#21 - Sociologist: Traditional norms in our society prevent

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Justify the Conclusion. The correct answer choice is (A)

The best approach for an argument of this type is to simplify its premises and conclusions and quickly diagram the conditional relationships that underlie them:

• Premise #1: Trad. Norms → Sincerity (trad. norms prevent sincerity)
  
  Premise #2: Success → Trust (success requires trust)
  
  Conclusion: Success → Sincerity (success requires sincerity)

In short, because the success of a community requires its members to trust each other, they must be sincere and willing to face unpleasant realities. Notice that this simple argument requires you to pay little attention to the first sentence of the stimulus: often times, the trick to answering Justify the Conclusion questions quickly and efficiently is to focus only on the relationship between the premise that directly support the conclusion. The correct answer must establish that Trust requires Sincerity:

• Justify Formula: Trust → Sincerity

Therefore, answer choice (A) is correct.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. If a community whose members do not trust one another cannot succeed and trust between them requires sincerity, then it logically follows that the success of a community requires sincerity.

Answer choice (B): This answer choice is almost a Mistaken Reversal of the conclusion. A positive correlation between sincerity and success will not prove that success requires sincerity: at best, this answer choice provides moderate support for the conclusion, but fails to justify it.

Answer choice (C): If traditional norms prevent sincerity while a community's success requires it, then it is impossible that a community can ever succeed if its members subscribe to traditional norms. This answer choice is incompatible with the argument and is therefore incorrect.

Answer choice (D): While we can infer that sincerity requires willingness to face unpleasant realities from the first sentence in the stimulus, such an inference does provide the additional link required to justify the conclusion. Remember: proving a conclusion requires the introduction of a new element into the structure of the argument. One can never justify a conclusion with an inference.

Answer choice (E): While this answer choice strengthens the conclusion, it is too weak to provide sufficient support for it. The word "often" should have been a big red flag here, making you eliminate this answer choice automatically.

[netherlands]

Hi there PS,

I'm having a problem with these types of assumption questions in particular where there's a series of kind of broken up conditional statements - although, I can understand the conditional statements.

I understand the stimulus is saying that Success Trust and that Success Sincerity (facing unpleasant realities and honest speaking) but I don't see how that translates into sincerity requiring trust.

If anything it looked like trust and sincerity were kind of synonymous. I always get stuck on these and know there will be several on the test,could you please explain this one a little further?

[Steve Stein]

Hi netherlands,

It's important to begin this discussion by noting that this is not an Assumption question. It is a Justify the Conclusion question. So, the correct answer choice will be the one which, when added to the other premises in the stimulus, will justify the author's conclusion.

It's also important to note that the correct answer choice does not provide that sincerity requires trust, but rather that trust requires sincerity.

Take another look at the question and answer choices, and let me know whether this makes sense--thanks!

~Steve

[netherlands]

Hi there,

Went back- I meant to say that I didn't understand why it translates into trust requiring sincerity. ( I referred to it as an "assumption" question bc prior to taking this course I'd been reading a different method that categorizes these as "sufficient assumptions" - my mistake!)

So,

Norms Prevent sincerity

For a community to Succeed Trust is needed

For a community to Succeed Sincerity is needed

This is basically as far as I got on my own with ease.

After getting this far am I basically just supposed to connect "Trust and Sincerity" the two uncommon features in the conditionals?

I guess my question then is just... am I just connecting them in the order that they are presented? (Trust comes first so it is the sufficient clause, etc.)

Also- this is pretty much the same as #19 in the same section correct? It helps me better understand if I can connect questions and their patterns - In that one you pretty much did the same thing

Whoever is kind Loved by another
Whoever loves someone Happy
Whoever is kind Happy

In the explanation you connected it as: Loved by another Loves Someone

Basically looks like the uncommon terms were connected in the order presented.

Thank you so much for your help!

[Steve Stein]

Hey Netherlands,

You've just about got it. Since this is a Justify the Conclusion question, the correct answer choice will be the one which, when added to the premises from the stimulus, fully justifies the author's conclusion.

