October 2001 LSAT Section 4 Question 14

Marian Anderson, the famous contralto, did not take success for granted. We know this because Anderson had to strugg...

Nativeguy on August 4, 2020

What did I do wrong

I diagrammed this question P1:Fc->-SG P2:SE C:SE-> GP I'm a little confused as to how I got this question wrong because it seems like the answer would be anyone who does not take success for granted (-SG) keeps a good perspective? However, I am wrong, could someone please explain?

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shunhe on August 5, 2020

Hi @Nativeguy,

Thanks for the question! So I think the mistake you made here was in organizing the premises and conclusion. Remember, just because the sentences are given to you in a certain order, doesn’t mean that the conclusion is the last sentence, and the premises come before. In fact, in this argument, the conclusion is the first sentence, and we know this because the other sentences are introduced with “We know this because…” which indicates that they’re explaining the first sentence. So this should actually be diagrammed

P1) SE (struggle early in life)
P2) SE —> GP (able to keep a good perspective on the world)
C) ~TSG (take success for granted)

Now we’re asked for something that would help us make this conclusion logically follow; in other words, this is a strengthen with sufficient premise. And looking at this argument, there’s clearly a gap between GP and ~TSG, so we’re going to be looking for something that helps us connect those.

Both (B) and (E) provide possible connections. But (B) says

GP —> ~TSG

and (E) says

~TSG —> GP

Now what do we want? Well, we want to be able to say

SE —> GP —> ~TSG

so we need GP —> ~TSG, and that’s what (B) gives us. (E) is a mistaken reversal, and so is incorrect.

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

Nativeguy on August 13, 2020

Thank you so much this helps out tremendously.