October 2004 LSAT Section 2 Question 20

Scientist: My research indicates that children who engage in impulsive behavior similar to adult thrill–seeking beha...

Malik on September 8 at 01:13AM

Term Shift In The Argument

Hi, this one was confusing because the premise is about impulsive children but the conclusion is about thrill-seeking behaviour. We are only told child impulsiveness is similar to adult thrill-seeking, but the conclusion seems to be about child thrill seekers which was not established. I thought it the flaw is that the argument is assuming these children grow into thrill-seeking adults. That is why I choose D, which weakens that assumption, it says those children might not grow into thrill seekers. I see why B is right as it clearly weakens the experiment however could you provide insight on D and also how I went about the question?

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Emil-Kunkin on September 10 at 11:22PM

I think that you're not wrong that there is a difference between thrill seeking behavior and impulsive behavior, and this is a real difference, not just using different words to express the same idea. However the argument fixes this for us. The author tells us that they are similar, and while it's possible they are dissimilar in some critical ways, taking the premise that the behaviors are similar this term shift isn't an issue for us.

More so, even if we failed to correct the term shift, I'm not sure if D would weaken the argument. The author isn't relying on the idea that impulsive kids become thrill seeking adults, the author is labeling impulsiveness to be thrill seeking which while not perfect, is not unreasonable.