June 2014 LSAT Section 2 Question 20

Agricultural scientist: Wild apples are considerably smaller than cultivated apples found in supermarkets. In one par...

Mazen on July 16, 2022

Answer-choice C

Hi, I anticipated B and ultimately selected it! C, however, did not give me trouble until I went back to read LSATMAX explanation for eliminating C (I want to make sure I eliminate the wrong answers for the correct reasoning.) The provided explanation as to why C should be eliminated is that the author does not discuss ALL apple sizes: "Incorrect. While the argument only addresses apples of a few sizes, it doesn't rely on there being no apples of other sizes—just that wild apples are smaller than cultivated apples, no matter what those sizes are." This explanation of why C is wrong gave me trouble because of the fact that I cannot conceive of a category OTHER THAN wild and cultivated. And if there are no classifications for apples other than wild and cultivated, then discussing the sizes of these two categories would cover ALL apples. Is there a category of apples that classifies as neither wild nor cultivated? But then again even there is other categories, so what? I think that: there is no third category; that the author does cover all the sizes because he addresses two all-encompassing categories of apple sizes - wild and cultivated; but, more importantly, the question of whether the author covered ALL the sizes is irrelevant to the flaw-question, because this is not the flaw, if it is a flaw! The flaw is that the cultivation had just began 5000 years ago not giving enough time for the cultivated apples to resemble today's cultivated ones. 5K years ago the cultivated apples must've looked more similar to the wild ones they did the today's cultivated apples. Sure the author covered All the sizes, but so what? No author did not address all the sizes, but so what? Am I wrong? Did I misunderstand LSATMAX provided explanation? Does it matter if there were a third category classifying apples as neither wild nor cultivated? Thank You Mazen

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Emil-Kunkin on July 16, 2022

Hi Mazen,

Good job spotting the flaw! I have two responses to your objection.

First, is that I think the two categories at play are not exactly "wild and cultivated" but rather, "wild and supermarket." It is quite possible that there are cultivated apples that are not sold in supermarkets, which may be different sizes.

Second, there actually may be a third category between wild and cultivated, a semi-domestic apple. That is, an apple that farmers have started domesticating, but have not fully domesticated yet. (As an aside, the history of plant domestication is really cool, and recent research has found a lot of examples of plants that people started and then stopped domesticating, or cultivated in a weird form that was halfway between their wild state and a later domesticated state).

I think the explanation is correct in saying that the author does not rule out the possibility of other kinds of apples, only the two categories of supermarket and wild. Thus, C is wrong because it does not describe what the author actually did.

Wrong answer choices are often wrong for more than one reason. I think your line of reasoning is good here for eliminating C, and I don't think it is mutually exclusive with the written explanation.

Mazen on July 17, 2022

Hi Emil,

Great post on many levels, the most helpful, to me, was your first point.

I reread the stimulus after I read your post, and I agree with you. The language in the stimulus does yield to the "quite possible" idea that there might be a third category of apples: cultivated yet NOT sold/found in supermarkets. Impressive dedication to the precision of the language.
Comparing one set (X) to a subset (Y_a) of another set (Y) rather than to Y (the other set itself).

X = wild apples
Y_a = cultivated apples found in supermarkets
Y = the cultivated apples from which some are sold/found in the supermarkets

The statement "Wild apples are considerably smaller than cultivated apples found in supermarkets" is, in my mind, equivalent to members of X are considerably smaller than members of Y_a found in supermarkets; Y_a is a subset of Y (cultivated apples).

(Concerning the aside note, whenever I take a breather from studying, I look up these intriguing facts, scholars, concepts I read about RC and RL. Thanks for sharing).

Thank you Emil
Mazen

Eugene on August 4, 2023

It came down to B and C for me. I eliminated B because of the short-time vs long-time comparison, which I thought was out of scope and not discussed in the passage. I see the point of B now. Thanks!