October 2010 LSAT Section 1 Question 17

Which one of the following assertions from passage A provides support for the view attributed to Maritain in passage ...

jordierose02 on June 21, 2023

Explain Question 5

I am a bit confused about the reasoning behind the answer choice. I used process of elimination to choose this answer, but then the explanation as to why it is correct didn't make much sense. It seems there is a pretty big jump in explaining how economy of expressions means oral tradition and verbosity means written traditions.

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Emil-Kunkin on June 24, 2023

Hi, for this question our job is to pick an answer that justifies the assertion that oral traditions are often better. The author notes that oral traditions are more succinct and lead to discarding unneeded info, and that written one's lead to extra, unneeded info. D gives us a reason to think that one is better than the other by telling us that the outcome of oral traditions is better than the outcome of written traditions.

JohnSummers on May 17 at 10:56PM

I think that this person is expressing a different issue. One that I had myself. I do not understand how we are supposed to automatically know that economy of expressions means oral traditions. Yes I agree we are supposed to look for the answer that points out oral is better than verbal traditions, but this answer choice used language that was not found in the passage and is not commonly associated with the terms used in the passage.

Emil-Kunkin on May 19 at 10:55PM

Those don't mean the same thing. However, the author tells us that oral traditions are better because they force concision, and are thus pared down only to the important info. Concision is the same thing as economy of expression, which is cited as a benefit of oral traditions.

JohnSummers on May 30 at 09:49PM

That makes sense yes, but that still requires knowledge of the term economy of expression. This test is not supposed to challenge our knowledge of facts or memorization tactics. Since this is found nowhere in the passage and I personally have never heard or seen this term used, how would anyone who is in the same position as me ever get a question such as this correct?

Emil-Kunkin on June 12 at 09:44PM

The term is a little old fashioned, but it's not an uncommon use of the word economy to mean 'not much of' or conservation. Much like the term economize to mean save, or economies of scale to refer to cost savings that come with volume, I think this is just a secondary use of a word that while not extremely common is not uncommon either.