#25 - One way to compare chess-playing programs is to

[Adam Tyson]

I don't know why they would do that, annabelle, but it's not our job to figure out why they said what they said. We just need to deal with what they give us. Don't second guess yourself like that! I find it's best not to try and make sense out of the arguments on the LSAT, in large part because so many of them don't make a lot of sense. Just look at what they said, and what the stem asked you to do, and stay focused on that task.

[mkarimi73]

Was there an argument in this stimulus out of curiosity? I have been reading on other forums, such as Manhattan LSAT Prep, that this was an argument-type stimulus, where the correct answer would be a necessary assumption. Thanks in advance.

[Adam Tyson]

It is an argument, mkarimi73, and one clue is the use of the premise indicator "because" in the last sentence. The author is trying to prove that the program run on the faster computer will win, and the evidence is that on the faster computer it can examine more moves in the time allotted. While this is a Most Strongly Supported question, it works exactly the same as a Necessary Assumption question, in that the argument requires the correct answer to be true, and the wrong answers do not need to be true. There is a lot of similarity between the two question types!

[ashpine17]

if c is correct because the stimulus is general enough, then why is it not general enough to apply to the circumstances in A and D?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Ash,

Our stimulus is about two computers running the same program with the same restrictions. Answer choice (A) is about 2 programs on one computer. That isn't the same as our stimulus. Answer choice (D) is about two different programs on two computers. That also doesn't match the stimulus.

Answer choice (C) however does match. It is using two computers running the same program, exactly as we saw in the stimulus.

Both answer choice (A) and answer choice (D) look really tempting because they have similar components to the stimulus. However, they are just different enough that we can't say that they must be true.

Hope that helps!

[attorneyatpaw]

Hi, so on my initial read, I did think that the stimulus was comparing 1 program on 2 computers. However, when I reread the stimulus, the first sentence ("One way to compare chess-playing programs is to compare how they perform with fixed time limits per move") made me think I was somehow misreading the second sentence and that actually, the second sentence WAS talking about 2 different programs.

Why would anyone talk about comparing programs against each other and then immediately pivot to talk about comparing 1 program on 2 computers? How can I avoid this kind of misinterpretation in the future?

Thanks!

Going off of this question, I also spent an inordinate amount of time trying to decipher whether the example in the stimulus was comparing two different chess-playing programs on two different computers, OR the *same* chess-playing program on two different computers. Is the phrase "such a program" the thing that should've clued me into assuming they were talking about the same program? This particular question made me severely doubt my reading comprehension ability

[Adam Tyson]

You got it, attorneyatpaw! "Such a program" means they are talking about a single example of a program on two different computers. Think of that phrase as meaning the same thing as "One such program." You're reading just fine!