#10 - The more sunlight our planet reflects back into space

[quan-tang@hotmail.com]

In fact, I think it is answer C requiring additional assumptions.

'Ocean water and land heated by sunlight in turn warm Earth’s atmosphere.'

The problem is that, the premise mentions nothing about heat absorption. C should only be right if it says 'Ocean water and land heated by sunlight in turn warm Earth’s atmosphere more than same area of snow and ice heated by sunlight.' As I am ignorant of the heat absorption property among the two types of areas. I need to assume snow and ice is heated less than the ocean and water. if, for example, even though ocean and land can be heated by sunlight, but snow and ice can be heated even more, then C would be incorrect. and to make C right, it really required out-side-of-scope information that I assume I am required to know.

D, on the other hand, 'The atmosphere derives most of its heat from the passage of sunlight through it.', talks directly of sunlight through atmosphere, which is the reflection the premises talks about. I dont need additional outside information.

III7,

I understand your thought process but invite you to read over your own explanation because it might shed light on a problem you encounter on the test. On Strengthen and Weaken questions, you are looking for new evidence that directly impacts the validity of the conclusion by addressing the missing information. In a Strengthen question, the credited response could be in the form of a supporter (bringing new and different evidence to back up a claim, shoring up the integrity of the evidence provided, etc.) or a defender (ruling out an unwanted possibility that would weaken the claim).

In your explanation of your reason for selecting answer choice D, you should notice the additional assumptions you make to "shoehorn" in answer choice D into the argument. When you have to jump through a couple new hoops to make an answer work, it's not the right answer. Recall the directions for the Logical Reasoning section:

"You should not make assumptions that are by commonsense standards implausible, superfluous, or incompatible with the passage."

If you find yourself saying something to the effect of, "well man, I can kinda see how this one would work if we also knew these other three things," then you have found an incorrect answer!

With respect to answer choice C, you have accurately described the reason why it is correct: it provides an additional premise that supports the claim that the amount of snow and ice is inversely proportional to global temperature.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Quan,

The best way to think of the correct answer to a Strengthen question is an answer that contains additional information that, if true, helps out the argument in some way, in theory anywhere from 1-100%. It doesn't need to prove the conclusion.

In Answer C, knowing that "Ocean water and land heated by sunlight in turn warm Earth’s atmosphere" gives additional support for our conclusion that "the greater the area of Earth’s surface that is covered with snow and ice, the cooler, on average, the global atmosphere is likely to become." While the argument probably does assume that ice and snow heated by sunlight do not in turn warm Earth's atmosphere, there is no specific reason to assume that they do and certainly not more than ocean water and land not covered by snow and ice.

As Adam mentioned above in a few of his replies, Answer D potentially weakens the argument because sunlight would pass through the atmosphere twice if it is reflected by snow and ice, and that would presumably warm the atmosphere even more rather than cool the atmosphere as the conclusion states.

[LawSchoolDream]

Looks to me like D might actually weaken the argument, mN2mmvf. If the atmosphere gets most of its heat from sunlight passing through, then reflected sunlight, as from snow and ice, would have twice the impact as non-reflected sunlight, because it passes through on the way down to the surface and then passes through again as it is reflected back up. More reflected sunlight should have a warming effect, if D is true. Then again, I might be reading too much into it.

If we were to agree that "land heated by sunlight" includes land covered in snow and ice, you would have to also agree that the land covered by snow and ice gets heated less than uncovered land, because at least some of the sunlight that would otherwise heat that land is being reflected back by the snow and ice. This would be the same with ocean ice - the water underneath is heated less than open water because not all of the sunlight is getting through. That's why C works - it strengthens the idea that covering up more of the surface leads to a colder atmosphere because it means the land and water under that snow and ice are being warmed less than they otherwise would.

I hope that sheds some light on things!

I'm a bit confused by one of the staff members response mentioning defender and supporter. I thought that was only in ASSUMPTIONS?

As for D. I selected D as well, I felt C might be out of scope because D I felt closed the loop for Ocean water and Land, in that If there's no snow, there's no reflection, so if Sunlight passes through it warms things up. Can you please clarify further?

[LawSchoolDream]

Also, is this casual reasoning involved? If so what indicates this? I intuitively feel its involved but want to confirm.

[LawSchoolDream]

Wait, I actually misread D. It says "atmosphere", I read that for Earth for some reason. Atmosphere would constitute molecules in the environment, correct? like humid air has more water?


So if I am reading this correctly, is this kind of an Out of scope answer?

[Adam Tyson]

The argument is not explicitly causal, because it only gives evidence of correlation, but the causal relationship is implied, and answer C strengthens the conclusion by explicitly making the relationship causal (one thing warms another = one thing is causing the other to get warmer).

While we do teach the concepts of Supporter and Defender in the context of Assumption questions, we also do talk about the close relationship between Strengthen and Assumption questions, and Strengthen answers do tend to either close a gap in the argument (Supporter) or fix a weakness in the argument (Defender). The same ideas apply, with the difference being that the Strengthen answer may not be entirely necessary, just helpful, while the Assumption answer is absolutely necessary for the argument to make any sense.

