#21 - A society in which there are many crimes, such as

[ellenb]

Thanks Dave, but it is still possible that all might mean many. If it is 25000, just like you mentioned, it could mean many, correct?

However, I do like the uniquness explanation for this answer choice, if I put many as my answer choice than it makes the answer with some correct also.

Thanks
Ellen

[rameday]

Hello,

So my diagram looked like this (based on solely the 2nd last sentence)

lawless society crime less society

and my CP was

if a society is not crime less (so has crime) then it is not lawless (so has law)

That led me to D & E as my two contenders. Now why is D the correct answer? Is it just because we need to remember that some means at least one on the lsat? Also how do we know from the language in the stimulus that "many" isn't MBT therefore eliminating E.

I see on the student Center that they used the "however a society that has no laws has no crimes" sentence to draw the conditional relationship.

Does it matter that I used a difference sentence?

A

[David Boyle]

Hello,

So my diagram looked like this (based on solely the 2nd last sentence)

lawless society crime less society

and my CP was

if a society is not crime less (so has crime) then it is not lawless (so has law)

That led me to D & E as my two contenders. Now why is D the correct answer?

A

Hello rameday,

I think you mean Lesson 2, p. 63.
Anyway: answer E is not necessarily true. My favorite example (if a silly one) is, what if it were illegal to breathe (!!!) in that society, but that was the only law? Obviously, it would be violated constantly; but still, only one law would be violated, though there would be as many crimes as there were breaths.
Answer D has the magic "some", which is more flexible than "many". Therefore, one can read D as "A society with crimes has laws", which tallies with your contrapositive above. So, D is correct.

Hope this helps,
David

[rameday]

Hmm so when you are face with a answer choice that has some vs an answer choice that has many how do you know which to be mrs inclined to? I was leaning towards many because the question stem used very strong language. It said must also be true as opposed to is most strongly supported.

[Robert Carroll]

rameday,

Because this question is a Must Be True, the strength of the language in the answer choice cannot exceed the strength of the language in the stimulus. You know from your correct identification of the contrapositive that a society with some crimes has some laws. "Some" is just the logical opposite of "none", so it is very broad and covers a wide range of possibilities. We only know that the existence of at least one crime implies the existence of at least one law, but not anything else about the correspondence of the number of crimes and the number of laws. Answer choice (E) adds a closer connection between the numbers than is warranted.

In a case like this, where it's a Must Be True question, stronger answer choices are generally suspect, because it's more likely that they go beyond the facts in the stimulus. So, all other things being equal, I would be skeptical of "many" in such a situation, because it's stronger than the stimulus allows.

Robert Carroll

[rameday]

Makes sense!

Thanks

[Sara Gold]

Hi,
I have another question about Question #3 in the Logical Reasoning Questions of Lesson 2.
I have read the explanations provided by the online student center, however am still a little bit confused to how "However, a society that has no laws has no crimes" was identified as the conditional statement and to how "no laws" was identified as the sufficient condition, while "no crimes" as the necessary.
I would appreciate a detailed explanation of this.
Thank you,
Sara

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Sara,

Thanks for the question! This problem as a whole is really interesting, and one of my all-time favorite LR questions. And this sentence that you've asked about is a great one because once you are comfortable with this, it will help you with a host of other conditional statements you will see.

The first thing that presents a problem here is that there is no obvious conditional indicator in this sentence. There's no"if" or "only" or anything similar that would immediately signal that conditionality is present. But, one of the features of conditional reasoning is that it very often deals with absolutes. For example, "all cats are mammals" uses the absolute term "all" (C M). The same is true for statements such as "every bicycle has wheels" (B W). Now, those two examples use what I might call "positive absolutes"—"all" and "every" are inclusive of all of the members of the named groups (cats and bicycles).

The same type of idea often applies to negative absolutes, such as "none" or "no." For example, "none of the people at my party wore blue," means that for the group of people at this party, they all had the same characteristic of not wearing blue (PP WB). "No" can be used in a similar fashion although I've always thought it's a bit trickier. Let's take a look at how it's used in the sentence in question, "a society that has no laws has no crimes." Let's isolate the laws and crimes part (and we'll just keep in mind that this all refers to the same society). In this case, you have laws and crimes, and then two negatives. At first glance it's hard to tell what's what! But, remember how conditionality works—the sufficient condition, when it occurs, tells you that something else has to occur as well (which is the necessary condition). So, if we have "no laws" does that tell us anything? Yes, it does, it tells us that there are no crimes. Thus, the "has no laws" part is sufficient, and since this refers to the absence of laws, our sufficient condition will be "L." That means that the remainder is the necessary condition, which is "no crimes," or "C." The full sentence, when diagrammed, is then: L C.

This is a tough problem, but it's also a great one to run across early on because it starts you thinking about how conditionality works, the meaning of each type of condition, the importance of indicators, and how conditional reasoning can be present even when no obvious indicator is present. And although right now this looks really challenging, as you encounter more of these types of sentences, you will find that it gets easier and easier to recognize, and that your ability to see the conditionality will improve quickly.

Please let me know if that helps, or if you have any other questions about this. Thanks!

[Blueballoon5%]

I do not understand the difference between answers D and E. The answer explanation in the online student center states that answer E is unsupported by the stimulus. However, I do not see the subtle difference between the "some" and "many" in question D and E, respectively. Could someone explain to me why answer E is wrong? Thanks!


3. A society in which there are many crimes... [content removed due to LSAC copyright - referencing the page number and question number gives us enough info!]

If the statements in the passage are true, which one of the following must also be true?

(d) A society that has some crimes has some laws
(e) A society that has many crimes has many laws.

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Blue,

This is another one of those terminology problems that revolves around a very subtle difference. Although "some" can mean "many," and "many" automatically implies "some," the two terms are different. Relatively speaking, "some" is the more "base" term. "Some" means "at least one, possibly all," and this fits this question because we know that if there is a crime (which is the same as "at least one crime" or "some crimes") then there had to be a law (which is the same as "at least one law" or "some laws").

"Many," however, is going to imply more than one. In another post, I referred you to my blog on this topic (http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/153 ... l-and-many) and therein I defined "many" as "a large number.” So, when we look at answer choice (E) here, do we know that "A society that has a large number of crimes has a large number of laws" ? We actually don't, and a good real world example of this is speeding. People speed every day and technically commit millions of crimes, but in doing so, they only break one law, not many. So, in this instance "many" goes too far, and is beyond what we know.

In short, (E) is too strong here. Although we know "at least one" crime and law exist, we don't have enough evidence to know that "many" crimes and law occurred.

Please let me know if that helps. If not, let's talk about it some more because I know these number terms are giving you some trouble, and I want to make sure you are comfortable with them moving forward. Thanks!