#3 - Physical education should teach people to pursue

[martinbeslu]

Can you help me understand why answer choice E is wrong. The stimulus says that physical education should teach people to pursue active lifestyles. It goes on to say that people do not exercise enough to stay healthy if they do not think of themselves as athletic. Therefore, shouldn't children be taught that they need to have an active lifestyle even if they are not athletes because it is bad for their health ("dangerous") if they do not? This seems to be very strongly supported directly by the information in the stimulus. What part am I getting wrong here?

[Malila Robinson]

Hi Martin,
For (E) even if students were taught the dangers of a sedentary lifestyle it still may not overcome their self-perceptions of being 'less competitive' and 'unathletic'. Instead of using scare tactics or trying to change these self-perceptions, physical education could include noncompetitive activities that promote a healthy lifestyle. This may be more appealing to the students who have turned away from (competitive) sports. This is what makes (A) the best answer.
Malila

[na02]

Why is D incorrect? I figured the mental aspects = competitiveness (how they perceive) is important, and thought I kept it as a contender, I thought A was going too far as the argument doesn't make any explicit recommendation/suggestion that not exercising is not healthy = not a good thing.

Thank you!

[KelseyWoods]

Hi N!

Answer choice (D) is too broad to be supported by this stimulus. The stimulus may provide an example of one mental aspect that can affect a person's exercise behavior, but that's not enough to prove that mental aspects of exercise in general are equally important as physical ones. Even if mental aspects are important, we don't have enough to prove that they are of equal importance.

Answer choice (A), on the other hand, is supported. The first sentence tells us what physical education should do (teach people to pursue health, active lifestyles as they grow older) and the next sentences tell us that the focus on competitive sports discourages less competitive students from exercising. So, if physical education is supposed to teach people to live active lifestyles, then it needs to fix this problem that dissuades noncompetitive people from exercising, by including noncompetitive activities. Also, the argument does explicitly state that these less competitive people "do not exercise enough to stay healthy" (snuck it in there at the end!) so it is specific about their lifestyles not being healthy.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[LSAT student]

I narrowed my choices down to (A) and (D), and picked (D) because I didn't see full support for (A). To me the stimulus does not say that noncompetitive activities are not included, it just says that there is a focus on competitive sports. To me it seems like there are still noncompetitive sports in the curriculum, except maybe they're not as focused upon. I.e. students do yoga for 2 days and then spend 3 weeks on basketball.

(D) I felt was supported because of the part of the stimulus that says "Having come to think of themselves as unathletic, they do not exercise enough to stay healthy". And thinking is a mental aspect.

?? Unsure how to rule out (D)

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi LSATstudent,

We need to be careful here. Answer choice (A) isn't saying that they need to increase the amount of noncompetitive activities. It's just saying that schools should include them. That's supported by the information in the stimulus stating that focus on competion in physical education is not to the benefit of many students.

Answer choice (D) goes farther than is supported. I would buy that there's a mental aspect to sports based on the passage. The idea of thinking of yourself as unathletic could be a mental aspect. But can we say those aspects are AS important as the physical ones? We have no support for that statement.

Must Be True answers need to be completely supported by the facts in the stimulus. We can support that there should be some noncompetititve activities.

Hope that helps!