If that insect is a bee, it can only sting once. It only did sting once. So it is a bee.Which one of the following ex...
ShannonOh22August 15, 2019
The diagram for A
That one of your instructors provided does not clear up why that answer is correct. Can someone please fully explain this? If you break A down, you get:
PR1: When Spring -> I cannot stop sneezing
PR2: I just sneezed
C: Spring is here.
So, is it the fact that answer choice A, like the stimulus, shows only ONE instance of the Necessary condition to reach its conclusion, and does not provide any further information about the permanence of the condition (i.e. if the insect could or did KEEP stinging, and if the person could or did KEEP sneezing) that would draw the parallel flaw between the two?
It would be really helpful if you guys could drill down into the REASONS behind the correct answers to these questions, instead of just writing out basic Sufficient and Necessary logic principles. That doesn't help me grasp the fundamental idea behind these questions. And on the LSAT, no one has time to diagram out each LR question...so diagramming for diagramming's sake is completely useless.
Thx
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Thanks for the question! The reason that answer choice (A) is the correct answer is because both (A) and the stimulus have the same structural issue. Let me illustrate, and the easiest way to do this is by diagramming. We can diagram the argument as
P1) Bee - > Sting once P2) Sting once
C) Bee
And so the issue in the premise is actually that we concluded a sufficient premise from a necessary premise. In other words, we went the wrong way through the arrow. Think of the following sentence:
If it's raining, I'm wet.
Can we conclude it's raining if we know I'm wet? No, not necessarily. I could have just showered or went for a swim. Thus, this is a logical fallacy, and we're looking for a similar incorrect structure. You diagrammed the answer choice (A) great, and you showed why it's parallel to the flawed reasoning in the stimulus. It follows the same basic flawed structure
P1) A - > B P2) B
C) A
And so (A) is wrong. Diagramming can definitely be time-consuming, but it's useful sometimes because it helps reveal these logical flaws. I would definitely lean towards diagramming on parallel reasoning/flawed parallel reasoning questions, since it brings out the logical flaws in very visually intuitive ways. Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions you might have.
