Cognitive psychologist: The majority of skilled artists are very creative people, and all people who are very crea...

shunhe on June 14, 2020

Hi @yckim2180,

Thanks for the question! So we’re told that the majority of skilled artists are creative, and all people who are creative are good at abstract reasoning. We also know that not all skilled artists are famous. The argument then concludes that some people who are good at abstract reasoning are famous. To diagram this (we don’t really need to diagram not all skilled artists are famous):

Skilled artist -most-> creative
Creative -> Good at abstract reasoning

Conclusion: Good at abstract reasoning <-some-> Famous

Notice that we don’t have anything else linking anything to the idea of fame in this paragraph, other than knowing that not all skilled artists are famous. So we need something that links one of the traits mentioned above to the idea of being famous.

Now what if we’re told that not all, but most, skilled artists are famous, as (E) tells us? Well, if most skilled artists are famous, and most skilled artists are creative people, that means there is at least one killed artist who is both very creative and famous. Because each one of those groups is 50.1%, and so even if you try to make them overlap as little as possible, they will still overlap by that .1%. But if there’s an artist who is both famous and very creative, then that person is also famous and good at abstract reasoning. Which means that there is at least one (“some,” in LSAT terms) person who is good at abstract reasoning and famous. And so (E) gets us to the conclusion.

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