Reading Comprehension Bible page 202

[Stephanie Oswalt]

We recently received the following question from a student. An instructor will respond below. Thanks!

Hi, I have been reading PowerScore's reading comprehension bible and I am quite confused about the difference between MustX and Cannot Be True. For instance, on page 202-203,the author of the book attribute sentence1 to MustX,however attribute sentence2 to Cannot Be True.For me, the structure of the two question stems are quite similar.could u tell me why?Thanks a lot.
sentence1:It can be inferred from the passage that Van Gogh would have been LEAST likely to choose which of the following as a subject of his work?
sentence2:Based on the passage,the author would be LEAST likely to consider which one of the following a suitable topic for public televison.

[Dave Killoran]

Hi,

Thanks for the question! This is a good example of the types of changes we make as we update each edition of our LSAT Bibles. This was an unintended discrepancy that has been fixed for the upcoming version

Thanks!

[hangryhippo]

I had the same question. Could you please post the correct answers for questions 3 & 5 on page 204 of the 2017 edition?

[Dave Killoran]

Sure! Here you go:

• #3 is entirely the same and remains a Must X.
  
  #5 is now a CannotX. BUT, the question stem itself was changed in the 2018 version as well (to "Based on the passage, the author would be LEAST likely to refuse which one of the following topics for a public television show?").

Thanks!

[dl49]

Hi Dave,

Regarding the updated questions, I'm still confused about why #3 is Must X while #5 is Cannot X. Could you elaborate? I think I know the difference between the two question stem types: with Must X, the four incorrect answers must be true and the correct answer could be true or could be false. With Cannot X, the four incorrect answers cannot be true, while the correct answer could be true or must be true.

I've read the answer key and am confused about the explanation for #5: what does it mean that "rejecting an answer is a characteristic of Cannot Be True questions"?

Thanks!

[Dave Killoran]

Hi DL,

I don't have the book in front of me, but the following will hopefully help:

Hi Dave,

Regarding the updated questions, I'm still confused about why #3 is Must X while #5 is Cannot X. Could you elaborate? I think I know the difference between the two question stem types: with Must X, the four incorrect answers must be true and the correct answer could be true or could be false. With Cannot X, the four incorrect answers cannot be true, while the correct answer could be true or must be true.

YES, you are exactly correct here

I've read the answer key and am confused about the explanation for #5: what does it mean that "rejecting an answer is a characteristic of Cannot Be True questions"?

Thanks!

There are different ways to think about Cannot questions, but one way is to think of these as Reverse Weaken questions. Instead of the answer choice being used to weaken the stimulus (as with Weaken), in a Cannot question the stimulus is used to weaken the answers. Thus, one could say that the information in the stimulus is being used to undermine or reject the answer.

Hopefully that helps—please let me know!

[shanikaduverneau]

Hi! I'm still having trouble understanding why #3 is a MustX question while #5 is a Cannot Be TrueX.

While I understand the others, the explanation for #5 confuses me. Is it because #3 uses the phrase "it can be inferred from the passage," which categorizes it as a Must Be True question based on the question stem? But even if that's true, #5 does say "Based on the passage". Could it be argued that the passage is just background information and the answer choices are not explicitly found in the passage? In other words, is the passage serving as knowledge used to make a plausible inference based on the answer choices without them being EXPLICITLY found in the passage like a Must question would??

Sorry if this is a confusing way of asking! I just want to make sure I understand the difference for in the future!

[Jeff Wren]

Hi shanikaduverneau,

I'm not sure which edition of "The Reading Comprehension Bible" you are using, but just know that if you are using an older version (i.e. 2017 or earlier), the wording of the question for #5 may have changed.

Looking at my copy (which is the 2022 edition), the question for #5 states,

"Based on the passage, the author would be LEAST likely to refuse which one of the following topics for a public television show?"

What makes this question a Cannot Be True EXCEPT question is the word "refuse" in the question stem. The idea is that, for the four wrong answers, they will directly oppose what the author argues are acceptable topics for public television shows in the passage. The correct answer will not directly oppose what the author argues are acceptable topics for public television shows in the passage. In other words, the correct answer will either present a topic that the author explicitly approves of in the passage (which would be a must be true type of answer) or the correct answer could present a topic that is outside the scope of what the author discusses in the passage, in which case we would not be able to determine whether or not the author would refuse that topic (which would be a could be true type of answer).

For Cannot Be True questions, the correct answer is directly proven by referring to the stimulus/passage, except that it is the opposite of what was stated in the stimulus/passage, or directly contradicts what was stated in the stimulus/passage. In that sense, it would be more accurate to say that the correct answer is directly disproven by referring to the stimulus/passage.

Of course, for Cannot Be True EXCEPT questions, everything is flipped, and now the four wrong answers are directly disproven by referring to the stimulus/passage.

In the same way, if a question asked, "Based on the passage, the author would be LEAST likely to disagree with which one of the following statements?," this would also be a Cannot Be True EXCEPT question. The four wrong answers contain statments that the author disagrees with, meaning they state the opposite of what the author stated in the passage. The correct answer may state something that the author explicitly agreed with or contain a statement that the author may or may not agree with, but there is no evidence in the passage about that statement either way.