Main conclusion, and answer choice truth

[Tnkim]

A side question about more practical matters - how do you identify the main conclusion in an argument? I realized that this is a question that I consistently miss recently. Can a main conclusion of the argument be inferred from the stimulus? Does that ever happen on the LSAT?

Also, is every wrong answer choice wrong because the answer contains something within it that makes the answer wrong, or are there answer choices where it is wrong only because another answer does more to answer the question correctly? I always assumed that there were some answers that did the latter, but I'm starting to think that the wrong answers are wrong only because there is something inherently wrong with the answer, whether it be subtle, nuanced, or just out of scope. It would help to know for sure, because if it is the fact that wrong answer choices have something inherently wrong, then I can better myself on the process of elimination.

Thanks.

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hi Thomas,

To answer your first question, let's think about what a conclusion is: a statement supported by the other statements in the argument, but which does not support any other statement. It's the author's bottom line: what does he want you to believe? Oftentimes, we can use conclusion indicators to help us out (words such as "therefore," "so," "consequently," and so on). Be careful, though, because conclusion indicators are not always present, and occasionally they are used to indicate a subsidiary (or "intermediate") conclusion, not the main conclusion. How do you differentiate between the two? Ask yourself which is being proven and which is doing the proving: the statement explaining the other will be a subsidiary conclusion. The statement being explained, or proven, will be the main conclusion.

I suspect your question is referring to Main Point questions, which typically contain more structurally difficult arguments. The correct answer will be the conclusion of the argument, which is, of course, a provable statement. Let's differentiate, however, between the following two question stems:

• Which one of the following conclusions can be validly drawn from the passage?

vs.

• Which one of the following most accurately expresses the main conclusion of the argument?

The first one is a Must Be True question, because you are prompted to draw a conclusion from the passage. Typically, this question stem follows a fact-based stimulus, in which a conclusion was not explicitly stated. It is up to you to determine what can be properly concluded from the facts presented. So, the conclusion here is indeed an inference.

By comparison, the second question stem is a Main Point question: the conclusion was explicitly stated in the stimulus, and your job is simply to identify an answer choice that restates it. Usually, they use synonymous words and expressions in the correct answer choice, but the conclusion here is not being inferred from the stimulus: it's already in the stimulus. All you have to do is restate it.

To answer your second question, each and every wrong answer choice is wrong for a particular reason inherent in the answer choice: different question stems generate different types of wrong answers (shell games, out of scope, shifts in language, etc.). Very, very few answer choices are wrong merely because there is a better answer choice somewhere else. That said, the process of elimination is not always the most efficient way to approach an LR question: prephrasing is! Before you attack the answer choices, think about what the correct answer choice must accomplish. This is the only way to start recognizing the difference between a correct and an incorrect answer choice quickly and efficiently.

Hope this helps! Let me know.

[Tnkim]

let's think about what a conclusion is: a statement supported by the other statements in the argument, but which does not support any other statement. It's the author's bottom line: what does he want you to believe?

This was enough to get me the extra points I was losing from conclusion questions. I've been reading this book about the recent discoveries from the Hubble Telescope, which by itself is quite amazing and the images extremely breath-taking, and constantly tried to find what were the conclusions of each paragraph.
On the preptests since, I haven't missed a single conclusion question on LR and I'm pretty happy about it. Thanks a lot Nikki.

I've been pre-phrasing the questions, and it works for me most of the time from questions 1 - 15, but not getting the prephrases accurately for most of the rest. I'm starting to understand why the process of elimination is not the most efficient, especially when you don't know what you are exactly looking for.
A lot of the times, I get tricked into thinking that there was some sort of error like methodology (for example: the thermometer in the fridge was not checked to make sure it shows accurate readings) when in fact it was because there was an error in generalization (for example: the temperatures measured in the fridge in the 3 cases cannot be generalized to the spectrum of temperatures in relation to its effectiveness on the preservation of fruits).
How do you know exactly which error to look for? For me, it's been fixing the answers I've gotten wrong in the past prep tests and becoming almost like an automaton and when reading a stimulus immediately seeing something fishy then finding the answer. But for the more advanced and trickier questions, post-grading the test and checking what I got wrong, I understand the principle behind it and I understand why there was a flaw in the argument and what the flaw was, but I'm not sure how to see the flaw behind a litany of jargon and things like double or even triple negatives during the test. Does this mean I just need to be able to read better?


Thanks Nikki.

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hey Thomas,

Glad I could help! Indeed, the ability to correctly identify the conclusion in a complex argument is crucial, especially when the argument contains multiple subsidiary conclusions and/or counterpoints.

Re: pre-phrasing, yes - it does take practice to get it just right. You can't get "boxed in" your prephrase, i.e. don't look for an answer choice that is overly specific, or else you risk eliminating every single answer choice that doesn't match precisely your prephrase. On the other hand, making a prephrase that is too general is unlikely to be particularly useful (although it's certainly more useful than having no prephrase at all). That said, you need to make sure that your prephrase is at least likely to resemble the correct answer choice for the question type you are attempting to answer. Let's take the example you provide:

A lot of the times, I get tricked into thinking that there was some sort of error like methodology (for example: the thermometer in the fridge was not checked to make sure it shows accurate readings) when in fact it was because there was an error in generalization (for example: the temperatures measured in the fridge in the 3 cases cannot be generalized to the spectrum of temperatures in relation to its effectiveness on the preservation of fruits).

To encounter an error in methodology in Flaw questions is fairly rare: we typically assume that the empirical evidence used in support of the conclusion is factually accurate. So, unless there is a good reason to believe that the thermometer in the fridge is inaccurate, we can assume that it is accurate. This is not an unwarranted assumption, and does not amount to a logical flaw. On the other hand, generalizing from a sample that may be skewed, is unrepresentative, or shows bias is a logical flaw (a fairly common one, at that).

Your goal should be to understand, through practice, what sorts of fallacies are most likely to appear on the test and recognize them despite the convoluted language or jargon. The latter is annoying, I agree: but it is hardly accidental. Your ability to understand the reasoning despite a litany of jargon, double-negatives, etc. is crucial on the LSAT, but even more so in law school. The fact that you know this, and that you're working on it, shows that you're on the right path. Just keep doing it, and always ask yourself: how can I simplify this? What is the author actually getting at? Why should/shouldn't I believe his conclusion? The LSAT is not a reading test: it's a test of reading comprehension (as well as logical reasoning), which often requires an almost reductionist approach to the information presented.

Hope this helps! Let me know