#17 - We can be sure that at least some halogen lamps are

[KelseyWoods]

Hi Leon!

Answer choice (E) states: "We can be confident that the cornmeal used at Matteo’s Trattoria is healthful and organic, since cornmeal is among the ingredients used in preparing meals there; whenever a meal is prepared at Matteo’s Trattoria, only healthful, organic ingredients are used."

Let's start by diagramming the last clause: "whenever a meal is prepared at Matteo’s Trattoria, only healthful, organic ingredients are used." "Whenever" is a sufficient indicator and "only" is a necessary indicator. So the statement would be diagrammed as:

meal prepared at Matteo's Trattoria healthful, organic ingredients

For the rest of the argument, the author takes a premise, and says that it is sufficient to draw a conclusion. So we would diagram it as:

cornmeal is among the ingredients used in preparing meals there cornmeal used at Matteo’s Trattoria is healthful and organic

As noted in the explanation above, this is similar to the stimulus but has a key difference in the conclusion. A conclusion that matched the stimulus would have been something like "at least some cornmeal is healthful and organic" rather than just that the cornmeal used at Matteo's is healthful and organic.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[tetsuya0129]

It's surely helpful! Thank you, Kelsey!

[pmuffley]

Hello! I just want to be clear that in order for the parallel reasoning to be correct, the time frame has to be matched between the stimulus and the correct answer choice? Answer choice C was ruled out because the time frame being referenced was not correct.

Ex stimulus conclusion: I will eat tacos tomorrow.

Ex answer choice conclusion: She ate cookies yesterday.

Regardless of the rest of the answer choice, I could rule this out because of the time frame reference? I do not recall seeing this in the LRB, so I want to make sure what you said is correct.

I thought that this example would actually be ok because the logical force of both arguments match.

[Adam Tyson]

While it's true that the correct answer to a Parallel Reasoning question will usually have the same temporal relationships as the stimulus, pmuffley, that is not an essential element of paralleling the argument. The real problem with answer C has nothing to do with time and everything to do with the strength and type of claims being made.

The conclusion is answer C appears to match that of the stimulus, but the premises do not. For example, "every shop is capable of doing good mechanical work" indicates only what those shops could do (they are capable), whereas the corresponding premise in the stimulus is "Any item on display at Furniture Labyrinth is well crafted," which indicates what is guaranteed (and not just what could occur). That alone is enough to eliminate this answer, but the other premises also fail to match. The premise in answer C that says "she can have her car worked on at any of several shops in the city" is also about mere possibility, and does not guarantee that she will have any work done, or that she will have it done in the city instead of elsewhere, and also only deals with "several" which is an uncertain amount, while the corresponding premise in the stimulus is "halogen lamps from most major manufacturers are on display at Furniture Labyrinth," which guarantees that there are such lamps on display and that they are from most (more than half) manufacturers rather than just several.

Focus on the strength and type of language in the premises and conclusions and be sure they match. While temporal elements of past, present, and future might raised some concerns, they are not always determinative of what makes a good or bad answer.

[pmuffley]

Thank you!!

[askuwheteau@protonmail.com]

These are really difficult to solve quickly. Any recommendations as to how I could improve?

When solving this question in the moment I used the following technique. I first checked the Validity of the argument, Method of Reasoning, & Conclusion prior to utilizing the abstraction test here in order to solve the problem. Given that here in the stimulus a some statement is being drawn from Most (stimulus line 2) and All (stimulus line 3) statements as per formal logic rules, the only answer choice that matched the closest was answer choice B. The rest don’t jive well. The following analysis reflects my improved understanding of the stimulus after reading through the answer key explanation here on the forum.

A: U (possesses a prescriptive conclusion about what will happen in the future…doesn’t match the stimulus)

B: S [Components of conditional rule in the stimulus (last sentence in answer choice B too) is applied to reach the conclusion)

C: U (possesses a prescriptive conclusion about what will happen in the future…doesn’t match the stimulus)

D: U [conclusion doesn’t involve an application of the conditional rule in the last sentence…]

E: U [no application of the conditional rule in the last sentence…and overly broad conclusion…doesn’t contain the word some or few or a synonym to it]

[lsatstudent99966]

Hi there,

I'm not sure if we can correct (E) by simply changing the conclusion to "some cornmeal is healthful and organic".

I think even if we change the conclusion of (E) from "all" to "some," there is still a difference between (E) and the stimulus and (B).

The premise in (E) allows a conclusion of "all", whereas the premise in the stimulus and the premise in (B) only allow a conclusion of "some".

With this in mind, can anyone explain whether we can really make (E) correct by simply changing the conclusion of (E) from "all" to "some"?

I'm trying to figure this out so that I can deal with questions like this in the future. Thanks in advance!

[Luke Haqq]

Hi askuwheteau!

Since you're asking for any suggestions as to how you might improve, one is to consider diagramming the conditional reasoning for the stimulus, and perhaps also for the contender answer choices. For examples of how to diagram the conditional reasoning at issue, I'd look to the first page of posts on this thread. You'll also note that Dave makes a good point on that first page of posts, namely, that the LSAT is chock full of conditional reasoning, and it might not always be in one's interest to diagram all of it. Rather, diagramming can be especially useful if one is stuck, confused, or not sure what is going on in the stimulus. It can also be a powerful tool when you see repetition of words like "all, "some," and "most," which is a good indicator that the question will be testing your understanding of conditional reasoning in the stimulus. So in short, it depends on where you were at with respect to this question--diagramming the conditional reasoning could have been useful to clarify what is going on the stimulus, but if you already had a good grasp of that, then diagramming might add unnecessarily to the amount of time it takes you to get through the question.