A new gardening rake with an S-shaped handle reduces compression stress on the spine during the pull stroke to about ...

mccallevans1 December 5, 2018

Eliminating an answer choice based on absolute language

I eliminated answer choice "A" because of the phrase "the only." Will you please give me criterion on when to consider or exclude "strong/absolute language?"

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Ravi December 17, 2018

@mccallevans1

Happy to help! The key to answering this question correctly is fully understanding what is being asked of us in the question stem. The question stem is a Strengthen with Sufficient Premise question, so we need to find a premise that will 100% guarantee the conclusion of the argument. In other words, we're looking for a very strong answer for this question because we need to make a valid argument.

Answer choice (A) has strong language and is exactly what we're looking for. The words "the only" that you mentioned in your question introduce sufficient conditions, so answer (A) maps to

Cause of injury to the spine from raking - ->Pushing

If this is true, then it validates the argument's conclusion that straight-handled rakes are better than the new rakes for minimizing risk of spinal injury because the straight-handled rakes have 1/5th the compression stress as S-shaped rakes (the new rakes) during the push movement.

You're right in that answers to LSAT questions often have weak wording. However, it depends on the question and you have to be sure to pay close attention to what the question stem is asking you to do. In this question, the stronger the answer, the better, as we're trying to 100% guarantee the conclusion of the argument.

Hope this helps. Let us know if you have any other questions!