#10 - Almost all of the books published in the past 150

[George George]

@whardy21

I see nothing wrong with your Conditional Statement translations. Excellent work.

The LSAT is allowed to use antonyms in the answer choices. An antonym is a negation of some term. "Historically insignificant" are all those manuscripts which were not "historically significant." Since there is a possibility that historically significant texts will be saved from acidification, it makes sense that answer (A) would carve out an exemption for them.

The takeaway is that the LSAT can use slightly different terminology if it is logically related to the terms in the stimulus, i.e. antonyms, synonyms, etc.

[chiickenx]

Hi, I chose (B) because while I was doing the PT I unsure of (A)'s "deteriorate completely." To be more specific, I was unsure whether the book's cover, binding, or spine would deteriorate. From that I reasoned that (A) is not supported...In a haste, I chose (B). I, think I understand how it is wrong now. But to confirm, I have one question: If (B) was restated as "Almost all of the books published in the past 150 years will gradually deteriorate," would it be inferable?

I think the reason I chose (B) was because I took "gradually destroy itself" to be synonymous with "gradually deteriorate." That is, I took the original (B)'s "gradually destroy itself" to imply that the physical properties of almost all books published within the last 150 yrs, at the very moment they were printed, were gradually working towards their destruction; however, it should have been interpreted as "almost all books published within the last 150 will gradually cease to exist due to its physical properties," correct?

Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

I think we can say that "gradually destroy themselves" and "gradually deteriorate" mean the same thing here, chiickenx, especially because the author uses the terms interchangeably ("...acidic paper gradually destroys itself due to its very acidity. This process of deterioration... .")

The real problem with answer B is that it fails to take into account the possible impact of the deacidification process described in the passage. What if these techniques are successful, and the acid is removed from the paper? Is there any reason to believe that they will continue to deteriorate? Might some of them last forever once the acid is removed? They might! So we cannot say for certain that almost all of those books will destroy themselves, because we might be able to completely halt the process for many of them.

That's why answer A is better - it carves out the books that are not historically significant, which increases the odds that they will NOT have their acid removed, which means they will probably completely deteriorate. B is about all the books, but A is about all the insignificant books, and that makes it much more narrow and thereby easier to defend.

[chiickenx]

@Adam Tyson

I see what you mean... but I still don't quite understand how the two phrases are interchangeable... Supposing that the two terms are interchangeable, "Almost all books published in the last 150 years will deteriorate" seems to be true since "every kind of acidic paper will gradually destroy itself (deteriorate)." Understandably, the deacidification techniques would be applied to historically significant book, but wouldn't those books already be in the process of deteriorating? Or is it an assumption on my behalf that deterioration of acidic paper doesn't start the second it was created?

[Jeremy Press]

Hi chiickenx,

A couple things: first, while the phrase "gradually destroy themselves" (appropriately treated as synonymous with "process of deterioration" by Adam) does imply an ongoing event, it includes the absolute "end point" of destruction as a key part of the meaning of the phrase. So the phrase itself is prospective: looking forward to the outcome (destruction) of an ongoing process. As Adam highlights in his response, given the deacidification technique being developed, we cannot be sure that historically significant books will reach that outcome, even if the process has started and is currently active. To see what I mean, imagine if the historically significant books are deacidified and then remain perfectly stable moving forward. Would it be appropriate to look back to the period of time prior to deacidification and say those books "gradually destroyed themselves?" No. You would be able to say that such books were "gradually destroying themselves." But that's not what the answer choice says. It uses "destroy" in an absolute and outcome-oriented sense, rather than in a partial and ongoing sense (as "destroying" would imply).

Absent noticing that somewhat tricky interpretive nuance, you could also do what you've done in your very perceptive question: notice that answer choice B is future-looking ("will gradually destroy themselves"/deteriorate). As you point out, we aren't exactly sure when that deterioration process begins. And, since the stimulus tells us deacidification techniques are already in development, it's entirely possible those techniques are being tested, or at least will be tested soon (prior to the beginning of the deterioration process), on a substantial number of historically significant books. Because of that temporal uncertainty, answer choice B is much more uncertain than a Must Be True answer ought to be.

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[thecmancan]

@whardy21

I see nothing wrong with your Conditional Statement translations. Excellent work.

The LSAT is allowed to use antonyms in the answer choices. An antonym is a negation of some term. "Historically insignificant" are all those manuscripts which were not "historically significant." Since there is a possibility that historically significant texts will be saved from acidification, it makes sense that answer (A) would carve out an exemption for them.

The takeaway is that the LSAT can use slightly different terminology if it is logically related to the terms in the stimulus, i.e. antonyms, synonyms, etc.

Of course the LSAT can do whatever they want. However the antonym of Hot is Cold. But the negation of Hot is not simply "cold". Negation of Hot is NOT HOT.

This is not my hill to die on for this question. I think the whole difficulty for this question was based on how poorly written the question was.

My beef is that how can we assume that when stimulus just said techniques are being developed, that can assume that these deacidification techniques are actually available?

I mean, it could be a true statement that, a cure for autism is being developed. Can we assume then that this cure is efficacious and available?

