The passage provides the strongest support for inferring that Lessing holds which one of the following views?
Julie-Von August 6, 2019
Examples 3, 4 and 9
Hi LSAT Max,
I was wondering if someone could give me general advice when it comes to using common knowledge on the LSAT.
For example, Questions 3 and 4 for this video lesson required you to recognize that there was counter-evidence being overlooked and a biased speaker in the stimuli. For #3, I chose E, but not because it was overlooking the fact that mammals don't fly. That fact didn't even cross my mind, and I don't even think I knew that before watching the question explanation. So in situations like this, are there any indicators that you would have to connect the dots to assumptions and facts outside of the info. given?
Similarly, for #9 I wasn't certain if "intelligent" and "genius" were being used interchangeably. Do you have any advice on how to determine whether a condition is different from others in a stimulus?
Thank you in advance for the help, much appreciated!
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Great question. There is actually one type of mammal that flies (the bat). So, for question 3, it's fine that you didn't choose (E) because it was overlooking the fact that mammals don't fly.
(E) says, "Since more than 19 out of every 20 animals in the wildlife preserve are mammals and fewer than 1 out of 20 are birds, there is a greater than 95 percent chance that the animal Emily saw flying between two trees in the wildlife refuge yesterday morning was a mammal."
The argument in the stimulus is relying entirely on statistics while ignoring a large reason to believe that the statistics are incorrect. 19 of 20 animals on the preserve are mammals, but most animals that fly are birds. Emily is relying on the statistics about animals while simultaneously ignoring the fact that most flying creatures are birds. This is why (E) is incorrect.
Regarding outside knowledge, there isn't any outside knowledge required for you to answer this question correctly. The error is with how Emily is using the statistics, and this is given to us in the answer choice.
For question 4, the issue with the argument in the stimulus is that we don't know how much we can trust the judgments of the security guard. The subjective opinions of the night guard to not count as facts that we can make objective conclusions from.
We see this same pattern of flawed reasoning with (B), as the argument is making a conclusion based on the claims of the store's competitors. The store's competitors' claims do not serve as good premises to form objective conclusions from, so this is why (B) is the correct answer.
With this question, there isn't any need to bring in outside information to answer it correctly. With the LSAT, you will always have everything you need to answer the question correctly contained within the text of the question.
With question 9, one of the big flaws is that the author is making assumptions about extreme versions of the terms he's using (nearsighted to "very nearsighted" and intelligent to "very intelligent"/genius). The author is making an assumption about "very intelligent" equating to genius, and this is a big leap.
With (D), which says, "John is extremely happy, so he must be extremely tall because all tall people are happy," it commits both of the big flaws that are in the stimulus. It has the flaw of confusing the necessary condition for the sufficient condition and also takes the terms of the arguments to extremes without any support (with "extremely happy" leading to "extremely tall").
To determine whether a condition is different from others in the stimulus, first ask yourself what the condition is referring to and if it's being compared to anything. If it is (as was the case in question 9), is the comparison warranted, or is the author making an assumption in equating the terms? Always be critical and skeptical as you're reading the questions on the LSAT, and it'll help you see the flaws more easily.
Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any other questions!
Julie-Von August 7, 2019
it does make sense, thank you so much for the detailed explanation Ravi! I appreciate it so much
Ravion August 7, 2019
@Julie-V, you're welcome—we're always happy to help!
Michael.Stanislavon July 23, 2022
Your explanation, Ravi, is kind of how I got to answer choice (E).
What I did was also not the same way Mehran solved the problem. To me, the problem of the stimulus was that the author was saying that since something is true (5% of professors are women) that the opposite is true because there is a 95% chance of the opposite (i.e., that the writer is a man because 95% of professors are men) because 95% is greater than 5%. So I looked for answer choices like that. The other answer choices made argument that picked at issues with proportions, but I thought it was odd that 19 out of 20 animals in preserves are mammals, therefore this one thing I saw had to be a mammal (because 19/20 is greater than the 1/20 chance that this is a bird).
