#22- Moralist: A statement is wholly truthful

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Parallel—Principle. The correct answer choice is (D)

Principle questions are often quite lengthy, and this is part of the
reason they are challenging.

Note the words “conform” and “judgment” in the question
stem. In this case, the answers must conform to the principle in the
stimulus, which means this is a Must or Parallel question. Then,
the presence of the word “judgment” indicates that this is a Parallel
Reasoning question.

The stimulus contains two principles, and you are required to find
the answer choice that most closely follows the principles. By
comparing the principles with each answer choice, you can find the
answer that best meets the stipulations of the principle.

As you read the stimulus, you should hone in on the conditional
nature of the two principles (introduced by “only if” and “if”):

Principle in the first sentence:

                                                       Statement true
     Wholly truthful                +
                                                       Made without intended deception

Principle in the second sentence:

     Intended to deceive
                    or                     Lie
     Refrain from clarifying misinterpretation

Principle in the first sentence:

     1. If a statement is wholly truthful, then the statement is
     true and made without intended deception.

     2. If a statement is not true or not made without intended
     deception (which is the same as “made with intended
     deception”), then the statement is not wholly truthful.

Principle in the second sentence:

     1. If a statement is intended to deceive or not clarified
     when misinterpreted, then the statement is a lie.

     2. If a statement is not a lie, then the statement is
     not intended to deceive and is clarified when
     misinterpreted.

These four options are simply the Repeat form and contrapositive
form of the conditional statements in the stimulus.

Answer choice (A): Right out of the gate you are faced with a
trap answer. From the discussion you know that you cannot draw
a conclusion that a sufficient condition has occurred (there is no
premise that can be used to force a sufficient condition to occur).
Yet, this answer attempts to conclude that Ted’s statement was
wholly truthful, which is the same as the sufficient condition.
Therefore, the judgment (conclusion) in this answer does not
conform to the principle in the stimulus and this answer is
incorrect.

Answer choice (B): This answer attempts to conclude that the
necessary condition in the second principle did not occur. There
is no premise that you can supply to the second principle that will
allow you to make the judgment that the necessary condition did
not occur, and so this answer is also incorrect. Remember, there is
no way for you to conclude that a sufficient condition has occurred,
or that a necessary condition has not occurred.

Answer choice (C): When creating incorrect answers, the test
makers love to recycle difficult concepts and have them appear
more than once in a problem. Structurally, this answer is similar to
answer choice (B). Based on the second principle in the stimulus,
there is no way to conclude that a statement is not a lie (e.g., that
the necessary condition did not occur), and once you recognize that
fact, you can quickly eliminate answer choices (B) and (C).

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer. Applying the
second principle to this scenario, when Walter intentionally
deceived the interviewer, he met one of the sufficient conditions
in the second principle, allowing us to conclude that the necessary
condition (“lie”) also occurred. Note that the second principle
has two separate sufficient conditions (joined by “or”), and that
meeting either or both will force the necessary condition to occur.

Answer choice (E): As with answer choices (B) and (C), this
answer can be eliminated because it attempts to draw a conclusion
that cannot be drawn, namely that the necessary condition in
the second principle did not occur. This answer choice is also
problematic because the tour guide intended to deceive the tourists
and thus we can conclude from the second principle that his
statement was a lie, which differs from what the answer choice
attempts to conclude.

[lsat1391]

Hello! Can someone diagram and explain this question to me. I picked A and I don't see why D is the correct answer?

[Dave Killoran]

Hi 1391,

The diagrams for this problem are as follows:

• True
  Wholly Truthful +
  Intended Deceive
  
  
  
  
  Intended Deceive
  or Lie
  Refrain Clarifyinglearn misinterpret

This is a classic form conditional principle problem, the type that you can use to gain time in the section if you understand what's possible here. After seeing the two diagrams, and then seeing the question stem, which asks you for a valid judgment, you should be looking for one of two conclusions:

• Wholly Truthful (based on the contrapositive of the first sentence)
  
  or
  
  Lie (based on meeting the two sufficient conditions in the second sentence)

Those are the only two conclusions about truthfulness or lies that can be made here (although if you knew something was not a lie you could make conclusions about the intended deception or about clarifying, and you knew that something was wholly truthful you could make conclusions about the two necessary conditions in the first sentence). That knowledge alone would make (D) an attractive answer.

Before going further with this discussion, let me ask: are you in one of our LSAT courses or do you have the LRB? Because if so, there are sections I can refer you to that would help make this type of question much clearer. It fits a very common pattern, and hopefully, after you learn more about how this works, the next time you see a similar question you can not only solve it very quickly but also with full confidence.

Please let me know. Thanks!

[aaraya]

I'm confused with this explanation and A seems right to me. I know the diagram from the stimulus. Can the verb judge be similar to the verb apply? And if that's the case, the reason you took the first diagram by the contrapositive is because you wanted to make "wholly truthful" the necessary condition, by saying "not wholly truthful", thus the conclusion?

Here's how I see A: WT----->without deception. And now after thinking through the diagram for D, it matches perfectly with the stimulus. So the reason A looks wrong to me now is because it's missing the "true" from "only if it is true."

[James Finch]

Hi aaraya,

As Dave explained above, the stimulus gives us two separate conditional statements:

WT True & ID and its contrapositive: True or ID WT

and

ID or RCLM Lie and its contrapositive: Lie ID and RCLM

The question stem then asks which answer choice conforms to these principles, meaning it will fit into one of these four conditional statements, only two of which, WT or Lie, will likely be the conclusion of the answer choice, as those are the only two single necessary conditions out of the four conditional statements we have.

