#12 - Researcher: Research has shown that inhaling the scent

[lsatnoobie]

Thanks for the question, Cecilia, glad to help!

I like your second negation of C better than the first. The negation of "some don't" would be "none don't", which is a lot easier to deal with if we get rid of the double negative and just say "all do". All of the people who inhale lavender have the potential to be sicker than average. That negation would actually help strengthen the argument that inhaling lavender could reduce their illness, since at least the inhalers would HAVE illness to reduce. Since the negation helps, rather than hurts, it's the wrong answer.

Nice work on that negation! Sometimes they can be pretty tricky to parse through, but as long as you focus on making the answer false, with a holistic rather than mechanical approach, you will continue to do well. Keep that up.

Isn't the negation of C "There is no one who uses the scent of lavender to induce relaxation and stress who is more susceptible to illness than average?"
Doesn't the negation of some = none. How can it be "All of the people"

Also, is the negation of B

1) There is no one who regularly inhales the scent of lavender who, without inhaling, would be under intense stress?

[Adam Tyson]

I like your negation of answer B, noobie, and that shows that there can be many ways to negate a statement correctly. The goal of the negation is to make the answer false, and your approach also does that. Well done!

Read answer C again carefully, though, as it looks like you missed the word "no," as in "no more susceptible." The answer says that "some...are no more susceptible," and we can negate that either with "none are no more susceptible" or else "all are more susceptible" (removing the double negative).

[lsatnoobie]

I don’t think Malila negated answer choice E properly.

[It is not the case that] reduced stress diminishes susceptibility to illness only for people who are under enough stress to impair their immune systems to at least some degree.

Reduced stress diminishes susceptibility to illnesses even if people aren’t under enough stress to impair immune systems to at least some degree.

This, if anything, strengthens the argument.

What I’m still unsure about, however, is why the negated version of C is wrong.

Negated C = Everyone who uses the scent of lavender to induce relaxation and reduce stress is more susceptible to illness than average. Wouldn’t this hurt the argument that the scent of lavender reduces illness?

[lsatnoobie]

Hey Adam, thank you for your reply. I’d like to push back on your negation of C however. I know that abstractly, All negated is Some Not and vice versa. However, I believe negating C in that manner is too much in this particular example, and would go against the general idea that logical negation should be minimal.

Answer Choice C: at least some people who use the scent of lavender to induce relaxation and reduce stress are no more susceptible to illness than average

[it is not the case that] at least some people who use the scent of lavender to induce relaxation and reduce stress are no more susceptible to illness than average

Wouldn’t it become “at least some people who use the scent of lavender to induce relaxation and reduce stress are more susceptible to illness than average”

Put another away, if we negated the at least some to none, we would get

No one who uses the scent of lavender to induce relaxation and reduce stress are no more susceptible to illness than average

Doesn’t this mean there’s someone who uses the scent of lavender to induce relaxation and reduce stress who is more susceptible to illness than average?

I believe to qualify this sentence with “All” is incorrect, but maybe I’m wrong.

[Adam Tyson]

That's a common mistake, lsatnoobie, and an understandable one, but "some are" and "some are not" are not mutually exclusive statements and logical opposites. It can be true that some are X and that some are not X at the same time. Try this:

"Some of my students are not going to Harvard."

If I were to then respond with "some of my students are going to Harvard", I haven't negated that first statement. It still could be true. Instead, I would say:

"None of my students are not going to Harvard" (none are not), which is the same as saying "All of my students are going to Harvard" (all are).

If it is not true that some of the people inhaling lavender are not more susceptible, then none of them are not more susceptible (none is the logical opposite of some), and therefore all of them are more susceptible. If none are not, then all are.

I hope that clears it up for you! Keep at it!

[lsatnoobie]

Adam that’s so helpful!! Thank you so much.

Can you explain how the negated version of c doesn’t kill the argument then? I’ve been struggling with this forvever. If everyone who uses lavender is more susceptible to illness than average, then how could lavender reduce incident of illnesses?

[Adam Tyson]

If the lavender inhalers are all sicker than average, they still could be better than they otherwise would have been if they had not inhaled lavender! Compare it to another situation - chemotherapy. It's a pretty sure bet that people getting chemo are sicker than average people, but the chemo still could be reducing their cancers, right?

[lemonade42]

Hi,
Does "likely" in the conclusion mean "some"? Because I interpreted it as "more than likely" so I only looked for answers that contained "most" or "all", which led me to wrongly eliminate (B).

[Luke Haqq]

Hi lemonade42!

I think I can understand what you're getting at in asking about "likely" and "some," but I wouldn't recommend viewing them as interchangeable. In addition, I wouldn't take "likely" to mean "more than likely." "Probable" is an example of a more accurate synonym. In terms of percentages, you could think of anything above a 50% chance as being likely.