Hi John,
Thanks for the messages! In reviewing the direction this conversation has taken, I thought it might be worthwhile for me to jump in and clarify a few things. I apologize in advance though—I've responded to three separate questions you posted, and each time I've had to disagree with your assessment. So, I feel bad about constantly appearing to disagree with you and I hope you don't take it personally! As you said, it's all about being clear and getting it right
So, let's go back into your posts in this thread and break down the concern you have. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your contention in a nutshell is that while (D) is clearly the best answer choice, answer choice (C) has some merit and more importantly the way I eliminated (C) could be improved. Breaking down each segment of your concern, about answer choice (D) you stated that "I agree that the correct answer is Choice D," "I do agree that Choice D is a better choice than Choice C," and "the correct answer is Answer Choice D." So, we're good there and we both agree that (D) is the best choice. As I've stated to you in a reply to a different question of yours, it's important to see the test from
their perspective, and one way of doing that is to understand why they see their answers as correct and incorrect. You're doing that here, and that's excellent.
The next part is whether (C) has merit, and you've noted that, "Choice C is close," and I actually disagree with this. But I noted that as you talked with Jonathan, you shifted your focus towards the quality of the explanation of why (C) is wrong and away from the inherent value of (C), and so I don't think our disagreement here is a big deal (and indeed, you may have eventually concluded that (C) wasn't all that close). Either way, you knew it was wrong and that's really what matters here. The fact that (C) is known to be wrong will figure in my analysis, but we'll come back to that.
The last part, and I would wager the most important part from your perspective, was the concern over the how I dismissed answer choice (C), and you noted that, "the way Choice C is dismissed could be improved," "the explanation why Choice C is not the correct choice needs rewording," and "The current explanation is quite possibly not truthful and so requires clarification. I recommend improving the explanation for future readers," among others. Before going into depth on the wording of my explanation, let me note that there's an argument that can be made that says that every explanation of any question could be improved, no matter who it was written by or how long it is. There's always more that can be added, additional points to be expanded, and so on. And part of it is subjective because what serves as an excellent explanation for one person might be found wanting by another person. In reviewing this, I actually don't take issue with what I wrote and I will show why it's not incorrect, but in a future edition I might further expand the discussion of why I wrote what is there. Doing so might help make my point clearer to others, and that is always my goal when talking about the LSAT. That aside, let's get into the details!
In your initial post, you stated that:
- "It seems to me reasonable to assume that when Susan opens with "I disagree", she is commenting on Lea's opening remark that contemporary art has become big business. Yet in explaining why Choice C is not right, the text says outright "Susan does not comment on whether contemporary art is big business". Really?? I think this is highly debatable."
You note that it is reasonable to assume that Susan's comment is about Lea's opening remark, but I don't agree with that at all. If you look at the order of the conversation, if you were to remove that opening remark about big business entirely, the conversation still makes perfect sense:
- Lea: The work of contemporary artists is utterly bereft of spontaneity and creativity, as a visit to any art gallery demonstrates.
Susan: I disagree. One can still find spontaneous, innovative new artwork in most of the smaller, independent galleries.
[Copyright note: the text above is owned by LSAC. The text fragment here is presented under Fair Use copyright provisions.]
That provides the basis for a very logical and grammatically correct interpretation that Susan never addressed whether contemporary art has become big business. And, it shows that her statement does not in any way have to be support for a belief about commercialism (I point this out in order to address your comment that "Her statement that there are smaller, independent galleries instead supports her view that the the whole field has NOT become overly commercialized -- meaning, that she disagrees with the statement that contemporary art has become big business."). What Jonathan was trying to point out is that you've taken something that you considered a possibility and turned into an accepted reality; doing so is dangerous in these questions, and this is why he focused so much on the language of probability and conditionality you were using when making your argument. Consider the difference here between my interpretation of what LSAC did vs yours: for my interpretation to be true requires no further assumption of what Susan meant; Susan didn't comment in any confirmed way on commercialism and so saying she didn't is reasonable. For yours to be true, you have to read into what she meant and base your interpretation on on a scenario that you've admitted only
could be true. It requires more work and leaps of logic to support your position by comparison. Thus, my statement that "Susan does not comment on whether contemporary art is big business" is more than defensible. And, as we go on, we'll see why it is actually more than just defensible, it's the actual case of what is happening here because your interpretation would make answer choice (C) also correct.
