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!