Based on only information in the stimulus, we can't possibly know or assume anything about these techniques.



Also, the stimulus says:

if DeAcidify --> NOT deteriorate.

Answer needs the assumption that:

if NOT DeAcidify --> MUST Deteriorate

Which is a simple mistaken negation.



*sigh* Guess I'm going to have to take the L on this question.

[thecmancan]

Also, if this stem asked for "most strongly supported", maybe I could tolerate Answer A.


On the phrase "techniques are being developed". If it had read "techniques are available" or "it's possible to use certain new techniques".... I would have NO reason to doubt Answer A.

But it really is unfair to require an assumption as big as "being developed = available and effective".

5G Internet is being developed. How well it performs and how available it becomes cannot be assumed. It's possible that the WiMax standard makes a comeback or AppleTalk "develops" sooner and is better. How can we act as if this "deacidification" technique is a sure thing when it is still being "developed".

What gets me is the inconsistency here. On other questions, we're sure to get caught making assumptions like: "just because something is being developed, doesn't mean it'll be adapted and used." The famous rolling pin question

Meanwhile, in this question, as a MUST BE TRUE no less, the assumption gets no play because it's a common sense assumption?

It seem advantageous for me to just take the loss on this question but keep my skepticism about that assumption.

[KelseyWoods]

Hi thecmancan!

So I think we can clear up a few things here and hopefully make you feel better about this question:

First: You are correct that there is a difference between polar opposites (antonyms) and logical opposites. But if something is historically insignificant, then we can agree that it does not have historical significance, right? Just like if something is cold, we would agree that it is not hot!

Second: You are correct that "techniques being developed" does NOT mean the same thing as "techniques are available and effective." We shouldn't make the assumption that these techniques are currently available and effective--and the good news is we don't need to make that assumption to still prove answer choice (A)!

So let's step back and walk through this question again so we can see why answer choice (A) is something that must be true based on the information the stimulus provides us.

Fact #1: almost all of the books published in the past 150 years were printed on acidic paper
Fact #2: every kind of acidic paper gradually destroys itself
Fact #3: this deterioration process can be slowed with proper storage
Fact #4: techniques currently being developed to deacidify books will probably only apply to books with historical significance

Answer choice (A) states that if a book was published in the past 150 years and is historically insignificant, it will probably deteriorate completely. How can we prove this?

1) If it was published in the past 150 years it was probably printed on acidic paper and all acidic paper gradually destroys itself
2) if it is historically insignificant, it probably doesn't have a chance of being deacidified when and if those techniques ever become available.

Note that we don't need to assume that those techniques are currently available. If the book is historically insignificant, it's not going to benefit from these techniques whether or not they become available. Notice the answer choice doesn't say that historically insignificant books are the ONLY ones which will probably deteriorate completely. We definitely would NOT be able to prove that historically significant books won't deteriorate (because we don't know if those techniques work yet!). But the stimulus tells us that historically insignificant books will probably not get to take advantage of those techniques whether they become available or not. Those historically significant books still have a chance of being saved, whereas the historically insignificant books do not.

Also note that the answer choice uses the term "probably." We love this less certain terminology in a Must Be True answer choice! It would be much more difficult to prove that the historically insignificant books will DEFINITELY deteriorate completely (what if we discover a surprise cure to acidic paper deterioration tomorrow!). But based on the facts we currently have, it seems probable that these historic books will eventually completely deteriorate.

Remember that in a Must Be True answer choice, we're just looking for one thing that must be true, we don't need the answer choice to encompass everything that is true. In answer choice (A) we're making one probable statement about one group of books. And we can prove that statement definitively with the information we have above. We're not making any inference about what will happen with the historically significant books.

And personally, I think that "historically insignificant" means the same thing as "not historically significant." But if you want to argue with me about there being some sort of spectrum between historically significant and historically insignificant, that still shouldn't cause you any problem with answer choice (A). Because just like "cold" falls under the category of "not hot," "historically insignificant" would fall under the category of "not historically significant." So anything true of books that are not historically significant would also be true of books that are historically insignificant.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[anureet]

Okay, I have read almost all possible explanations for this question, and It's not sitting right with me. Almost all does not include the possibility of all. So the stimulus is saying that almost all of the books published in the 1950s were printed on acidic paper and they will gradually be destroyed. There is a possibility that maybe one book wasn't printed on acidic paper

Now option A is saying if a book is written in 150 years and historically insignificant it will probably deteriorate. I immediately thought this was in the incorrect answer because what if the book wasn't written on acidic paper. After all, the stimulus does say almost all and not all.

I understand why the rest of the options are wrong but I dont get why option A is right either.

[Robert Carroll]

anureet,

You're missing that answer choice (A) says "probably". The lack of absolute certainty of the statement "almost all" in the stimulus is reflected in answer choice (A)'s lack of absolute certainty when it says "probably". Any book that lacks historical significance, was published in the past 150 years, and yet that does not deteriorate completely would be an outlier - it's unlikely an arbitrary book would be one of the few exceptions to the general rule. Thus, an arbitrary book with those properties will "probably" deteriorate completely.

Robert Carroll