Quick side point I want to make: as this conversation goes on, I don't want it to become "my view" vs "your view," or to possibly become contentious in any way. The LSAT should be fun, and studying for this test can and should be a really enjoyable intellectual exercise. One thing that helps make it less personal to me is that my job here is to explain how
LSAC views the test, not me. I've mentioned this many times on the Forum, and everything I say in the books and here is about better understanding what the
test makers are doing. If I comment on why an answer is correct or incorrect, the lens I'm attempting to use is the one the test makers would use to evaluate answers, not mine. In that sense, I'm simply the messenger, and thus the question isn't really whether I'm being truthful or not (as you reference in your last message), but whether my description of what LSAC is doing is accurate.
Moving on, that mention of LSAC is a timely one because I'd like to talk a bit about what we know about their viewpoint here. Now, this is hindsight, so I wouldn't expect anyone to make this argument to themselves during the exam, but since we know definitively that LSAC views answer choice (C) as incorrect we can draw some conclusions about how they view the statements in the stimulus. Answer choice (C) states that "contemporary art has become big business," and we know that LSAC does
not think this is something that Lea and Susan disagree about. Using that interpretation, let's go back into what you said about Susan's statements. Your interpretation hinged on the idea that the "I disagree" could very well mean that Susan disagreed with Lea that "Contemporary art has become big business," and that we just don't really know what Susan thought there. But, we actually do. There are two cases here: either the "I disagree" applies to that sentence or it does not. I've shown conclusively why it doesn't have to apply to that sentence, but we can also prove that it can't in LSAC's view. Here's how:
- If Susan's "I disagree" were to apply to Lea's conclusion, then at that point answer choice (C) would have to be a correct answer. Lea would have said that "Contemporary art has become big business" and Susan would have flatly stated that she disagreed, and that it was not. If that's the case, then they would indeed disagree about the content of answer choice (C), which would make (C) indisputably a correct answer. But that's not the case—LSAC has told us that (C) is incorrect and thus that they aren't disagreeing about (C). So, while it is coming to us in hindsight, it does actually resolve the issue that you and I are talking about.
This is important because in your first message you stated that: "It seems to me reasonable to assume that when Susan opens with "I disagree",
she is commenting on Lea's opening remark that contemporary art has become big business...Her statement that there are smaller, independent galleries instead
supports her view that the the whole field has NOT become overly commercialized -- meaning, that
she disagrees with the statement that contemporary art has become big business." [italics added for emphasis] Stop for a moment there: according to your interpretation, Susan believes that contemporary art has not become big business, and that automatically places her in disagreement with Lea's view on that topic. Thus, in making your argument for your interpretation, you've forced (C) to be correct, but we already know that (C) is incorrect.
Now, with the "I disagree" being established as not addressing whether "Contemporary art has become big business," we can now see that Susan never actually commented about the issue; the "I disagree" addresses a different point, and since Susan didn't make any other comment about big business, we simply do not know her position here. Thus, my statements that "Susan does not comment on whether contemporary art is big business" and later that "there is no way to know Susan’s position" are both accurate.
Whew! That was a lengthy breakdown, but it's actually kind of a fun issue for me because it allows us to get into the true details that cause students to select or avoid certain answers. It's also gratifying because whenever I see a student raise a concern that something is incorrect in one of the books, I'm naturally concerned. The good news is that in this case there is no problem with either my explanation or this LSAT question. That doesn't mean the issue isn't tricky though, and I'll probably expand this explanation in a future edition in order to avoid any similar confusion.
Thanks for the enjoyable discussion!