#24 - It has been said that authors who write in order to

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Assumption. The correct answer choice is (D)

This challenging question follows a classic structure found in many arguments on the LSAT, that of "Some people say something, but they're wrong, and here's why." What makes this one particularly challenging is that the author is arguing against a conditional claim, which means that the author is trying to show that a condition that someone else thinks is necessary is not actually necessary. It's important to recognize in this scenario that the author isn't trying to prove that the opposite condition is required, but only that the alleged necessary condition is not actually necessary.

Here, the author is trying to prove that books that are intended to give pleasure do NOT have to lack truth. Getting rid of that double negative, that means she is arguing that it is possible for such a book to impart truth. Not necessary - just that it is possible.

The author's premises make the case that such a claim about popular books is absurd (and see Nikki's explanation below in this thread for some elaboration on that point). To paraphrase the argument, the author is saying "this cannot possibly be true about all popular books, so it cannot be true of all books that are intended to give pleasure."

In any Assumption question we are looking either for a gap between the premises and the conclusion (a Supporter Assumption), or else we are trying to identify a weakness and then pick the answer that eliminates that weakness (a Defender Assumption.) When there is a gap, we know that the author believes that the premises are sufficient to prove the conclusion. If the premises are true, the author assumes that the conclusion must follow from them.

In this case, there is a gap, because the premises are about popular books, which are claimed to actually give some pleasure, and the conclusion is about books that are intended to give pleasure. The missing link between the premises and the conclusion is between the concepts of actually giving pleasure and the author intending to give pleasure. So we should be looking for an answer that says, in essence, "if a book gives pleasure (the information from the premise), then it must have been intended to do so (the new or "rogue" element in the conclusion)."

Answer choice (A): This answer does not connect the ideas of actual pleasure and intent to give pleasure, and so it does not close the gap in the argument.

Answer choice (B): This answer could be attractive, because it talks about both intent and results, but it is something like a Mistaken Negation of our prephrase, made worse by the fact that it is only about what happens sometimes rather than a true conditional claim that is about what happens every time.

Answer choice (C): As this answer does not address the issue of pleasure, either intended or actually achieved, it cannot close the gap between our author's premises and her conclusion.

Answer choice (D): this is the correct answer choice because it presents the contrapositive of our prephrase, and a contrapositive is logically equivalent to the original form of the statement. It is just as good to say "if not intended, then no pleasure" as it is to say "if pleasure, then intent."

Answer choice (E): While this answer does address something to do with pleasure, it fails to connect intentions to results, which must be done in order to close the gap in the argument.

[Nikki Siclunov]

The following is in response to a question posted to one of our Blogs:

Nikki - in real time, I would never be able to get the two ( #18 and 24) LR q's that you referenced above. It took me close to an hour just to unpack both questions. I had never seen anything like either before in any previous exam. Could you simplify or break down the structure for either of them so that the next time we are unfortunate enough to come across them, we can more readily recognize them? Thanks for the recap and for your time.

http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/october ... g-overview

First off, let me start by admitting something that will probably make you feel a little better about this question: I had almost no idea was going on when I did this question timed. The reasoning clearly proceeds by the contrapositive, where the author concludes that X cannot be true, because if it were true, then Y would also be true (and Y is absurd). Other than that, I could barely follow the logic in the stimulus. Upon a closer review, here's what's going on:

The author concludes that the claim in the first sentence cannot be true, i.e. that authors who intend to impart pleasure can also impart truth. To support her conclusion, she speculates on what would be the case if the two propositions were mutually exclusive, i.e. if intending to impart pleasure were incompatible with imparting truth. If that were so, the author argues, then books that impart pleasure would be at least partly untrue. Since popularity and pleasure tend to correlate, the more popular the book is, the less “truth” such a book would impart to its readers. As a result, we could determine the truthfulness of a book simply by looking at its sales figures, which the author clearly believes to be absurd. So, the original claim cannot be true.

