#24 - It is popularly believed that a poem has whatever

[rachue]

Can someone please help me understand the conditional reasoning underlying this question to lead us to D? I chose B but I think I might have my diagramming mixed up. Thanks in advance.

[Dave Killoran]

It would be helpful if you could post what your diagramming was for this question. That way I'd be able to see where you went wrong (if you did go wrong in the diagramming, that is ).

Thanks!

[rachue]

Sure!

Objective evaluation possible --> popular belief false (meaning not assigned by reader)

aesthetic value of poem can be discussed --> 2 people agree on poem's interpretation

[Dave Killoran]

No, you got it right, your diagramming is solid! So, what is probably tripping you up is the Assumption aspect of this question.

Answer choice (B): In the stimulus, if two readers agree on the interpretation, it is possible for the aesthetic value to be discussed, but does the author assume that their agreement ensures that and objective evaluation can me made? No.

Answer choice (D): This is assumed by the author--use the Assumption Negation Technique for a better understanding of why. Does the following negation hurt the argument? "A poem can be objectively evaluated even if the aesthetic value cannot be discussed." If that's the case, we don't have to have reader agreement and the popular belief doesn't have to be false. As that line of reasoning hurts the argument, this is an assumption and (D) is correct.

Let me know if that helps. Thanks!

[rachue]

That's tricky but does help! Thanks.

[willyhud]

PT 55 Section 3 Q 24
I think I understand this problem...

The stimulus conclusion states that:

[objective evaluation] --> NOT [whatever meaning is assigned to it by the reader]

And the stimulus support/premise for this is that:

[aesthetic value discussed] --> [possible for at least two readers to agree on the correct interpretation]

And the correct answer is (D) because it bridges [objective evaluation] to --> [aesthetic value discussed].

SO, the LSAT thinks it's fair game for us to assume that NOT [whatever meaning is assigned to it by the reader] is synonymous with or logically equivalent to [possible for at least two readers to agree on the correct interpretation], right?

This just doesn't seem fair to me. It's like this problem has TWO assumptions. Am I off by saying this is a poorly written problem?

2nd question...

PT57 Section 2 Q24

I got this one solely by ID'ing the key term in the conclusion [meaning of a poem], noticing that it's not in a stimulus premise so must be connected to by an answer choice, seeing that it's only present in two of the answer choices, and finally picking the one (E) that "sounds" right.

Obviously this is not ideal. Something about this problem is completely throwing me off and I can't diagram it. Can you help?

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi willyhud,

PT 55 Section 3 Q 24 is indeed a very difficult question; it seems like you do understand it. I wouldn't necessarily consider it as having two assumptions, but you do have to connect two terms; the stimulus is set up in such a way to encourage that connection, but it is still challenging.

PT57 Section 2 Q24 is even more difficult:
read great poem believe poem expresses contradictory ideas
meaning of poem NOT whatever author intends to communicate
author writing great poem NOT intend to communicate contradictory ideas

Answer choice E:
reader believes poem expresses idea (part of) meaning of poem

This fills in the missing assumption and leads to:
read great poem believe poem expresses contradictory ideas contradictory idea (part of) meaning of poem
author writing great poem NOT intend to communicate contradictory ideas
Therefore, meaning of poem NOT whatever author intends to communicate

Does that make more sense?

[andes.lsat]

Hi PowerScore-

I have a problem dealing with this LR question. Can you please help me with this?

This is how I approach this question:

Prem.) AVD 2RACI
Conc.) OE ~PMAR

Answer choice (D): OE AVD

AVD: aesthetic value of a poem can be discussed.
2RACI: at least 2 readers can agree on the correct interpretation.
OE: objective evaluation possible.
PMAR: poem has whatever meaning assigned to it by readers.

If we add the correct answer choice, that is D, into the Prem.,
it leads to: OE AVD 2RACI
or OE 2RACI

How does it reach ~PMAR in the conclusion?
Is there anything I miss?

Besides, can you show us how you will approach this question? Thanks!

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hi andes.lsat,

Thanks for your question. It's a tricky argument, so let's break it down:

Premise: Discuss aesthetic value min. 2 people agree on interpretation (i.e. meaning not subjective)

Conclusion: Objective evaluation of poetry Poem does NOT have whatever meaning is assigned by the reader (i.e. meaning not subjective)

The key is to recognize that the premise and the conclusion entail identical necessary conditions. Yes, they sound different, but they really are the same thing. To say that the "popular belief is false" is the same as saying that the meaning of a poem is not whatever the reader wants it to mean, i.e. it's not purely subjective. This is the same as the necessary condition in the premise--if two people need to agree on the correct interpretation of the poem, then clearly the poem does not have a subjective meaning.

At the most basic level, then, the argument has the following structure:

Premise: A B
Conclusion: C B

The missing link, then, is between A and C:

C A

In other words, objective evaluation of poetry must require discussing its aesthetic value. This prephrase agrees with answer choice (D).

Does that make sense? Let me know.

Thanks!

[andes.lsat]

Hi Nikki-

Thanks for the answer. It makes great sense with your explanation!
The point that I miss on this one is that

The key is to recognise that the premise and the conclusion entail identical necessary conditions.

However, I'm not sure if I can recognise that two statements are actually the same thing when dealing with other LR questions:( Are there any tips to recognise this pattern in the future?

I mean, there're some other questions did the same trick and I did recognise them. But when the two statements looks so different like this one, I even didn't think of combine the two after reading for times...

Thanks for your answer anyway! They are really helpful:)