#7 - Of all of the photographs taken of him at his wedding,

[ellenb]

Dear Powerscore,

So, I am not sure for this question why the answer choice is D. I picked A,
Is it because the photograph was unique and that is why they had a disagreement about which photograph resembles him better? I am a bit confused, please clarify.

Thanks in advance!

Regards,

Ellen

[Adam Tyson]

I'll do my best, Ellen!

First, let me say that at first blush I, too, liked answer A. It was a contender for me until I read D, which was a lot closer to my prephrase, which was very generally that in the photo in question, John looked the way he sees himself rather than the way he really looks. That could have been about his mental image of himself, but a mirror image is a much more literal match.

So what's wrong with A? Remember that a Resolve the Paradox answer needs to actively resolve both sides of the paradox. In this case, it needs to answer two questions - 1) why did John's friends think the photo did not resemble him, and 2) why did John think that it did? Answer A deals fairly well with that second question - John focused on his clothes rather than other aspects of the photo, so he felt that it looked like him in comparison to the ones showing him in unfamiliar formal dress. But what about the first question - why did his friends think it did not look like him? Don't make any unwarranted assumptions - we cannot assume that they saw something in the picture that he failed to see, such as a distortion of his facial features or his hair being unusual, etc. That would be too much of a leap for us to make here. Answer A gives us no help in figuring out why the friends felt the way they did - it may, in fact, further cloud that issue.

The mirror image answer explains both sides - John looked to his friends like he was backwards (since that's what a mirror does), while to John he looked just exactly the way he sees himself all the time!

Hope that was helpful!

[GLMDYP]

Of all the photographs taken of him at his wedding...[Question content removed by Admin. LSAC rules unfortunately do not allow the posting of the text of complete LSAT questions. But, if you give us the test date or PrepTest number, the section, and the question number (which I put into the question title), we can find it easily and still answer the question. Thanks!]



This is a weird question .
Thanks!

[Steve Stein]

Hi GLMDYP,

Could you expand a bit on why you thought this was a weird question? How did you break down the stimulus? Were you able to narrow down the answer choices?

Let us know--thanks!

~Steve

[GLMDYP]

Hi Steve!
I'm just wondering how the right answer fit into the stimulus.

[Steve Stein]

Thanks for your response. Did you try to prephrase that one? What sort of answer would explain why John's perception of the photograph in question was different from that of the others at the wedding?

Let me know your thoughts--thanks!

~Steve

[GLMDYP]

Hi!Is it because when people see themselves in the mirror, they usually think that's a different person while the other people think that the image and the person are exactly the same?
Thanks!

[Steve Stein]

Hi,

Thanks for your response--you've got the basic idea. John is used to looking at his own reflection, whereas his friends are used to looking directly at him. That is why a picture of his mirror image, as provided in answer choice D, would look more familiar to him and less so to his friends--such a picture would be more like what John was used to looking at.

Please let me know whether this is clear--thanks!

~Steve

[simonsap]

lame.