"Atmosphere" is within the scope of the argument, because the conclusion is about the temperature of the global atmosphere. The problem with answer D is that it doesn't strengthen the argument, and might hurt it, because it basically means that the Earth's surface doesn't matter that much; what matters is the sunlight passing through the atmosphere on its way down to the surface. And there's no need to speculate about what constitutes the atmosphere; all we need to deal with is whether reflecting sunlight cools it or not.

[LawSchoolDream]

The argument is not explicitly causal, because it only gives evidence of correlation, but the causal relationship is implied, and answer C strengthens the conclusion by explicitly making the relationship causal (one thing warms another = one thing is causing the other to get warmer).

While we do teach the concepts of Supporter and Defender in the context of Assumption questions, we also do talk about the close relationship between Strengthen and Assumption questions, and Strengthen answers do tend to either close a gap in the argument (Supporter) or fix a weakness in the argument (Defender). The same ideas apply, with the difference being that the Strengthen answer may not be entirely necessary, just helpful, while the Assumption answer is absolutely necessary for the argument to make any sense.

"Atmosphere" is within the scope of the argument, because the conclusion is about the temperature of the global atmosphere. The problem with answer D is that it doesn't strengthen the argument, and might hurt it, because it basically means that the Earth's surface doesn't matter that much; what matters is the sunlight passing through the atmosphere on its way down to the surface. And there's no need to speculate about what constitutes the atmosphere; all we need to deal with is whether reflecting sunlight cools it or not.

Thank you, this is helpful. Just so I know I caught this correctly. I understand what you mean by having the atmosphere be a part of global atmosphere, like the air we breathe?

So Atmosphere is the air, then there is the land where snow is covered and where snow is not covering. I guess the difference between the two answers is that one focuses on the land (the correct answer) and the other focus on the air (breathing in touching land etc). Do I have this correct? Idk why I'm missing this. Somewhere it hasn't connected completely.

[EmilyOwens]

The argument is not explicitly causal, because it only gives evidence of correlation, but the causal relationship is implied, and answer C strengthens the conclusion by explicitly making the relationship causal (one thing warms another = one thing is causing the other to get warmer).

While we do teach the concepts of Supporter and Defender in the context of Assumption questions, we also do talk about the close relationship between Strengthen and Assumption questions, and Strengthen answers do tend to either close a gap in the argument (Supporter) or fix a weakness in the argument (Defender). The same ideas apply, with the difference being that the Strengthen answer may not be entirely necessary, just helpful, while the Assumption answer is absolutely necessary for the argument to make any sense.

"Atmosphere" is within the scope of the argument, because the conclusion is about the temperature of the global atmosphere. The problem with answer D is that it doesn't strengthen the argument, and might hurt it, because it basically means that the Earth's surface doesn't matter that much; what matters is the sunlight passing through the atmosphere on its way down to the surface. And there's no need to speculate about what constitutes the atmosphere; all we need to deal with is whether reflecting sunlight cools it or not.

Thank you, this is helpful. Just so I know I caught this correctly. I understand what you mean by having the atmosphere be a part of global atmosphere, like the air we breathe?

So Atmosphere is the air, then there is the land where snow is covered and where snow is not covering. I guess the difference between the two answers is that one focuses on the land (the correct answer) and the other focus on the air (breathing in touching land etc). Do I have this correct? Idk why I'm missing this. Somewhere it hasn't connected completely.

Hi LawSchoolDream,

The importance of answer (C) lies in its ability to show us that, while land covered in snow cools the Earth, other forms of land don’t do that. It eliminates the possibility that other forms of land help cool the atmosphere, too. In other words, it keeps snowy land special. You are correct in the idea that this answer focuses on land, but the implications of the answer choice is what matters.

Answer choice (D) does focus on the atmosphere, but again, it’s what we draw from the subject matter, the implications, that makes all the difference.

I hope this helps!

[Delanoking1]

I think the answer to this question becomes apparent when you notice the glaring gap in the stimulus. It' s a classic lsat question. A causal mechanism is posited, and we are baited to assume that it's the only way to achieve that effect. Sure, more snow , leads to more sunlight being reflected and thus a cooler temperature. But our conclusion is not merely that more snow leads to lower temperature; it's a comparative conclusion predicated on one causal mechanism in which snow supersedes ocean water and land. The only premise we have to support this conclusion is that snow reflects sunlight more than ocean water and land, but is the reflection of sunlight back into the space the only means through which our atmosphere is cooled. And that right there is our glaring hole, the gap as I like to call it. Phrased as an answer to a Flaw argument, our answer choice would read " Fails to consider the possibility that oceans and land cool the atmosphere by some other more efficient means other than the reflection of sunlight." All the other answer choices do not hone in on this comparison. Even the best version of answer choice (D) would still be irrelevant. Even if it said that retainment of heat after sunlight has already hit the surface was the major source of heat in the atmosphere, our glaring gap still remain: what if oceans and land have some other means through which they contribute to cooling the atmosphere that is more efficient than snow's reflection of sunlight into space? It is imperative, and I am telling myself this as well, that you recognize at least one weakness in the stimulus, especially for strengthen questions before going into the answers choices. if you have a minute to answer a question, spend 40 seconds on the stimulus and the right answer will much more easily jump out at you. If, on the other hand you go into the argument thinking the argument is iron-clad, you will much easily be tempted by answer choices that are just making tangential comments on the stimulus.