#8 - Archaeologist: The fact that the ancient Egyptians and

[haganskl]

Hello.

I was stuck between C & E briefly but realized the stimulus includes evidence other than what is stated in the conclusion. So E it is.
However, Ive been sitting here now for about 2 hours trying to figure out how I could make a circular reasoning argument out of this. So far I could only come up with this:

There is no such link between the New and Old World civilizations because there aren’t any connections between the New and Old world civilizations.

But its so basic. Im trying to incorporate the info about the Maya and ancient Egyptian civilizations. Would this make sense?

There is evidence that new and old world civilizations built pyramids but by definition, this doesn’t serve as a connection between the two. Therefore, based on this information alone, there isnt a link between new and old world civilizations.

-or-

There is evidence that new and old world civilizations built pyramids. However, there isnt a connection between the new and old world civilizations. Based on this fact, there isnt a link between the new and old world civilizations.

This is driving me crazy. Please help.
TIA

[Robert Carroll]

haganskl,

I do like the exercise of trying to alter the stimulus to make a wrong answer fit - it takes too long on an actual test, or a timed PT, of course, but it's good practice in seeing why an answer is wrong. If I HAVE to change the stimulus to make a wrong answer fit, then of course that answer is wrong as originally stated!

So the stimulus has to be changed to make answer choice (C) right, demonstrating that it's not the correct answer. You're trying to come up with a change that would make the argument circular. I think it's difficult to make an argument circular without just repeating a premise in the conclusion, either not changing it at all or substituting some synonyms in for certain words. That's the idea of circular reasoning - the conclusion just restates a premise.

With that in mind, I think I like your 1st and 3rd examples.

I don't think the second example is circular. It seems similar to the stimulus in that it's saying that a certain lack of evidence constitutes evidence against a proposition, which isn't circular.

Robert Carroll

[haganskl]

Thank you!

[Jay]

Hi powerscore,

Could someone explain why E is the answer?

Does the phrase "this shows conclusively" means that no other evidence is relevant to the issue at hand?
If so, why?

If I say Bible conclusively show Jesus exists, I am not saying other historical evidence is relevant to the issue of the existence of Jesus.

I chose D because I thought the word "link" was vague.

Thank you!

[Ryan Twomey]

Hey Jay,

To start, I would say you picked the second best answer out of the five with answer choice D. I would say this question is more of a process of elimination type of question more than E standing out as obviously correct.

When I read the stimulus before going to the answer choices, I thought that the language in the conclusion was too strong based on the evidence presented. This could be referred to as a weak------>strong flaw. Essentially the conclusion of: "shows conclusively that there was no such link between new and old" is not warranted based on the evidence which I will paraphrase as: there were important differences in design and function.

So E is correct, because it is basically saying that the conclusion is too strong based on the evidence because they did not consider any other evidence that would show that there is a link between new and old.

I hope this helps.

D is incorrect because there weren't any vague terms in the stimulus. Design and function were the possible vague terms, but they defined function through the use of examples. They did not define design, but that would not be "words" in the plural sense.

Good luck with your future studies!

Best,
Ryan

[bruceg]

I chose (D) because I also didn't understand what "link" meant. Does this mean NO influence at all? Or some influence? Or heavy involvement in each others' lives? So (D) is a correct answer.

But the point is to find the answer the LSAT writers want you to find, and so my takeaway is if the LSAT writers drop an Easter Egg like "shows conclusively" in the passage, THAT is the flaw they are testing you on. I did startle at that phrase, so next time I'll know that's where I'm supposed to focus.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi bruce,

The reason that the "proves conclusively" language is so important here is because it indicates where the archaeologist's conclusion is! In any stimulus with an argument, the conclusion is a critical component. This is a flaw in the reasoning question, so it's asking us to describe what went wrong between the premise(s) and the ultimate conclusion. The conclusion here is that the lack of similar usage of pyramids PROVES that the New-World and Old-World civilizations were not connected. But that's just one piece of evidence. It doesn't show that they were connected, but it doesn't show that they weren't either. The conclusion is stronger than it should be. It assumes there wouldn't be anything else relevant to the question. That's the flaw.

Whenever you are looking at an answer choice like answer choice (D), you'll want to find two places in the stimulus where the relevant word is used differently. Is there a change in how the author uses "link"? Nope. It's always talking about a connection between things. There's no vagueness. There's not a lack of clarity. There's nothing else really it would mean. If there's no link, there's no connection.

Hope that helps!