#4 - A strong correlation exists between what people value

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Main Point. The correct answer choice is (E)

Here the author points out a correlation between values and actions. The author concludes, with the common indicator “thus,” that “knowing what people value can help one predict their actions, producing the following conditional statement:
Know what people value › better predict their actions.

Answer choice (A): This is a clever and very commonly chosen wrong answer, something of a mistaken reversal:
Know people’s actions › better predict what they value

Answer choice (B): The author doesn’t discuss people’s claimed values, but those which are reflected in their actions, so this answer choice cannot be correct.

Answer choice (C): The author’s point is that there is some correlation between values and actions, but this answer choice goes too far—there is no way to justifiably presume that people with different values would never act the same.

Answer choice (D): The author provides a single example of such priorities, and this is offered as a premise in support of the main conclusion.

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice, restating our conditional statement from the stimulus: Know what people value › better predict their actions.

[Blueballoon5%]

Hi! I have a question about the answer key explanation for choice B (a wrong answer). The answer key states, "The author doesn’t discuss people’s claimed values, but those which are reflected in their actions, so this answer choice cannot be correct." What is the difference between a "person's values" and a "person's claimed values"?

I think I am confused because I don't see the difference between the two. For example, I value honesty. I am claiming honesty as a value that I think is important and positive. It is not an unconscious decision to value this quality in a person; I am making a conscious decision to value this quality. By making a conscious decision, am I not claiming this value?

I hope you can help! Thanks!

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Blue,

Without looking the explanation itself but based on what you said, the "claim" discussed there probably refers to an actual stated claim as opposed to a sense of ownership of those claims.

To use your example, "I value honesty" could mean that although you don't actually physically say you value honesty, your actions reflect it. In the spoken sense, then, although you value honesty you haven't claimed it.

Does that help sort that out? Thanks!

[Blueballoon5%]

Hi Dave! Thanks for answering so many of my questions (I really appreciate it!).

I notice sometimes that we can properly infer some information not directly stated in the stimulus. For example (I am making this example up because I cannot find an example at the moment), sometimes the question allows us to infer that "people's values" = "people's claimed values."
** Edit: I did find an imperfect example on page 1-83 (question 27). The answer key for this question states, in explaining why answer choice A is wrong, "Even if you assumed that 'research scientists' refers to the research of technology, 'engineers' to the application, and that the inability of Europeans to apply the new technology quickly enough indicated a greater shortage of engineers in Europe, you should not have inferred this choice, because there are many other areas of the world, so this choice is wrong." This is an imperfect example because this answer choice is wrong, but the explanation above suggests, maybe, that some can assume "'research scientists" = "research of technology" and "engineers" = "the application." In questions like these, how can we identify what and what cannot be inferred?

Thanks!!

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Blue,

Let's separate the examples here, just for clarity With the "claimed" situation, this is more about one use of the word vs another use of the word. When reading our explanation, we meant claimed as stated, but you read it a different way. That's an interpretive thing, and not really about inferences on the test.

With the example you cite from the book, it's not a great example because what were were doing there was saying "even if you mistakenly made this inference, it's still wrong." So, on the first count we weren't saying that making the inference was ok. but doing that shows how bad that answer was: even if you changed something in its favor, it was still wrong!

The inferences we are talking about aren't sometimes there and sometimes not; they come from specific situations that produce them. That might directly follow, such as "a black cat" is also a "cat," or it might come from combining two facts that result in a third, or it might be a combination of something said and a commonsense inference, or it might be some combination of any of the prior things. There can certainly be a lot of difficulty in sometimes determining what's allowable, and that's where discussing problems like this comes in. Over time, what you develop from all your studies is what I call LSAT Radar, which is actually a fairly sophisticated critical reasoning skill. You already have more of that than you think, but I know that sometimes it can feel like what they are doing is random. It's not, and when it seems like ti is, study that problem! those are the ones that can teach you the most about how this test works, and they are the ones that can help improve your score the most.

Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!

[Blueballoon5%]

Thank you so much! I will definitely practice as much as I can, and hopefully I develop a good LSAT Radar!

*Another question: I am moving forward to questions in Lesson 2 and I found a similar interpretation problem. It is question 4 on page 2-11, found in answer choice C. The answer key states, "Answer choice (C) is also incorrect; the stimulus discusses the need for better citizen understanding. The sufficient condition in this incorrect answer choice is the presence of better understanding--not the need." What is the difference between the need and the presence?

Thank you again! You are so helpful!!

[Eric Ockert]

Hi Blue!

Just to weigh in on this issue, this is another good example of what Dave pointed out earlier. Even if you missed the distinction between the presence and need for a better understanding, this is still a mistaken reversal of the relationship provided in the stimulus. That would be enough to eliminate this answer. Keep in mind, that while it is important to see all these various problems as you prepare for the test, you only need to see one of these problems to eliminate the answer on test day.

As for the difference between these two ideas, let me use an analogous case:
If you are human, there is a need for Oxygen to survive. (Human Need for O2)
If you need oxygen to survive, you cannot be a plant. (Need for O2 NOT Plant)

Putting all of that together gives you:
Human Need for O2 NOT plant

So if you were given a must be true question and an answer choice read:
"If there is Oxygen, then one cannot be a plant."

Clearly, we can't prove that. It's not the presence of oxygen that matters, but the need for it.

Likewise, in this question, it is not the "better understanding" that guarantees teachers must be prepared but rather the NEED for a better understanding that guarantees that. So if you have a need for a better understanding, whether or not you actually achieve that better understanding, then your teachers must be prepared.

Hope that helps a bit!

[martinbeslu]

After reading the explanation for why answer choice A is wrong I have a question. Is it even possible to have a mistaken reversal when we are talking about a correlation between two things? I thought the whole idea of correlation was that if you have one you have the other all of the time without exception. If it where a matter of causation I could see how this answer choice would be a mistaken reversal.

[Adam Tyson]

There are no mistaken reversals in causal reasoning, martinbeslu, but our explanation is using that term to help illustrate what went wrong with answer A, not with the argument itself. That's just our shorthand way of saying that answer A got the two elements in the conclusion backwards: knowing behavior helps predict values, rather than knowing values indicates behavior.

If the correlation is perfect, answer A would have to be a true statement, so it isn't a flaw here. However, the question didn't ask us what was true - it asked us what the main point was, and the author never explicitly said what was in answer A. He did say what was in answer E, and that's what makes it the winner. Answer A might be a true statement, but the answer to a Main Point question has to be more than just true - it has to be a restatement of something the author said, and which was his main conclusion and not a premise or subordinate conclusion.

If we were analyzing this argument causally and we wanted to say that the cause and effect were reversed, we would typically not call it a mistaken reversal, as that is a conditional flaw rather than a causal flaw. We would instead say that they reversed the cause and effect. Answer A is, however, something of a mistaken reversal of the conclusion, which is somewhat conditional (if we know your values then we can predict your behavior).

Good eye!

[goingslow]

Hi! If we change answer choice (B)'s wording to be "what people value are symptomatic of their actions," would (B) be correct?

I'm confused about the wording of "symptomatic" in (B) vs. "indicator" in (E). Do they imply the same relationship between values and actions? Or their temporal/causal implications are different? Thank you so much!