Basically, the author uses the absurdity of a speculative scenario to argue that the intention of imparting pleasure is consistent with the ability to impart truth. However, books that impart pleasure aren’t necessarily books that were intended to impart pleasure. The conclusion is about whether authors who intend to impart pleasure can do so while also imparting truth. The evidence, however, only concerns books that impart pleasure as a matter of fact (and are therefore popular, with high sales figures, etc.). It is entirely possible that a book can impart pleasure even if its author didn’t mean for it to have that effect. If that were true, then the evidence presented would have no bearing on the author’s conclusion. That’s why answer choice (D) was ultimately correct – it establishes the subtle language shift between an author’s intention to impart pleasure and the actual effect of doing so.

I hope this makes sense... if not, don't hesitate to write back. But remember: almost no one really knew what was going on with this question. You aren't alone in your frustration with it

[cecilia]

Thank you so much Nikki. Yes it does make sense. When i first did the question, I got as far as the "X isn't true because if it was, Y would be true and....." I kept waiting for the author to explicitly say "Y is absurd." I didn't realize we were suppose to infer that on our own, being so used to reading carefully and not injecting opinion into these arguments...so this question was a real departure-habitwise- for me.

Thanks again for the dissection!!!!!!

[Nikki Siclunov]

Cecilia - you're absolutely right! I did the same thing: I was looking for an assumption stating that we cannot determine the truthfulness of a book simply by looking at its sales figures. This would have been a pretty obvious answer, but alas the test makers didn't want to hand us the question on a silver plate This isn't surprising, considering the question is one of the last 10 in the section.

Remember: arguments can have more than one assumption. And in this particular instance, there are several other assumptions, as there are other gaps in the reasoning. However, this is not a Justify question, and so we aren't asked to fill every damn hole to make the argument 100% perfect. While knowing what you're looking for can be tremendously helpful, Assumption questions - unlike Justify questions - do not always yield a perfectly predictive prephrase. While there is usually only one way to logically prove a conclusion, a typical argument may rely on a number of different assumptions, each of which must be true for the conclusion to be logically valid (and yet neither of which is strong enough to prove that conclusion).

Glad the dissection helped!!

[mokkyukkyu]

Hello,
So this question gave me a headache
I was thinking about this question a couple of hours...maybe I should not take that much time for just one question? I don't know

Anyways...I would like to double check whether my understanding is correct...
So it says "therefore that at least some of what is written in the book is not true" and the author mention this to show there is contradiction right? I mean...
It says "If it were, one could determine the truthfulness of a book simply by looking at its sales figures"=popularity shows truthfulness
But if the book is popular, it also means it provides pleasure
To show "that claim cannot be true" those two cannot be compatible---so, "therefore that at least some of what is written in the book is not true"
But wait, didn't you just say popularity shows truthfulness? This means what you are saying is not correct, there is contradiction, isn't it? Thus, Your claim "cannot be true"----
Is this what the author saying?
And...did the author bring up sales of figures because in the 1st sentence it says pleasure cannot be compatible with truthfulness, so as long as the author could show "the two can be together, otherwise contradiction" he could use other 3rd factor besides sales of figures?
By the way, popular=high sale figure right?...
I'm not sure this is contrapositive, but I felt it is more like showing contradiction within an argument...
Did I understand your explanation correctly?
Or...did I misunderstand something?

Thank you

The following is in response to a question posted to one of our Blogs:

Nikki - in real time, I would never be able to get the two ( #18 and 24) LR q's that you referenced above. It took me close to an hour just to unpack both questions. I had never seen anything like either before in any previous exam. Could you simplify or break down the structure for either of them so that the next time we are unfortunate enough to come across them, we can more readily recognize them? Thanks for the recap and for your time.

http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/october ... g-overview

First off, let me start by admitting something that will probably make you feel a little better about this question: I had almost no idea was going on when I did this question timed. The reasoning clearly proceeds by the contrapositive, where the author concludes that X cannot be true, because if it were true, then Y would also be true (and Y is absurd). Other than that, I could barely follow the logic in the stimulus. Upon a closer review, here's what's going on:

