September 2016 LSAT Section 4 Question 17

It is pointless to debate the truth of the law of noncontradiction, a fundamental logical principle according to whic...

mkesh on April 17, 2020

hi! quick question. if the passage says that it 'matters little' how would that translate to pointless? I knew A was right but due to the working of it I forced myself to select another one I knew was not accurate but the wording sounded better. wouldn't pointless translate to 'does not matter' instead of matters little? And, for this main point questions are we able to select answer choices with stronger wording? I hope that made sense. Thank you

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shunhe on April 17, 2020

Hi @mkesh,

Thanks for the question! I’m not too sure what’s going on here, and maybe I’m misunderstanding, but I don’t really see an issue here where you have to translate between “matters little” and “pointless.” The question asks us to identify the conclusion, and this is the first sentence of the stimulus: that it’s pointless to debate the truth of the law of noncontradiction. This is exactly the same wording used in answer choice (A). So I’m not sure why the phrasing of “it matters little” is important here.

Also, if it had made a difference, I do think that it’s plausible to say that when something “pointless,” it can be translated as “it doesn’t really matter,” which can be thought of as “mattering little.”

Hope this helps. Feel free to ask any further questions that you might have.