Q6 - Many people are alarmed about

[james.h.meyers]

BIG question for the MLSAT folks...

So this is a parallel flaw question. I got it correct, but I realized that my biggest hurdle in these questions is categorizing the flaw.

I did this question un-timed. When I first read the stimulus I thought to myself, self: what is the flaw? It appears to be a bad assumption in that the author neglects to consider other possible effects of the population explosion

But it is this kind of random/arbitrary categorization that is never accurate enough to line up with the answers. So before I looked at the answers I flipped to the Identify the Flaw section of the Logical Reasoning book and skimmed the part where you have the LSAT abstract answer grid with the in our words column.

The abstract answer part was fine, but it gave me a better sense of potential flaws. I immediately thought - oh causal. I don't know if this is how you would categorize it, but it seemed that (especially with the use of the words followed by) the author was saying the population explosion (something negative) caused the economic activity (something good).

Then I looked at the answers and it was clear that my problem has been one of categorization. If I merely went by neglects to consider other possible effects I could have selected a few different answers (like D). BUT when I thought of it in terms of causality it was clear that B was the correct choice.

SO NOW THE QUESTION. Is there a more extensive list of categorizations for all possible flaws that the LSAT tests? (For the purpose of categorization).

It had been a while since I flipped through the actual book (so maybe it's in there - pg no.?) and the grid for abstract language to english helped, but considering the purpose of that grid is to show what the language means, is there something similar that's purpose is just to list the categories (and therefore might be more extensive)?

THANK YOU!!

[maryadkins]

At MLSAT we don't offer an exhaustive list of categorized flaws. The reasoning is that you're better off learning to spot the flaw instead of looking for particular flaws having memorized them--since the kinds of flaws you see actually fall into many categories (and we can't ever predict them all). It's also true that if you've memorized a list of particular flaws to look for, you run the risk of imposing onto an argument a "flaw" that isn't there. In this case, I'm concerned you may have been doing this with "causality," which is only part of the flaw here. The other, equally problematic flaw is that the conclusion presumes that based only on a single consideration (economic growth), a certain course of action is justified (no population control). But what if there are other factors to be considered in deciding whether or not to pursue population control? (B) gets both at the causality (sales increasing + the manager's behavior are correlated but we aren't told his behavior is what's increasing sales) AND the other flaw, that there's only one factor to consider in deciding whether or not to address his behavior.

So, well done on the causality point, and now you know there was a second one here, too (which you do get at below, but it's not in line with (D)).

(D) for example has a mismatched conclusion. "It's wise to remember?" No; not the same flaw if it's not the same kind of conclusion.

(A) has neither a causality issue or an issue of considering only one factor when there are many that should be. It also has no premise; it's essentially just an assertion.

(C), like (D), offers a mismatching conclusion.

(E) lacks mention of causality or a definite conclusion about an action that should/should not be taken.

I suggest focusing more closely on matching the conclusions and other structural parts of the argument in addition to focusing on the flaw. Good luck!