#25 - Must Be True, Except

[al_godnessmary]

The correct answer is A; A cannot be properly deduced. The only way I can think of A not being the case is if we consider the "infinite" protrusions as the "final number" and not the "visible" protrusions. Is that it? Because it seems reasonable for me to assume that "at any stage," the total number does depend on the length of the initial line, since the longer the initial line, the more (visible) stages there can be!

Granted, I think the other four choices are obviously deducible and true, but I didn't see why A wasn't necessarily true based on the passage.

[David Boyle]

The correct answer is A; A cannot be properly deduced. The only way I can think of A not being the case is if we consider the "infinite" protrusions as the "final number" and not the "visible" protrusions. Is that it? Because it seems reasonable for me to assume that "at any stage," the total number does depend on the length of the initial line, since the longer the initial line, the more (visible) stages there can be!

Granted, I think the other four choices are obviously deducible and true, but I didn't see why A wasn't necessarily true based on the passage.

Hello al_godnessmary,

This is not a very easy question to grasp, but the Koch curve is something like a snowflake, I think. A bunch of tiny little segments which all have these tiny protrusions from them. (The reading passage could be much clearer about this.) So it may not matter how long the initial line segment is, since no matter how long or short it is, you still have to take out a third of it and make the triangle-top protrusion; and then each of the remaining segments then has the same thing done to it, so it would tend to look like a snowflake after a while, if you think about it. The size of the initial segment does not really determine the final number of protrusions, so the number could be infinite (as you say above), or finite, but the line-segment length still doesn't matter, rally.
Quite a concept to absorb! not that easy maybe. But that's the LSAT for you!

Hope this helps,
David

[mpoulson]

Hello,

After reading the analysis I understand why A is correct, but during my review I couldn't understand what B was saying and for that reason it tripped me up during the test. Can you explain what it means and where the text supports it? Thank you.

- Micah

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi Micah,

B sounds more complicated than it is. Essentially, it is saying that each step you take in making the curve (taking a segment, dividing it in 3, and replacing the middle third with two segments) will result in shorter segments than the previous step had. This is supported in the text by lines 11-20.

Hope that helps!