#16 - There is a difference between beauty and truth. After

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Assumption. The correct answer choice is (A)

At first, this may seem like a confusing argument to follow. To simplify it, break it down into premises and conclusion and use conditional reasoning and formal logic to diagram them:

• Premise (1): mR mT (the most realistic art is the most truthful)
  
  Premise (2)/Subordinate Conclusion: (T B) (mR AB) (if truth same as beauty, then the most realistic art would be the best art)
  
  Premise (3): mR AB (some of the most realistic art is not among the best art)
  
  Conclusion: NOT (T B) (truth is not synonymous with beauty)

Is there a gap between the premises and the conclusion? Absolutely. You should notice that the conclusion introduces a new element: the element of beauty. Since "beauty" is not mentioned anywhere else in the argument, the proper (Supporter) assumption must address it. Remember: assumptions are necessary for the conclusion to be true! If the conclusion introduces a new, rogue element into the argument, then you must look for a Supporter Assumption that connects it to the rest of the premises.

Go through the five answer choices and quickly eliminate those that fail to mention "beauty." This simple tasks eliminates answer choices (B) and (C), leaving us with (A), (D), and (E). You should also quickly eliminate (E) as it introduces an entirely irrelevant piece of information to the argument.

Now that we are left with (A) and (D), think about what is the best way to link the premises in the argument to the element of beauty in the conclusion. Try to look for the implicit connection between a concept in the premises and a concept in the conclusion.

As they stand, the premises give support to the following conclusion: if the most realistic pieces of art are the most truthful but some of these most realistic/most truthful pieces are not among the best art, then some of the most truthful art is clearly not necessarily the best art.

• Current possible valid conclusion: mT AB

This could have the author's conclusion. Instead, the author goes one step further, suggesting that the fact that the most truthful art is not necessarily the best art is sufficient to establish that truth and beauty are not synonymous.

To get from the existing possible conclusion (mT AB) to the main conclusion, we need to establish that the most beautiful art is in fact the best art.

• mB AB

If we were to know that the most beautiful art is the best art or that the best art is the most beautiful, then the fact that some of the most truthful art is not the best art would be sufficient to establish that beauty and truth cannot be synonymous.

Answer choice (A) establishes this connection. Note the important nuance "most." The premises concern the fact that the most realistic art is the most truthful. We must match this concept of "most" to establish the incongruity between the concepts of truth and beauty. If we break the link by showing that the most truthful cannot also be the most beautiful, then our job is done: there must be a difference between truth and beauty.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. See discussion above.

Answer choice (B): This answer choice fails to link beauty to the rest of the premises and is therefore incorrect.

Answer choice (C): This answer choice fails to link beauty to the rest of the premises and is therefore incorrect.

Answer choice (D): This is the strongest decoy answer, but it actually fails to make the correct connection. This answer choice posits that if art is beautiful, it is among the best art. If it's not the best art, it's not beautiful. Remember that we are looking for an assumption required by the argument. Is it truly necessary for all beautiful art to be the best art? Let's use the Assumption Negation Test™: What if some beautiful art were not the best, could it still be possible, given the other premises, for truth and beauty to be different from each other? Yes, perhaps some beautiful art is not the best art, but the most beautiful art actually is the best; in that case, it could still be possible to show that the most beautiful is not the most truthful, and therefore beauty and truth could still be different. Thus, this answer choice fails the Assumption Negation Test™.

Answer choice (E): It is entirely irrelevant to the conclusion whether beauty is subjective or not. This answer choice is incorrect.

[Barcelona10]

I'm having trouble understanding the correct answer in this assumption question about the difference between beauty and truth. As I understand it, here are the premises and conclusion of the argument:

P1: If Beauty = Truth, Then the most realistic pieces of art would be the best as well.
P2: Many of the most realistic artworks are not among the best (this is essentially denying the necessary condition in the previous conditional--that is, "not all of the most realistic pieces of art would be the best as well").

Conclusion: Beauty does not = truth.

