#13 - The solution to any environmental problem that is not

[lsatprobs]

Ok, so this question really annoyed me!

So I got the chain:

Not GM -> CCH -> EE

And then got the conclusion:
Not Few Eco Probs -> EE

Then, I used the justify technique thing from the Bible, and eliminated B,C, and D because they did not mention the "Few Eco Probs" and was left with A and E! I think my problem was that I did not realize that "Not Few Eco Probs" = "Many Eco Probs Solved"

Any advice on expediting this type of answer? I got this wrong because of the time crunch, but is there something that would be helpful for review with the "Not Few Probs" construct? Thanks!

[Francis O'Rourke]

The phrase "not few serious ecological problems" is quite awkward, and it is not something I would ever think of if I wanted to express this idea. For that reason, I would immediately ask myself 'what is the logical equivalent of not few... in the context of this sentence?'

It takes anywhere from 1 to 20 seconds to translate such a statement into something more meaningful for me. Although it costs time, in the end it makes my job a lot easier and faster to rephrase this statement as "if many ecological problems are solved, then the solutions must be economically enticing."

My general strategy is that whenever your negation produces a wording that is awkward to work with or even understand, take a few seconds to translate that into a logically equivalent statement that makes sense for you. The next time you come across one that is not something you would ever say naturally, try to translate it first into something that makes more sense for you and see if this approach helps.

[lunsandy]

Hi Powerscore,

I see how A is the correct answer, but upon review I can't see why D is incorrect.

The conclusion is few serious ecological problems will be solved unless the solutions are made economically enticing. So NOT few = many ecological problems solved economically enticing. We have to link the new word ecological problems in our conclusion to be in the subset of environmental problems that are NOT the result of gov. management. In order for our conclusion to be true that many serious ecological problems will be solved when solutions are economically enticing we have to make sure that there are few ecological problems are the result of government mismanagement (A).

I found D attractive because I thought it also links environmental problems that are not gov. mismanagement with major ecological problems. Why is D wrong? I thought when we negate D that our conclusion will fall apart- Most environmental problems that are the result of gov. mismanagement are major ecological problems. Is it because o of the most? Since many could include most so it does not entirely ruin the conclusion for D? But on the other hand if we negate A: Not few = Many serious ecological problems are the result of gov mismanagement this directly contradicts our conclusion?

Thanks a lot!

[nicholaspavic]

Hi lunsandy,

This isn't a Necessary Assumption question, so the Assumption Negation technique has no application here.

This is a Justify question. So what's the technique we want to use here? Nikki discusses it above, if you cannot remember.

Good luck in your prep and remember that there is a big difference between sufficient and necessary assumptions.

[lunsandy]

Hi Nicholas,

Sorry that was my oversight! I looked back at the question and at Nikki's explanation and it clarified my question regarding A.

However, I am still unclear about D. Is D not as good of an answer in comparison to A because it does not have the rouge element "few serious ecological problems," instead D says "are major ecological problems." Is that the only difference between A and D ?

Thanks a lot!

[Shannon Parker]

Remember in Justify questions you are looking for answer choices that are sufficient to prove the conclusion true, meaning if the answer choice is true, the conclusion must be. You can eliminate incorrect answer choices by finding a circumstance where the answer choice is true, and the conclusion does not follow. In the case of answer choice "D," it only deals with the environmental problems that are not the result of government mismanagement. If the vast majority of serious ecological problems are as a result of government mismanagement, then the conclusion could be false. Therefore, you can eliminate answer choice E.

[Damian713]

Hey, I am having trouble seeing how answer choice a) fits into the conditional logic chain. I understand that government mismanagement is the missing piece between the first premise and the conclusion. I diagrammed the conclusion as follows:
-not few serious eco solved -------> Economically enticing.
I am also looking for clarification on why you can infer that if it is -not few then it means many serious, is few a synonym of some?

thanks

[KelseyWoods]

Hi Damian!

"Few" and "many" don't have precise definitions because they are both somewhat dependent on the overall group size. But you can think of them as roughly logical opposites, so when you negate "few" you can change it to "many". Here's a more in depth discussion about quantity terms like "few" and "many" from our blog: https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid-15 ... -and-many/.

To be honest, I wouldn't focus as much on the diagramming when trying to figure out why answer choice (A) is correct because, as you've discovered and as you can read in the complete explanation at the very beginning of this thread, it gets a little convoluted. From the premise chain, we know that if it is an environmental problem that is not the result of government mismanagement, then the changes need to be economically enticing. The conclusion then tells us that if many (or not few) serious ecological problems are solved, then the solutions must be made economically enticing. We need to connect this idea of the quantity of ecological problems that must be solved with economically enticing changes to the idea that environmental problems that are not the result of government mismanagement must be solved with economically enticing changes.

That's what we can prephrase--if the premises are specifically about environmental problems that are not the result of government mismanagement and the conclusion is broadening that scope to all ecological problems, we need to basically say that few serious ecological problems are the result of government mismanagement. We're linking the concept of the amount of all ecological problems to the concept of ecological problems that are not the result of government mismanagement. The premise tells us that economically enticing solutions are necessary for a specific subset of environmental problems; the conclusion makes a leap to saying it is necessary for many serious ecological problems. So we need to show that many serious ecological problems fall into the category of "environmental problems that are not the result of government mismanagement."

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[desiboy96]

Hello, I am a bit confused as to why choice A) is correct. So for this question I eliminated A) because I thought it was out of scope since it talks about government mismanagement and as per the stimulus, we are concerned about non-governmental mismanagement.

Is A) correct because it implies that if few ecological problems are caused by the government, the remainder (i.e the overwhelming majority) is caused by non-government actors?

Also can someone please explain why D is incorrect? I chose this because all of the other choices seemed incorrect to me.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Watch the language on this one, desiboy. You are spot on that the premise here is about environmental problems that is not the result of government mismanagement. But the conclusion jumps! It talks about environmental problems in general, not just those caused by governmental mismanagement. Because of that, answer choice (A) is exactly what we need to bridge that gap. Answer choice (D) doesn't work because we don't jump between major and non-major, we jump between not government caused environmental issues and all environmental issues.

Hope that helps!