#26 - Winston: The rules for awarding Nobel Prizes stipulate

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[cardigan_person]

Why is it E and not B?

[eronquillo12]

Hi- echoing the above: why is it E and not B? Can someone please explain?

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi cardigan_person and eronquillo12,

Thanks for your questions! B is wrong because we have no idea at all how they might feel about whether the rules work well for other disciplines; all we know is what they think about the rules for science. So, they might agree about B, or they might not, but we have no information to help us figure that out one way or the other.

For E, both would agree, but for different reasons. Winston would say some people who deserve the prize don't get it because there were more than 3 people. Sanjay would say some don't because they're already dead. But even though they would have different reasons, we have the information we need to know they would agree on E.

[wrjackson1]

Hi, I read your response to the other posts, but I just want to make sure my line of reasoning is good. E and not B is the answer because B shifts the scope out of what we know the scientists think. Is that correct?

[Jonathan Evans]

Yes, exactly, WRJackson. We do not know for sure whether Winston and Sanjay think the rules should be different. Maybe they do. Maybe they don't. This answer choice does not pass the Fact Test™. It brings in suppositions that are unsupported and outside the scope of the stimulus. (E) is the only answer choice for which there is sufficient support in the stimulus. Good job!

[harvoolio]

I also chose (B). Reading the other responses, so is one of the problems the word "should" which is normative (what ought to be) rather than positive (what is)? So for these type of questions the answers need to match the normative/positive of the stimulus.

So, any answer beginning with "the rules that govern the awarding of Nobel Prizes in scientific disciplines should ..." would be wrong?

I had prephrased that they would agree "not everybody worthy of a Nobel Prize receives one" but could not find the answer.

For (D) I felt Winston would be more likely to agree with (D) because "many" usually means more than "some" (but on the LSAT we are taught they are synonyms) and by the rest of the language. So, assume Winston meant 80% (big number) of Nobel Prizes in science had been awarded to 3 or less people (per the rules) but had been done by 4 or more people. He would agree with (D). Assume Sanjay meant 1% or 2% (small marginal number) when he said some. You could Fill-In-The-Blank and add "So, not every rule is perfect but Nobel Prizes are generally pretty accurate about which scientific contributions are worthy". I know I am reading into it but I felt the language of "are" rather than softer language of something like "tend to be" ruled it out.

Thanks.

[Alex Bodaken]

harvoolio,

Thanks for the question! I don't think the issue here is really one of a single word, but more the thrust of the argument made in answer choice (B) being unprovable. As noted above, we know that both Winston and Sanjay think that the current rules awarding Nobel Prizes for Science may be missing some important people, but we don't actually know if they think the rules should be changed; nor do we know if they think the rules should be different from those governing other Nobel Prizes (for all we know, these same issues exist in other disciplines). Because we don't know that, (B) cannot be our credited answer.

I'd use the same caution about losing the forest for the trees looking at answer choice (D) - it seems like you are really dialed in on the language, but it is the argument that makes it incorrect. We simply have no evidence in the stimulus that the evaluation of achievement in science is a highly subjective matter - it may be, it may not be, but we have no indication one way or the other. So we can't say that the two authors would agree on this, since they really don't address it. I'm also a bit confused here by your use of the word "many"...I don't see it in the answer choice, so where did you get that from? Sorry if I'm missing something!

Hope all that is somewhat helpful,
Alex

[chelseasanc]

I eliminated the correct answer (E) and although in hindsight it is easier to see why (E) was right, I'm not sure how to avoid this thinking in the future.

I thought that "Nobel Prizes are inaccurate indicators of scientists' contributions to their disciplines" was a mistaken negation. This answer seemed to me to be saying that having a Nobel prize wasn't an accurate indicator that the scientist who had that prize had contributed to their discipline. Because Winston and Sanjay were merely arguing that not having a Nobel Prize didn't indicate that the scientists' work was unimportant, I thought this answer overstated what they were saying.

The ideal answer would have been "The rules for awarding Nobel Prizes in science should be changed," and since (B) was the closest to that, that was what I picked even though I could tell it wasn't a perfect match based on the reasons already mentioned. Can someone point out the trap I fell into when I eliminated (E)?

[Adam Tyson]

The problem with answers like B, chelseasanc, is that the stimulus never takes a position about what should or should not happen. Each author merely states some facts, without judgment. Maybe they think the situation as it exists is fine? Maybe they think it should be changed? We cannot know, based solely on a fact set, what anyone's opinion is. For the same reason, we cannot use opinion-based arguments about what is good or bad, what should or should not occur, to draw conclusions about what is or is not true or what will or will not happen.

A solid prephrase here would be something like "Nobel prizes don't reflect everyone's contributions" or "it's possible that some people who deserve one don't get one." Maybe just "some folks could be left out."

Answer E is the closest to those - they aren't an accurate indication, because they highlight some folks and omit others who may have been just as important or even more so. This answer doesn't mean that the people who get them don't deserve them, but that having one is not a valid indicator of contribution. It makes the recipients look more important than they might actually be, relative to those who didn't get one.

Beware of mixing up facts with opinions! Just because something is true doesn't mean it should be true; just because something causes a problem doesn't mean it should be changed (because perhaps the benefits outweigh the costs).