#21 - Leona: If the average consumption of eggs in the

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Strengthen. The correct answer choice is (B)

In this question we are being asked to strengthen Leona’s position by providing a response to Thomas’s challenge. Leona has claimed that if egg consumption were halved 5000 lives could be saved. Thomas counters by saying that if this claim were true that in 10 years time the population would have 50,000 more people than it otherwise would. Basically Thomas’s challenge is that if Leona is right there will at least have to be an extra 50,000 people in ten years. Of course Leona cannot guarantee this, and it misses the point of her claim. The idea behind Leona’s argument is that 5000 people unnecessarily die every year because of high egg consumption. So cutting back on eggs would theoretically save 5000 lives. However, keep in mind that those 5000 could die from other reasons completely unrelated to eggs and Leona’s claim would still be valid. Our answer choice will have to both clarify Leona’s argument and counter Thomas’s response.

Answer Choice (A): This answer choice is wrong because we are not trying to prove that the population will definitely grow by 50,000 people in ten years. That is not the point of the argument.

Answer Choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. It clarifies Leona’s position and counters Thomas’s response. Remember, Leona claims that 5000 deaths are due to higher than average egg consumption, so by changing their diets these people would no longer be at risk to die from this particular cause. Other factors of death are not ruled out and so they can die from other reasons. (B) shows that even though a population growth of 50,000 is not necessary, the claim still stands.

Answer Choice (C): This would do nothing to counter Thomas. If more lives could be saved, Thomas could just respond that the population should then grow by more than 50,000 in ten years. And so (C) gets us nowhere.

Answer Choice (D): This could address Thomas’s claim that the population would need to grow by 50,000, but it does not help clarify Leona’s original position. Since the question is asking us to do both, this cannot be the right answer.

Answer Choice (E): This is an irrelevant answer choice. We do not care how the average egg consumption will actually be halved. We are just concerned with what happens after the average consumption is cut in half.

[elorm]

Here is what has been happening to me on this question: Each time I return to it after forgetting the correct answer I leave B and D as contenders. Unfortunately I always pick D. Your explanation on how you view the stimulus really helps but my challenge is that I did not view the stimulus the same way you did. I believe there are a few questions like this where my understanding of the stimulus was different and that resulted in me picking the wrong answer. Is there a way to view or understand the stimulus the same way as the test writers or yourself? I know this is a tough/ maybe awkward question but I'm very desperate and need to maximize my score.

[Jonathan Evans]

Hi, Elorm,

Welcome to the forums! Thank you for the question. First, desperation is unnecessary and counterproductive. If you're preparing for December, you have time to prepare in a disciplined, directed manner. Progress and improvement on the LSAT occurs by building on a strong foundation of understanding the underlying concepts tested and by developing the skills necessary to respond accurately and quickly to questions.

Take a diagnostic test. Assess your strengths and weaknesses. Then develop a game plan of mastering content and building your skills incrementally. Get your hands on some good preparation material, or consider a class or tutor.

Now, with respect to your specific question, it would be helpful to know what your initial understanding of the stimulus was. Are you having trouble identifying the conclusion or main point of arguments? Remember that arguments on the LSAT consist of a claim or inference that is backed up by facts. Often, the facts provided will be inconsistent to prove a conclusion is valid.

In this case Leona has not provided much support for her claim; however, we are not interested in bolstering her claim as much as we are interested in pointing out an error in Thomas's rebuttal.

When you work through a stimulus, start by describing the way the pieces fit together:

Leona thinks cutting egg consumption might save lives, on the order of 5,000 a year. Now what does Thomas care about? Does he care about the pros and cons of egg consumption? No, not really. He strikes me as a little bit of an irritating know-it-all. He is concerned with what it would mean to save 5,000 lives a year and makes the sophistic claim that saving these lives would mean 50,000 more people alive in ten years.