This argument appears to be sound as it is. I don't see a gap. I saw that the answer is A, which links the most beautiful artworks to the best artworks, but why does that matter? P2 denies the necesary condition in P1, which through the contrapositive produces, Beautify not = Truth.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

[Adam Tyson]

I'll see what I can do to help clear that up! Let me start by saying that for many students, Assumption questions are among the most difficult. Remember that when we are looking for an assumption, we are typically looking either for a something that fills in a missing link or gap, or else something that fends off a possible attack. In either case, it is something the author must have believed in order to get to his conclusion with any confidence.

Your analysis of the premises looks good to me - they are indeed conditional, and I don't think you've made any mistaken reversals or negations here. Good job!

So what situation do we have here - a gap, or fighting off an attack?

Note that the premises and conclusion both deal with Truth - that's a common element, and so it's unlikely to be a part of our gap. That leaves the concepts of "best", "beauty" and "realism". While he does mention beauty in his argument, he doesn't do it in one of his primary premises, but rather in a counter-premise. Your premise 1 is actually something that he is trying to demonstrate is not true. That makes this a little trickier than the standard Assumption question, because we like to see those rogue elements appearing ONLY in the conclusion or in a premise, and in this case he brought up beauty in the conclusion and in that counter-premise.

Try this exercise - imagine the argument in a simpler form, without that first premise. In that case, the argument would simply say (paraphrasing here) that the most realistic art is the most truthful, and that those are not always the best. The conclusion would still be that beauty is not the same as truth. So then we have to ask ourselves, where did this idea of beauty come from? How did he get there from those premises? He must have assumed that there is some relationship between "beauty" and "best". Answer A provides that link.

Now try the Negation Technique - the most beautiful works are NOT the best. What does that do to his conclusion? Wrecks it by stripping away any correlation between "beauty" and "best". Now it's possible for beauty and truth to be the same, even while the most truthful art is not always the best.

Hope that helps!

[adlindsey]

I don't see how this explanation fills the gap. I also don't see how the conclusion,"there is a difference between beauty and truth," equates to T ~B. I had T B. The "some" in that is confusing since no where does it say some. I wish there were more video explanations to these confusing mumble jumble questions.

Also the "many" in the stimulus is now being replaced with "some" in the diagram? I'm almost sure I've gotten answers wrong for using those words interchangeably.

[Kristina Moen]

Hi adlindsey,

"Many" => "some" on this test. Neither word describes a specific amount except one or more. You absolutely do not need to use the symbol, but that is what we use here. You could easily write "many" as long as you know that it means that there is at least ONE person or thing that is in both groups.

I also don't see how the conclusion,"there is a difference between beauty and truth," equates to T ~B. I had T B.

The diagram T B mean that the groups are mutually exclusive. The author here is not saying that there is NOTHING that is both beautiful and truthful. But that there is a difference. There are at least some paintings that are truthful but not beautiful.

Now one thing that may be confusing here is that we are using the same letter "B" to describe best and beautiful. And that's the same issue present in this argument!

The author tells us (premise!) that "But many of the most realistic artworks are not among the best."
So there's at least one realistic artwork that is not the best.

But then the author concludes that there is a difference between beauty and truth. So there's actually two issues here - he's conflating "realistic artwork" with "truth" and "best" with "beautiful."

Answer choice (A) describes that assumption by equating beautiful artwork with being the best. Answer choice (B) does not because it's about artwork that is not realistic. We want something that equates realistic artwork with truthfulness.

Hope that helps. This question uses formal logic. If you are an LSAT class student or have the LSAT Bibles, you'll find more information about formal logic in the Online Student Center or in your book.

[adlindsey]

I have the bibles, the question type training, and the workbooks. I've also taken the course. I'm very familiar with the techniques and concepts. But they don't work for me in practice. And I'm pretty frustrated, because I've spent too much time and money in prepping for a BS exam that is NO indicator of my success in law school. Anyone who knows about standardized tests knows they are very inaccurate and don't test a plethora of other skills. This exam also discriminates towards people who lacked a strong early educational background, which tend to be minorities and majorities of lower economic backgrounds.

