#17 - Advertiser: There’s nothing wrong with a tool that has

[German.Steel]

Just to be clear: I'm not saying that this is a flawed question that LSAC should remove. (D) is better. It's just rare that you get two answers that are both clearly right, and the "correct" answer comes down to distinguishing which one is slightly more perfect. I mean yeah, at the end of the day, the LSAT is an exercise in picking the *best* answer...but it just doesn't sit well with me having two clearly accurate answers, one of which is extraordinarily slightly better than the other. Feels like "both answers are correct, but one answer is more correct than another" not unlike Animal Farm's classic line about "all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" (or whatever it was, lol).

[Luke Haqq]

Hi German.Steel!

You comment,

(D) is better. It's just rare that you get two answers that are both clearly right, and the "correct" answer comes down to distinguishing which one is slightly more perfect. I mean yeah, at the end of the day, the LSAT is an exercise in picking the *best* answer

Yes, at the end of the day, the right answer on the LSAT is whichever answer choice is best out of the five.

But it's still worth addressing why (A) is incorrect on its own. Answer choice (A) states that the flaw is that the VersaTool might "include some functions that are infrequently or never needed." Even if it had "some functions" that are infrequently used (say, 2 functions), it's still possible that the VersaTool has many other functions that one will use, that it has more functions than other multi-function tools, and that one will need other tools less often if one purchases it, as the advertiser concludes.

However, the stimulus leaves ambiguity in terms of how the number of functions of the VersaTool relates to how often one will need other tools. For example, the VersaTool could have more functions than any other tool but all of them might be useless (in which case one will need other tools). Or one might have particular needs in terms of functions that aren't among the functions of the VersaTool (in which case one will again need other tools).

So the VersaTool might include "some" functions that are infrequently needed (again, say 2 of 11 functions), but it still might be as useful as the advertiser claims even if that were the case.

[sxzhao]

I disagree with the explanation that I think choice D actually misrepresented the stimulus.
Note that in the first half the stimulus, VersaTool is described to be the tool with the "eleventh" function, which to me strongly implies that VersaTool covers all functions existing tools already cover while adding MORE".

This makes choice A strongly plausible, simply imagine a world where VersaTool has added 100 more functions compared to other tools that are never used. In this world, you'd use VersaTool AS OFTEN as any other multi-funciton tool.

In contrast, if we simply say Versa Tool is a tool with "eleven" functins, then this becomes a situation that choice D captures.

[lsatstudent99966]

I don't really understand what (B) means.

Does it mean that Versatool has functions that are difficult to perform with any tool (even Versatool itself)? Does it mean that these functions of Versatool are difficult to perform even if we use Versatool itself to perform them?

I know (B) can't be the right answer, but I still hope to know what it means.

Thank you very much!

[Adam Tyson]

That's how I read answer B. There might be some things that the VersaTool can do that are nevertheless really hard to do, even with the VersaTool. Like, one of the functions it can perform is turning water into wine, but even using the VersaTool it's still really, really hard to get that result. That doesn't matter, as long as other tools don't have that function; that would mean that the VersaTool does something the others don't do, and so you don't need to go find another tool with which to do it. The argument sill stands.

The real problem with the argument is that the number of functions doesn't matter as much as which functions it does. When I use my Swiss army knife, the tool I need the most is the small blade. What if the VersaTool doesn't have that kind of blade, but in its place it has a thing for installing window screens (a spline tool) and a voltmeter? It has more functions than my knife, but I'll still end up looking for another tool more often, because I really need that small blade, and I almost never need a spline tool or a voltmeter.