Our job is to dismantle Thomas's claim. To strengthen Leona's argument, our job is actually to weaken Thomas's. To prephrase, we would need to find evidence that is both consistent with what Leona has said and undermines Thomas's conclusion. We need something that would say it is possible to save 5,000 lives a year and not end up with 50,000 people at the end of ten years. Understood this way, I hope it is apparent that B is the only candidate.

The credited response must address the points in the argument directly. The credited response can't go on tangents or invite you to imagine new hypotheticals that seem to maybe kinda make sense if you look at it just a certain way. Your key to success is your pre-work and your strong understanding of the stimulus and question before you attack the answer choices. I hope this helps.

[biskam]

So definition of "saving a life" is kind of what's being argued/clarified here. Leona is saying with answer choice B, a life can be saved if a person would've died because he/she consumed too many eggs didn't. He/she still could still die from an accident, cancer, etc, but I'm ONLY arguing that I saved their life from high egg consumption, nothing else.

This is a nice response to Thomas because he's being a know it all who is saying "yeah well if you're right then we better see 50,000 lives saved in the next 10 years." And she's saying well not necessarily... we theoretically could (that would be great), or the "total lives saved" could be much lower because there's a LOT of other reasons people could die, and my argument would still stand.

Am I getting it right in response to how B weakens thomas?

[nicholaspavic]

Hi biskam,

Yes, I think you definitely have the idea! Well done and keep up the good work.

[andriana.caban]

Hi,

I identified the conclusion correctly and prephrased the correct answer. However, due to the wording of answer choice B, I didn't fully understand what it was saying. I notice this is an occurring problem for me; I'll understand the underlying concept but not understand the answer choices.

Any advice on how to get over this hurdle? Thanks!

[Brook Miscoski]

Adriana,

In general, if you are correctly phrasing but not picking the right choice, you need to spend time getting more comfortable with complicated wording. There's no easy answer--you just have to get acclimated.

At the same time, you need to be demanding of yourself in whether your phrasing was correct. Sometimes we phrase a reaction fairly broadly, and after we know the correct choice, it's easy to work that into our phrasing. I've seen a number of your questions on this forum. While I believe that you have what it takes to perform well, I think that sometimes you don't understand the arguments before you look at the choices. Don't cheat yourself of points by telling yourself that you had a good pre-phrase just yet. Work this from all angles. Take some more time before you get to the choices.

[MikeL005]

Hello PowerScore,

First off, I want to say that the forums and program overall have been extremely helpful in my LSAT studies. Thanks for that! Secondly, after reading the LR Bible and the LSAT course book, I could not find an appropriate strategy on how to best attack a 2 speaker stimulus. I wanted to ask how one would best attack this type of stimulus.

My strategy so far is to treat the 2 person stimulus as 2 separate arguments and figure out how they relate, disagree, agree, etc. based on the question stem requirements. For instance, for this particular problem:

L: Egg Consumption cut in half --> Save 5k Lives

T: Adopt for 10 years --> 5K X10yrs = 50K

Next, I figure out what the question stem wants me to do. So, Strengthen L's argument in response to T.

After eliminating answers, B is the best choice.

Would this method work for the majority of the 2 speaker LSAT problems in breaking the problem down into 2 separate independent arguments, keeping in mind the topic and/or some issue(s) will be similar between them?

Thank you, and any help would be greatly appreciated

[KelseyWoods]

Hi Mike!

Yes, for 2-speaker stimuli, you need to analyze the arguments for both speakers. Identify the conclusion and reasoning of the 1st speaker, then think about how the 2nd speaker responds to the 1st. Do they disagree with the 1st speaker? Why? Do they disagree with the 1st speaker's premises? Or just the conclusion drawn from those premises? Do they bring up information the 1st speaker didn't consider or point out a flaw in the 1st speaker's reasoning? Are there things that they agree on? Etc. Then answer whatever the question stem has asked you.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[Katherinthesky]

While I understand now that B is correct (it was the only Contender), I had chosen D because I read "changes in life expectancy" to mean the change in diet where the average consumption of eggs being reduced by half meant that life expectancy would increase - therefore clarifying Leona's claim.

Can anyone please clarify?