Q7 - Amber—fossilized tree resin sold as a gemstone

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Strengthen

Stimulus Breakdown:
Amber is valuable when it has something living in it, so people fake it. When they do, they include a normal-looking insect. So be wary of amber with normal-looking insects - it's much more likely to be fake than other amber!

Answer Anticipation:
The conclusion compares two sets of amber - those with normal-looking insects, and those without normal-looking insects (which includes weird-looking insects, plants, dirt, nothing, etc…). However, we only learn that forgers fake amber by including normal-looking insects - we don't learn what actual amber contains! In order to draw this comparison, we need to know that normal amber doesn't have normal-looking insects in it.

Correct answer:
(E)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Out of scope. While this may explain why there's a lot of fake amber out there, it doesn't impact an argument about the authenticity of normal-insect amber vs. other amber, since this answer would apply equally to both.

(B) Out of scope. Size matters not, young padawan.

(C) Out of scope. This answer suggests a reason to use insects instead of plants when forging amber, but it doesn't let us know why normal-insect amber is more likely to be fake than other amber.

(D) Out of scope. This answer gives us a reason to think that amber wouldn't be tested for authenticity, but, again, it doesn't touch on the difference between the normal-insect amber and other amber, as far as relative levels of forgery.

(E) Winner! This answer choice talks about weird-insect amber. According to this answer, insects that are naturally encased in amber (i.e., not through forgery) won't look normal. This gives us a reason to believe that normal-insect amber is a forgery, as compared to weird-insect amber.

Takeaway/Pattern: When the LSAT brings up a point and then uses it to compare two things, the initial point itself has to apply to both things being compared. This argument is akin to saying, "Dave is tall, therefore he's taller than Matt."

#officialexplanation

[CalPoliScience2016]

I incorrectly chose (A). The correct answer is (E).

On review, I ended up choosing (C). As you can see, this was a particularly difficult question for me because I missed it twice.

Now I understand why (E) is correct. The premise talks about the nature of amber and how forgers are incentivized to place insects inside to increase their value.

Then it concludes that if an amber fossil has a normal appearing insect it's more likely to be fake than if it doesn't have a normal-appearing insect. How does this follow? We need to make normal-appearing insects inside of ambers distinct somehow. (E) gets to that because if it were true, real ambers would have awkward or grotesque looking insects (who were trying to escape) rather than normal ones.

A is wrong because it tells us that the amber market is poorly regulated. So what? How does this help us make the distinction between normal appearing insects and abnormal ones?

B is wrong because it talks about ambers with life forms are bigger than plain ambers. We don't care about plain ambers, but we also don't care about ambers with life forms in general. It's too broad. We want an answer that talks about ones with normal appearing insects and how they're different.

C is wrong because it tells us about how one form of amber is more expensive than the other (plant filled amber). This doesn't talk about how one form, normal appearing insect amber, is more likely to be fake. This can't be right.

D is wrong because we don't care about distinguishing real ones or fake ones, we care about why one is more likely to be fake than the other.

Please let me know how I did!

[ohthatpatrick]

Can't tell what question you're asking about. It doesn't appear to be one from Test 77, unless I just didn't search enough.

Can you clarify where this question came from?

[CalPoliScience2016]

It's in section 2 of PT 77. Question #7.

First line of the passage is "Amber-fossilized tree resin sold as a gemstone-is particularly valuable when it contains fossilized life forms."