October 2011 LSAT Section 3 Question 26

Acquiring complete detailed information about all the pros and cons of a product one might purchase would clearly be ...

Natalie on October 4 at 02:26AM

Diagram E

Hi LSAT Max, Can someone show me how to diagram the stimulus and answer choice A and E? I recognize that this is a strengthen with sufficient question stem, but I am struggling with constructing a correct diagram for the stimulus that shows that E guarantees the conclusion. Thank you!

2 Replies

Meredith on November 10 at 08:40PM

Can someone please answer this

Shunhe on December 28 at 02:43AM

Hi @Natalie-Johnston and @Meredith,

Yup, this is a tricky one, and a good one to diagram as well. First, I'll begin with diagramming the stimulus.

EBAIOCD = one expects benefits of acquiring information will outweigh the cost and difficulty of doing so
RNAI = rational to not acquire such information
AI = acquire information

Premise:
~EBAIOCD - > RNAI

Conclusion:
~AI - > RNAI

We need something that connects consumers not acquiring information to them not expecting the benefits of acquiring information to outweigh the cost and difficulty of doing so. One way in which this could be done immediately comes to mind: all consumers who don't acquire information don't expect such benefits. Lo and behold, this is the information presented in (E), which can be diagrammed as

~AI - > ~EBAIOCD

And this allows us to set up the chain

~AI - > ~EBAIOCD - > RNAI

Which properly draws the conclusion.

(A), on the other hand, tells us that if a consumer is rational and they don't expect the benefits of acquiring information to outweigh the costs, then they usually don't bother to acquire the information. But this basically restates information we have in the premise and adds the word "usually," whereas we deal in this stimulus with absolutes, not degrees. Hope this helps! It's a complicated one, so feel free to ask any follow-up questions on things that are still confusing.