#28 - Must Be True, Specific Reference

[Jeremy Press]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is E.

This is a Parallel Reasoning form of Must Be True question, and it asks for an answer choice that is "most closely analogous" to the hypothetical debate described in the fourth paragraph. The best approach to Parallel Reasoning questions in Reading Comprehension is to create an abstract description of the portion of the paragraph you're being asked to match. Be as comprehensive as possible (under time constraints) with this abstract description, and make sure all the "key players" and key concepts are covered by your abstract description.

The key players in the hypothetical debate are "adherents of different religions." The abstract description of these key players is "people who are already committed to a position or conclusion," since an "adherent" is someone who is already committed.

What are the key players debating over? The creation of the universe. So the abstract description of the topic of the debate is "something important to the key players."

What do the key players rely on for their debate positions? Different religious texts. So the abstract description of the evidence the key players use is "different sources of evidence."

What will ultimately solve the debate? Not the religious texts themselves (because an adherent of Christianity, for example, is unlikely to be swayed by the Bhagavad Gita; and an adherent of Hinduism, for example, is unlikely to be swayed by the Bible). Something outside the religious texts (in this case, their "authority"). So the abstract description of what will solve the debate is "something other than the different sources of evidence."

Let's put all the abstract pieces of our description together. In the answer, we want to be able to find "debaters who are already committed to a position or conclusion, debating something of common importance to them, relying on different sources of evidence, where something other than those sources themselves must be used to resolve the debate." That's our prephrase. Using that, we can evaluate the answer choices.

Answer choice (A): The investigators in answer choice A are not already "adherents" of a certain position (in other words, they're not already committed to a conclusion). They're simply attempting to determine identity, without any preconceived notions. Thus, answer choice A is not a good analog to our description of the fourth paragraph, and it is incorrect.

Answer choice (B): This is probably the most tempting wrong answer choice, but it can be set aside based on the first part of our prephrased description. The jurors described in answer choice B are not clearly "adherents" to a position. In other words, as far as we can tell from the answer choice, none of the jurors has already determined which eyewitness to believe. Like the investigators in answer choice A, they are still "attempting to determine" what position to take, and which eyewitness to believe.

Answer choice (C): In answer choice C there is "no evidence" for either of the archaeologists' positions on the meaning of the written symbols. This is different from the passage, where the adherents each have their own religious text as the evidence for their positions about the creation of the universe. Thus, answer choice C is incorrect.

Answer choice (D): Answer choice D can be ruled out for the same reason we've ruled out answer choices A and B. The museum curators are not apparently committed to ("adherents" of) any particular position about the value of the painting. Thus, this answer choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice. The historians in answer choice E are debating something on which they are "adherents," because they've each drawn a different conclusion about the event in question. Thus, they're already committed to a position. In accord with our description they're debating something of importance to them (an event about which they've drawn conclusions). Also consistent with our description, they're each relying on a different source of evidence, since the answer choice states their conclusions are based on "different types of historical data." Since each is committed to a position based on a source, they are unlikely to come around to the other person's position just by being shown the other person's data (they already have data from which they've drawn a solid conclusion). Thus, something beyond the data itself will likely be needed to resolve the debate between them.

[lilmissunshine]

Hello,

I can see why (E) is correct, but why is (B) inferior?

Many thanks!

[Jennifer Janowsky]

Lilmissunshine,

Thanks for your question, again it's a great one. In the original, two individuals in disagreement and have different evidence drawn from the same thing (holy books). The two individuals are coming from a different point of view, and now must reassess each other's data together. (E) is correct because, just like the original, two people are in disagreement, and use two different types of historical data drawn from one event to support their side. Additionally, the two historians are coming from two different points of view that they gathered independently, and now must look over it again to find out the truth.

Like the original, option (B) has two people in disagreement, and they are debating two pieces of evidence from the same event. However, they are not coming from two different points of view. They are both jurors, and have both heard the same evidence at the same time. One person is not coming to the table with information that the other lacks.

This one is very interesting, thanks again for your question!

[lilmissunshine]

Hi Jennifer,

I was too focused on "only further investigation into the authority of the test themselves would be sufficient". So I thought the jurors need to look into the authority/credibility of the eyewitnesses just like the two historians need to evaluate the authority of different types of historian data. But your thorough explanation made it a lot clearer. I definitely neglected the aspect of opposing point of view.

Thank you very much (again) Jennifer!

[blade21cn]

I found this type of "Analogy" question difficult because there could be various criteria to gauge against. In other words, different nuances in the original can be your point of focus or interest, some proven unfruitful, and sometimes the answer can potentially vary depending upon the chosen criteria, and we could only hope the test makers use the same criteria.

When I initially evaluate the original, my first thought is from common sense. From a modern, scientific point of view, the debate among religions about the creation of the universe - that God created human beings and the world - is something that does not exist (no offense to any religion). According to our textbooks, the current view is Darwinian evolution.