The author concludes that the claim in the first sentence cannot be true, i.e. that authors who intend to impart pleasure can also impart truth. To support her conclusion, she speculates on what would be the case if the two propositions were mutually exclusive, i.e. if intending to impart pleasure were incompatible with imparting truth. If that were so, the author argues, then books that impart pleasure would be at least partly untrue. Since popularity and pleasure tend to correlate, the more popular the book is, the less “truth” such a book would impart to its readers. As a result, we could determine the truthfulness of a book simply by looking at its sales figures, which the author clearly believes to be absurd. So, the original claim cannot be true.

Basically, the author uses the absurdity of a speculative scenario to argue that the intention of imparting pleasure is consistent with the ability to impart truth. However, books that impart pleasure aren’t necessarily books that were intended to impart pleasure. The conclusion is about whether authors who intend to impart pleasure can do so while also imparting truth. The evidence, however, only concerns books that impart pleasure as a matter of fact (and are therefore popular, with high sales figures, etc.). It is entirely possible that a book can impart pleasure even if its author didn’t mean for it to have that effect. If that were true, then the evidence presented would have no bearing on the author’s conclusion. That’s why answer choice (D) was ultimately correct – it establishes the subtle language shift between an author’s intention to impart pleasure and the actual effect of doing so.

I hope this makes sense... if not, don't hesitate to write back. But remember: almost no one really knew what was going on with this question. You aren't alone in your frustration with it

[Adam Tyson]

I think the implication that you are missing (one of the assumptions that Nikki was referring to in his explanation) is that popularity does NOT indicate truthfulness, or lack thereof. That is, the author is arguing against the claim that an intent to please is incompatible with telling the truth, and he does so by suggesting that a popular book CAN include some truth (not that it must, but that it can).

The author is suggesting that high sales figures indicates popularity, which in turn indicates deriving pleasure. Since he argues that high sales figures do not exclude the possibility of truthfulness, those that claim that an intent to please is incompatible with truthfulness must be wrong. The key factor to focus on here is intent - does the fact that some folks derive pleasure mean that the author intended to please? That's what matters here.

[Oakenshield]

I have a question about C.
I know C is wrong. But could you tell me how to negate C?
many --- negate -- not many?
I know if we negate some, it means "no,nothing"

[Jonathan Evans]

Hi, Oakenshield,

"Intermediate quantifiers" such as "many," "most," "a few," etc. do present some challenges for negation, but your approach is absolutely right. "Many" is not synonymous with "some." "Some" is just shorthand for stating the existence of something. If you need to negate "many," just go with "not many." Stick with the plain meaning of words here. If I had to propose a synonym for "not many," I would propose "few."

~("many") "not many" "few"

"Few" does not imply the existence of something. "Few people" or "not many people" could be consistent with "no people." Likewise, "not few people" or "many people" could be consistent with "all people."

Contrast "few people" with "a few people." "A few people" implies existence, and can be treated as "some" for the most part.

It is unlikely that the LSAT is going to force you to parse these "fuzzy" quantifier words. Don't overly complicate things. If you are ever in doubt about how to negate something, stick with "not" or "it is not the case that." Beyond that, as mentioned above, rely on the plain meanings of words.

[deck1134]

This question made my head spin. Not nice, LSAC!

I am curious as to why E is wrong. Could you provide some perspective on that?

Thank you!

[Adam Tyson]

The problem with E, deck, is that the author need not assume that pleasure is the reason (the cause) that a book is popular, but only that it being popular indicates (correlates with) that it gives pleasure. Negating answer E would tell us that something other than pleasure could be causing a book to be popular, but that wouldn't mean that popularity cannot still indicate pleasure, or, as the author put it, "one could reasonably conclude that it gave people pleasure" even if pleasure wasn't the cause of its popularity.

Since the negation of E doesn't wreck the argument, it is not a necessary assumption of the argument.