To classify a work of art as truly great, it is necessary that the work have both originality and far-reaching influe...

izyat June 18, 2019

Narrowing the question down to B and C

Would it be possible to explain why C was not the correct answer? I narrowed it down to C and B and chose B but C had some tricky language about the popular appeal that I just wanted to make sure how you would know that it definitely could not follow from the passage.

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Victoria June 18, 2019

Hi @izyat,

Absolutely! Let's start by mapping out the principle.

Work of art truly great - > originality AND far-reaching influence
WATG - > O and FRI

Not originality OR not far-reaching influence - > work of art not truly great
Not O or not FRI - > Not WATG

The issue with answer choice C is that it uses the necessary condition to conclude the sufficient condition. Answer choice C concludes that the examples of African drumming are great works of art based on the evidence that they are original and have far-reaching influence.

In order for a work of art to be great, it must have both originality and far-reaching influence but, just because a piece is original and has far-reaching influence does not necessarily mean that it is a great work of art.

In comparison, answer choice B focuses on the contrapositive and uses this to conclude that, because the works of art fail to satisfy the condition of far-reaching influence, they cannot be considered truly great.

Remember that you can only draw conclusions based on the S&N diagram of the original statement or the contrapositive. You cannot simply reverse or negate.

Hope this is helpful! Please let us know if you have any further questions.

christinea303 June 18, 2020

"Certain examples of the drumming practiced in parts of Africa's west coast employ a musical vocabulary that resists representation in Western notational schemes. This tremendous originality coupled with the profound impact these pieces are having on musicians everywhere, is enough to consider these works to be truly great."

How do you determine that this concludes with the sufficient condition? Is it the order of the wording in the second sentence? Because "originality" and "profound impact" came first in the sentence, it is considered the sufficient? Aren't the key terms "is enough to consider" indicating that the sentence is beginning with the necessary condition? Are necessary conditions the same thing as the evidence of an argument? What are the rules for sufficient and necessary conditions in terms of "to be" statements?

Thanks so much.

Brett-Lindsay July 9, 2020

Hi @christinea303,

I don't think the order is important in S/N statements, but, like you said, the word "enough" introduces the sufficient condition. That's why it's simply a reversal, which is an illegal deduction.

Victoria May 16, 2021

Hi @christinea303 and @Brett-Lindsay,

@Brett-Lindsay is correct! The order is not what you should be focused on. Sometimes, the LSAT writers will try to trick you, switching parts of the sentence around in an attempt to get you to diagram the statement backwards.

The key part of the sentence to focus on here is "enough" (which is a synonym of sufficient). There are no rules for "to be" statements because "to be" does not indicate conditional reasoning.

The stimulus tells us that, if a work of art is truly great, then it must have both originality and far-reaching influence on the artistic community.

Truly great --> Originality AND Far-reaching influence

Answer choice (C) takes the facts that the examples of drumming are original and have a profound impact on music everywhere (i.e. far-reaching influence) to conclude that they are truly great works of art. As @Brett-Lindsay mentioned, this is simply a reversal of the conditional reasoning, meaning that we cannot properly draw this conclusion.

Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any further questions.