November 2018 LSAT Section 1 Question 16

A popular complaint about abstract expressionist paintings—that "a child could paint that"—holds that their stylistic...

Mazen on July 22, 2022

Negate E please "few"?

Hi I negated "few" to "none," which halted my momentum and caused me to lose precious seconds!!! I feel that the negation to "few" is "many" rather than "none." I also feel that I incorrectly equated "few" to "some," when I should have equated with "not so many." Any ideas please??? One more question, had E said "some" instead of "few" it would've been a necessary assumption because "similarities" is the predicate to the "complaint" stated in the first premise, and it would've been closing a gap. Correct? Thank You Mazen

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Mazen on July 22, 2022

The "gap" I mentioned in my previous post refers to the "psychological study" referenced in the second sentence: "But most participants in a psychological study, when shown pairs of paintings consisting of an abstract expressionist painting and a preschooler's painting, consistently rated the abstract expressionist painting as aesthetically better"

The second sentence assumes that the expressionists' paintings and the preschoolers' paintings had "stylistic similarities," hence the gap! Otherwise how would we know that the study was fair?

Thank You
Mazen

Emil on July 22, 2022

Hi Mazen,

I think many would indeed be a better negation than none. "Few" is tricky, it is essentially a some, with the added twist that it implies not a lot. I would not go as far to treat it as the opposite of a most (that is less than 50 percent), but few and many are good negations of each other in general.

I dont think that E would have been necessary even if we made the few a some. I do not think that the idea of stylistic similarities must be the case for the study to be valid. While one would ideally not want to compare a dark, angsty painting to a happy, bright paining, the term "stylistic similarities" is so broad that it is almost meaningless in this context. Perhaps we could have two paintings with some stylistic similarities (broad brush strokes, realistic figures) that are nevertheless wildly different.

Mazen on July 23, 2022

Thank You Emil

Mazen on July 23, 2022

Emil,

The negation of "at least few" (as opposed to simply "few") would be "none" rather than "many"; am I correct?

If something has at least few Xs, then negating that would be that something has no Xs or none. "At least few" seems to be equivalent to "some" which negation is "none."

Am I correct?

Thank You
Mazen

Jacob on July 25, 2022

Hi Mazen,

That is correct!

Mazen on July 26, 2022

Jakennedy: Thank you