In that sense, (A) is eliminated because a criminal's identity can be definitively determined, (B) is eliminated because the event actually occurred, (C) is eliminated because the meaning of certain written symbols is concrete, at least to the people who wrote them, (D) is eliminated because whether the value of a painting is genuineness or forgery is mutually exclusive and one has to be right and the other wrong. In contrast, the subject matter of (E) is conclusions about the same event. I understand the word "conclusions" to mean historic significance or the moral of the story, which is really up for grabs, since it's more opinion based.

A secondary criteria is to focus on there's some evidence for the conflicting beliefs and each side firmly believes so. (A) can eliminated because the investigators have evidence, but it's not a matter of believing them, as they are just presented to them; (B) can be eliminated because though the evidence is eyewitness accounts, it's hard to say the jurors firmly believe them, it's more of a matter of credibility; (C) can be eliminated because there's no evidence to begin with; (D) can be eliminated because neither curators believes in the clear signs of genuineness and forgery, as, by definition, they are clear, it's more about how to collaborate and make sense of the discrepancies. (E) is right because either historian has its own source of evidence and uses them as the support of their individual conclusions.

The explanation sounds a little answersheet-driven. What is PowerScore's recommended approach to analogy questions?

Incidentally, the last sentence in ¶4 states "Only further investigation into the authority of the texts themselves would be sufficient." What does "authority of the texts themselves" refer to, writer(s) of the Bible/Koran, publishing house, priests, Pope? The author makes it sound easy to come by. Lastly, when a sentence is structured like this, with "only" and "sufficient," will "authority of the texts themselves" be the sufficient condition or necessary, or both? Thanks!

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Blade,

I've posted a full explanation above. I've also responded below to a couple points you raise specifically in your very good post!

To a couple points you made, blade: first, I want you to be careful not to incorporate your assumptions about what is true of the creation of the universe into this question. The writers of the test would never fashion an answer choice that required you to assume the truth of Darwinian evolution (over and against the creation account of a religious text). This is the kind of controversial subject the LSAT would avoid requiring assumptions about, because people from different backgrounds will likely have very different views (and VERY strongly held ideas about those views).

Second, the ideal approach to Parallel questions in reading comprehension is the method I described above: parallel the "abstract structure" of the portion of the passage referred to, by coming up with brief abstract descriptions of each of the key points in the portion of the passage that is referenced.

Finally, we don't actually know precisely what the author of the passage means by "authority." It must mean something external to the text (since the adherent of one religion would never accept just the bare text of another religion's sacred book). It must mean something that decides the issue of who's right, since the author assumes it would solve the debate. But beyond that, we're kind of in the dark about the "authority." Is it "closest adherence to observed facts?" Maybe. Is it "greatest number of adherents?" Maybe. Is it "logical persuasiveness?" Maybe that, too. There's simply no way to know, and it doesn't matter much for the purposes of the question itself.

The conditional structure of the last sentence isn't something you need to delve into for purposes of the question, though the wording here suggests the authority of the texts is both necessary (from the use of "only") and sufficient (from the use of "sufficient").

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[aghartism]

At the risk of repeating some of the nice discussion above (and at the risk of "arguing with the LSAT"), I'd like to explain my thinking on this question regarding (E), in the hope that someone might find it interesting or has relevant advice to give.

What led me to eliminate (E) is the curious reference to "different types of historical data". In paragraph four, we do not have different types of religious data, or different types of data of any kind. We have two sacred texts, two instances of the same type of data, at least on my understanding of what types of data are. (B) beats (E) in this respect--the data are of the same type, eyewitness accounts. I suppose the makers of the LSAT were content to conflate different types and "different sources", as the explanation above puts it.

I find questions like this particularly frustrating because they seem not to play by the LSAT's own rules, so to speak. In many other instances an even more subtle changing of phrasing or conception is sufficient to eliminate an answer choice, while here a less subtle dissimilarity must be ignored.

I suppose something against (B) is that it is similar to (A) and, to a lesser extent, (D), as mentioned above. In the former, we have "conflicting physical evidence" (just one type of evidence, probably), and in the latter we have inconsistent "signs" (maybe just one type of evidence). I think this is somewhat hasty, though, as in neither the case of (A) nor of (D) is the claim that we have two instances of the same type of evidence as strongly justified as it is in the case of (B).

Ultimately, I guess it just comes down to the presence of "conclusions" in (E), and the absence of something like that in (A), (B), and (D). Lesson learned.

Any thoughts?

[Luke Haqq]

Hi aghartism!

Regarding (E), it seems like we may not know for sure whether or not the religious texts in the passage count as "different types" of historical data or not. As you note, they're both religious texts. But one text could be entirely, for instance, poetry, while the other religious text could be, say, much more about historical documentation. Since we don't necessarily know that they are the same or different types of historical data, that language of (E) doesn't make it incorrect.

This is largely just repeating what Jeremy has explained above, but the "conflicting conclusions about the same event" in (E) seems analogous to the debate in the fourth paragraph. In the fourth paragraph, the two different religions arrive at conflicting conclusions (their own cosmologies) about the same event (the creation of the universe).

In the passage, the debate is between "adherents" (line 42) of particular views on a historical matter. Again just rehashing Jeremy's point, but this is different from a pool of jurors as in (B)--nothing in the answer choice indicates that any of them have made up their mind.