In this case, as you said, Success requires Trust.
And, the author's conclusion is that Success requires Sincerity
So, how does the correct answer choice justify that conclusion?

Premise: Success Trust
+ Correct answer choice A: Trust Sincerity
Justified Conclusion: Success Trust Sincerity

Again, when you add the correct answer choice to the premise provided, the author's conclusion is fully justified. I hope that's helpful--let me know--thanks!

~Steve

[LustingFor!L]

Diagrammed the stimulus as the following:

Premise: X sincerity --> unpleasant realities AND small lies
Premise: X community trust --> X community succeed
Conclusion: community succeed --> face unpleasant realities AND speak honestly

Prephrase: Link between sincerity and community trust.

My rephrase helped me reach answer choice A, community trust -> sincerity. Looking at the student center explanations though, sentence 1 was diagrammed differently. Can you please let me know which parts of my thought process are incorrect?

Thanks!

[nicholaspavic]

Diagrammed the stimulus as the following:

Premise: X sincerity --> unpleasant realities AND small lies
Premise: X community trust --> X community succeed
Conclusion: community succeed --> face unpleasant realities AND speak honestly

Prephrase: Link between sincerity and community trust.

My prephrase helped me reach answer choice A, community trust -> sincerity. Looking at the student center explanations though, sentence 1 was diagrammed differently. Can you please let me know which parts of my thought process are incorrect?

Thanks!

Hi Lusting,

This is a great question and to fully understand it, we have to break down Premise 1 a little bit more in order to fully articulate the conditional logic behind it.

First, note that there is an intermediate step between the "Trad. Norms Sincerity."

It's important to also note the phrase "by requiring" in Premise 1. What follows that phrase: "ignore unpleasant realities and tell small lies" becomes the necessary condition for the sufficient condition of "Trad. Norms"

Therefore, the first part of Premise 1 becomes:

Trad. Norms IUR + TSL

But we don't stop there because we also have to deal with the phrase "prevent sincerity" in the premise.

In Premise 1, the phrase "ignore unpleasant realities and tell small lies" becomes the sufficient condition for necessary condition of "prevent sincerity" (in other logical words "not sincerity') and either one of them by themselves is sufficient to lead to "not sincerity." So that becomes:

IUR + TSL Sincerity

Put it all together and Premise 1 becomes:

Trad. Norms IUR + TSL Sincerity

or also

Trad. Norms Sincerity

Thanks so much for the great question!

[andriana.caban]

For the original explanation, I'm unsure of why the world 'only' in choice E was a big indicator that E was the wrong answer choice? Can you explain why this word indicated or disqualified E as an appropriate/the right answer?

[nicholaspavic]

For the original explanation, I'm unsure of why the world 'only' in choice E was a big indicator that E was the wrong answer choice? Can you explain why this word indicated or disqualified E as an appropriate/the right answer?

Hi adriana,

I think you mean "often" instead of "only." The word "only" does not appear in (E).

Rememberthat in Justify questions, the correct answer must strengthen the conclusion so that it is 100% proven. Anything less and the answer choice is incorrect. Logically speaking, the correct answer is sufficient to prove the conclusion when added to the premises.

So the in the original explanation, we focused on the term "often" because it did not offer that 100% proven standard that we are looking for, since often only indicates that it sometimes happens and sometimes does not.

Thank you for the question and I hope it clarifies why it's an incorrect choice.

[Sophia123]

Hi!

I was able to correctly select answer choice A, but in reading the original explanation, I am a bit confused on what happens to the "traditional norms" piece in this question. It seems like the first premise is generally ignored and we just have:

Premise 2: Succeed --> trust
Ans A: Trust --> sincerity
Conc: Success --> sincerity

When diagramming out questions on LSAT for justify questions, I tend to look for unlinked items in the answer choice and in this case it seems like the "traditional norms" part isn't really linked to anything. What would be a good way to go about knowing which parts to ignore in future justify questions?

Thank you in advance!

Sophia