Q9 - Some paleontologists have suggested

[Michelle5]

I was wondering why the answer was C and not A. How do we know that the conclusion is regarding the claim and not just the point of the galloping? I wanted to also mention question 8 in lsat 48 section 1 "most journalists describe their ..." and how there we are supposed to understand that when the commentator states "this is not the case" it refers to the idea as a WHOLE, not to the journalists political orientations..where here in question 9 the conclusion refers to the specific claim......

Thank you SOO SO much!!!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Thanks for bringing this one to the forum Michelle5!

The question asks us to identify the conclusion of the argument. The structure of this argument appears over and over again on ID Conclusion questions. It begins with an opposing point, asserts that the opposing point is not true, and then provides evidence for why the opposing point is not true.

So the conclusion is, "This, however, is unlikely." What is "this?" it's the assertion that Apatosaurus could gallop. Answer choice (C) says best that the Apatosaurus, likely, could not gallup.

Incorrect Answers

(A) is a premise of the argument and can be identified as such with the word "because."
(B) is a premise of the argument. Sometimes the final claim of the argument can be tempting to think is the conclusion, but conclusions do not always come last.
(D) is an assumption underlying the argument bridging the evidence to the conclusion.
(E) is not true. There were experiments with modern bones, but the work with Apatosaurus bones was done through extrapolation, not direct measurement with similarly structured modern bones.

[smsotolongo]

One thing I've noticed with the structure of many Main Point questions, is they will begin with a claim and the following sentence will give you a counter claim and tell you why. That counter statement more often than not is the conclusion. Am I right on this?

[tommywallach]

Totally. That's a very common argument pattern.