Answer choice (A) concludes that Ted's statement is WT, which is an immediate red flag, as WT is not a necessary condition in any of the given conditional relationships and therefore cannot be concluded no from the information in the stimulus. Sure enough, (A) ends up being a Mistaken Reversal of the first conditional, but even if it weren't it still fails, as it only satisfies one of the sufficient conditions given (that there is no intentional deception) and ignores the other condition, that the statement must be true as well. So (A) is actually wrong on two separate counts.

Hope this helps!

[aaraya]

That explanation helped a lot, thanks James. I'm clearly seeing that I'm lacking on the skill of differentiating premises and conclusions when there aren't any conclusion indicators. I saw "Wholly Truthful" and took didn't know whether or not it was the conclusion. Can you point me in the right direction so I can practice identifying the conclusion when there are no indicators? I have the self-study books.

Thank you!

[Jennifer Janowsky]

Aaraya,

No problem! Our friend Kristina summarizes this really well here:

Great question. You should always be looking out for those Conclusion Indicators! I underline the conclusion right away when I see it. However, sometimes you won't find a Conclusion Indicator. Another approach is to look for a Premise Indicator like "because, since, due to, etc." For example, you could see sentence that says "Because it is raining, you should take your umbrella." (Conclusion underlined). This has the exact same meaning as "It is raining, so you should take your umbrella." It doesn't matter that the first sentence used a Premise Indicator and the second sentence used a Conclusion Indicator. Both tell me that the last part of the sentence is the conclusion.

If you don't find a conclusion as you're reading the stimulus, another clue is the question stem. Some question types REQUIRE that there be argumentation in the stimulus. For example, if you are being asked to weaken an argument, you must have an argument to weaken! And most often, that means there's a conclusion in the stimulus. (Sometimes the conclusion is in the question stem itself) In a Must Be True question type, you might not see argumentation in the stimulus.

So if you encounter a question type that requires argumentation in the stimulus, then you can go back and try to identify the conclusion. You can use the Conclusion or Premise Indicators if they're present (and the lists we give are not exhaustive), but you can also ask yourself: "What is the author driving at? What does the author want me to believe?" That will often yield the conclusion. To identify the premises, you can ask yourself "What reasons has the author used to persuade me? Why should I believe this argument?"

For example, I could say: "Peanut and Butter Jelly Sandwiches are the best. They're so ooey-gooey and the perfect combination of sweet and savory." What do I want you to believe? That PB&Js are the best. What reasons have I given to persuade you? That they're ooey-gooey and the perfect combination of sweet and savory. Try flipping it around and see if it makes sense. I want you to believe that PB&Js are ooey-gooey and the perfect combination of sweet and savory, and my evidence is that they're the best? No, that doesn't make sense!

You can find the original thread here: lsat/viewtopic.php?t=13267

I hope you find her explanation as helpful as I did!

[PB410]

Hi,
I have always been unsure about principle questions that give you a set of conditions and you have to find the answer that conforms to them. I know you want to look for an answer that concludes with the necessary condition. So in this question, I would search for an answer that concludes something is a Lie or something that is NOT wholly truthful.
WT ----> True and made without intended deception
so I would look for the contrapositive,
NOT True or made WITH intended deception -----> NOT WT

Intended to Deceive or learning statement misinterpreted, doesn't clarify -----> Lie

My question is, are there circumstances where the correct answer can say a statement is wholly truthful because it is true and made without intended deception, or a statement is not a lie because it was not intended to deceive and upon learning it was misinterpreted was clarified? Or should I immediately seek out the answer that concludes with a Lie or NOT wholly truthful?

Thanks.

[PB410]

To add to my earlier question, in prep test 22.2 Q#18, I found an example of my question. Answer choice C states the contrapositive, where the negated conditions allow one to arrive at the negated necessary condition, while answer choice D states the necessary conditions and arrives at the sufficient condition. So is it best to seek out the answer choices leads to the necessary condition?

the diagrams I have for question 18, prep test 22, section 2 are
Truly great -----> original and Far reaching influence on artistic community
and
NOT original or NOT far reaching influence -----> NOT truly great.

So just go for the answer that arrives at NOT truly great?
Is there a case where the correct answer could be something like, "Peruvian paintings from the 18th century are truly great. They are both original in their use of religious subject matter, and their methods of painting the human form have been regularly adopted by succeeding artists."

Thanks

[Adam Tyson]

Hey PB410, happy to help here. When we are looking to conform to a principle, that's like saying something follows the rule. That could mean that it either is based on the conditional claim, or that it is based on the contrapositive of that claim. So we need an answer where one of two things happens:

1. The sufficient condition occurs, and the author concludes that the necessary condition must also occur

or

2. The necessary condition does NOT occur, and the author concludes that the sufficient condition also does not occur.

In this question, we could go either way, but as Dave points out we are most likely going to be looking to either prove that something is NOT wholly truthful (using the contrapositive of the first principle) or we will look to prove that something IS a lie (based on the second principle in its original form.) One reason for this is that it is easier, and more typical on the LSAT, for the conclusion to be about something that can be isolated, rather than something that is part of an either/or situation. It would be unusual (although correct) to find an answer that said something like "Fredo said something that was wholly truthful, therefore he said something that was true and he didn't try to deceive anyone."

As to your follow up question, I've added it to the appropriate thread for that test, here: https://forum.powerscore.com/lsat/viewt ... 469#p68469