I can see how that happens. Mistaken negations are characterized by the fact that they don't realize there are alternative possibilities for the answer (ie sufficient condition isn't the ONLY one that leads to necessary condition). (E) fits into this mould.

HOWEVER, I feel like this approach isn't entirely correct for some reason. I remember some questions in the past tended to have answer choices where one dealt with mistaken reversal (confusing necessity for sufficiency) and one dealt with mistaken negation (confusing sufficiency for necessity). So you had to pick one that fit the particular argument.

Now maybe I'm just remembering those Qs wrong - but by taking the contrapositive, and logically speaking, those two answer choices should be equivalent.. so I'm tripping up somewhere.

Ultimately my question is that if a question has something that confuses necessity for sufficiency, through its contrapositive, it also makes the flaw of confusing sufficiency for necessity. So would an answer choice that states that also be valid?

[noah]

Ultimately my question is that if a question has something that confuses necessity for sufficiency, through its contrapositive, it also makes the flaw of confusing sufficiency for necessity. So would an answer choice that states that also be valid?

This will sound like a cop-out, but I'm confident the LSAT would not give you both options if they are both valid. If they do, choose the one that seems to more closely match the argument in front of you.

[syousif3]

On my PT i picked B but when I was reviewing I picked E only through POE the other answers just didnt make sense. However, I'm having such a hard time with why E is the right answer.

This is what I did:

Approx. age-->feel comfortable

felt comfortable-->prob. approx age.

:/

[charles.dj.kim]

So if an answer choice stated that it fails to consider that CAS -->AA, that would be a correct answer?

When a flaw question appears and there are conditional statements and there is gap (assumption) between the premise and the conclusion like CAS and AA, then is that a flaw?
Does it explicitly have to say that CAS ---> AA in the premise for the argument to be valid?


I guess i'm basically asking if an assumption we have to make a flaw?

[noah]

On my PT i picked B but when I was reviewing I picked E only through POE the other answers just didnt make sense. However, I'm having such a hard time with why E is the right answer.

This is what I did:

Approx. age-->feel comfortable

felt comfortable-->prob. approx age.

:/

In short, (E) is correct because the argument assumes that comfort of approaching a stranger means being of approximate age, when all we know is that being of approximate age makes one more likely to be comfortable. Maybe we can feel comfortable approaching a stranger without being of approximate age (meaning that CAS --> AA is not true).

That clear it up?

So if an answer choice stated that it fails to consider that CAS -->AA, that would be a correct answer?

When a flaw question appears and there are conditional statements and there is gap (assumption) between the premise and the conclusion like CAS and AA, then is that a flaw?
Does it explicitly have to say that CAS ---> AA in the premise for the argument to be valid?

I guess i'm basically asking if an assumption we have to make a flaw?

If the answer said that it fails to consider CAS --> AA, that would not be correct since the argument assumes that, which is different from failing to consider. "Failing to consider" is for when you have a counter example that disproves an assumption is true.

Flaw questions are a way of asking about an assumption. If you don't have it, you should pick up our LR strategy guide--it lays this out pretty thoroughly.

For this argument to be valid, we'd need some way of getting from CAS to AA, so yes, CAS --> AA would work nicely!

[monygg85]

Im a little confused (a lot maybe) by some of the explanations given so far for this question.

How is answer choice E dealing with the contrapositive of the assumption (or flaw in the argument)? The problem is that the argument states AA---> CAS....then it goes on and says (roughly) CAS therefore AA.

Some of the explanations here describe how the contrapositive (~AA-->~CAS) is used in the answer choice, but I don't see it.

I thought it was just saying that just maybe youll have CAS but NOT AA, since CAS is initially a necessary condition, not sufficient for anything to happen!

[noah]

Im a little confused (a lot maybe) by some of the explanations given so far for this question.

How is answer choice E dealing with the contrapositive of the assumption (or flaw in the argument)? The problem is that the argument states AA---> CAS....then it goes on and says (roughly) CAS therefore AA.

Some of the explanations here describe how the contrapositive (~AA-->~CAS) is used in the answer choice, but I don't see it.

I thought it was just saying that just maybe youll have CAS but NOT AA, since CAS is initially a necessary condition, not sufficient for anything to happen!

(E) is saying that the question has not established whether ~ AA (who is not one's approximate age) means CAS (whether one is likely to feel comfortable approaching a stranger).

(E) doesn't have to say that ~ AA --> ~ CAS, it just needs to point out that the argument hasn't established it (since it's an ID the flaw question).

That clear it up?

[contropositive]

The first time I did this question, I picked C and I really struggled with all the other answers. I did not see the incorrect reversal that is pointed out on this forum until I approached this forum. The second time I did this problem, I did not struggle at all and got picked E (before I checked the explanation). I am the kinda person that just hates drawing out a stimulus in a logical condition because 1) its time consuming and 2) i find it easier to just do it in my head

Here is my thought process the second time I went through it (I hope I am right, and I hope it will be helpful to those who are still confused).

Long-term friends are probably of the same approximate age as each other.
WHY?
Because most long-term friendships begin because someone felt comfortable approaching a stranger.

E) What if someone feels comfortable approaching a stranger who is not of one's approximate age? wouldn't this weaken the conclusion that long-term friends are probably of the same approx. age as each other because someone felt comfortable approaching a stranger? Although this is not a weakening type of question, the flaw in the author's reasoning is that it failed to consider other ways. This answer choice presents us with a different way.
At first I thought this answer choice had no bearing on the conclusion but the second time around I could easily see how the author failed to consider this particular situation that would essentially weaken his argument.

A) First of all, we don't care about someone feeling UNcomfortable. The evidence is based on people feeling comfortable. Second, stranger is treated as an individual factor in this answer choice. In the evidence presented and background information it talks about feeling comfortable approaching a stranger. It did not say if you approach a stranger, then you were comfortable doing so. You know? stranger is not a separate factor.

B) In order for this answer choice to be correct; it would have to read, "long-term friends are probably of the same approximate age as each other BECAUSE in most long-term friendships people are of approximate age. To me, this is inferring a characteristic is present in a situation because that characteristic is present in most similar situations. Also, "a situation" would mean a particular situation like "Ali and Kelly, who are long-term friends, are probably of same approximate age as each other BECAUSE in most long-term friendships people are of approximate age."

C) This is like A. its treating stranger as an individual factor by saying, "..if that person is a stranger..."

D) NEVER is a strong language and should raise red flag right away. Second, its treating the term stranger as a separate factor in the conditional logic once again. A, C, and D all had this in common.

[jewels0602]

this one tripped me up because I read the likely statement as "more/less likely" AKA mistakenly assumed a comparative relationship...