#11 - For democracy to survive, it is imperative that the

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Rose,

It's likely that you are doing the rest of the conditional chain in your head in a less formal way. You need to be able to link the scientific advancement to the rest of the chain, or you can't draw the conclusion that the scientific advancement is threatening democracy's survival.

We naturally might take those steps in our heads. Frequently, people use conditional reasoning without even realizing it! If I go outside, I have to wear shoes. No one would write that out as a conditional, even though it is conditional reasoning. Similarly, you likely filled in the rest of the conditional here in your head. It's great to do when it works, but if you find yourself making errors on conditional questions, it might be worth it to slow down and write out all the steps.

Great work!

[ericsilvagomez]

Hi,

I noticed there is no explanation here, so I'll give my reaction to finding out B is the correct answer: that was an answer I least expected to be correct. When I initially read it, I thought it would be wrong to choose an answer that states the advance of scientific knowledge is bad for the survival of democracy. But looking back at the final sentence, I see the stimulus says that the more scientific knowledge advances, the more citizens are increasingly unable to keep up, so does that support that answer B is correct? I selected C because the first sentence talked about why becoming informed is important.

[Robert Carroll]

ericsilvagomez,

Kelsey did provide an explanation on the previous page. The last sentence shows that the advance of scientific knowledge brings along the consequence that the average citizen can't develop informed opinions on important issues. Having those informed opinions was stated by the first sentence to be a requirement for the survival of democracy. So, the advance of scientific knowledge threatens the survival of democracy.

Robert Carroll

[abullard]

So when dealing with words like "average", we should equate that to words like "most" more than words like "some"? Is that the takeaway from this? And if so, is that something that we can take as a rule on the test, that average is more than simply "some", but less than "all?"

[Jeff Wren]

Hi abullard,

The word "average" can be used in different contexts on the LSAT. Here, when referring to "the average citizen," it's referring to the typical citizen. While it doesn't necessarily guarantee "most," it does convey a higher degree of frequency than "some" conveys, (which is simply at least one).

In this stimulus, the statement that it is imperative for the average citizen to develop informed opinions does require that this ability be quite commonplace.

In other contexts on the LSAT, the word "average" can refer to a more precise mathematical meaning.