I''ve taken eight exams in the past month to only have miniscule improvement, despite feeling like I know more, keeping a positive attitude, and visioning I'm going to make significant improvements. My score is still in the same range it was before I even started studying two and a half years ago! So I don't feel like I'm going to get the score I want or the school I want-as advertised. I also have friends that took this course and they recommended it. I can see why they recommended it, because the course does make you think you know more about the exam. Their score only went up by a couple points. Definitely not worth the money they spent! I also find it very frustrating there is a lack of explanations for the exams. I have to use several other sources when I review my work. I see now why most prep companies don't offer guarantees. This isn't a test that's learnable for the majority of people. I've taken a total of eighteen exams and I'm not too far off from my first to the most recent one. I've put in the work and the scores I'm receiving are not a reflection of my capabilities!

[Dave Killoran]

Hey A,

Thanks for the message. I hate that you are frustrated like this, and since you have spoken to me before you know that we want to help you as much as possible. So, let's take this back a bit and talk about some of the points you raise.

Let's start with the LSAT itself. I'll be the first person to agree with you that the LSAT is imperfect, and more importantly, that it doesn't test a huge number of skills that people have. It doesn't show things like drive and perseverance, listening ability, note-taking, thinking-on-your-feet ability, and many more skills that are required to succeed in law school, and in life. Is it worthless as an indicator of success in law school? No, it's not, although I know some people's frustration with it can make it seem that way at times LSAC will argue that actually the LSAT is a pretty decent indicator, and actually better than your uGPA. If you're interested, they talk about it in detail here: http://www.lsac.org/jd/lsat/your-score/ ... erformance and http://www.lsac.org/docs/default-source ... -13-03.pdf.

Of course, none of that matters, and how either of us feel about the test is irrelevant because you can't avoid it: it's the thing standing in the way here, and there's no easy way past it. The reason I mention this is because how you feel about the test doesn't make it any less of a reality or a requirement, but it does have an impact on how you perform. Students who hate the test and see it in a negative light tend to have more trouble with the exam. I'm not saying you need to suddenly love this test, I'm just suggesting that it would help if you looked at it for what it is: just another test in a long line of tests that you need to ace.

OK, that aside, I know that each person's experience with this test is different. Sometimes people struggle, and sometimes they don't. It is learnable, however. I know this because I've seen many people improve and get better directly as a result of studying the concepts and techniques. To me, the LSAT can be a bit like calculus: everyone can learn it, but for some it takes a bit longer and requires more work. I've seen that first-hand many times, and I even wrote two articles about it: http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/can-you ... gre-part-1. That doesn't help you right now though, and that's what I want to focus on. So, first, will you give me permission to look over your practice test results? It's always useful to start there.

Second, I have to step away at the moment, but I'm going to go back into the question (#16) above and look more closely at the discussion. While this question might not be the entire problem, it clearly caused some issues and it can be helpful to start there. So I'll come back later and post some additional thoughts, and probably ask a few questions as well if that's ok.

Please let me know about viewing your test results when you can, and we'll work from there. Does that sound alright?

[Dave Killoran]

For those following along, Adlindsey wrote me privately and granted me access to his test results. Because he is taking the LSAT very soon, I'm going to make my suggestions to him directly in the interests of saving time. Thus, there likely will not be a further update in this location but I did not want to give the impression that his comments were ignored or that I didn't follow up

Thanks!

[laurat]

Is there a way of figuring out which page this problem is on in the online Powerscore LSAT Course textbook? I don't have PT 49, forgot to make a note of page #, and now that I'm trying to review have lost it.

Thank you

[Stephanie Oswalt]

Is there a way of figuring out which page this problem is on in the online Powerscore LSAT Course textbook? I don't have PT 49, forgot to make a note of page #, and now that I'm trying to review have lost it.

Thank you

Hey Laurat!

Thanks for the question. This is in your Lesson 5 - Logical Reasoning Homework - Assumption Questions #31. I'm not sure what edition of the course book you have, as our page numbers have changed slightly between different years, but it should be page 5-55 (or around there) in your course book.

Thanks!