#3 - Must Be True, Author's Perspective

[voodoochild]

Experts,

I have two questions about this problem (both the questions are related to question #3 of the passage):-

1) About answer choice E) This one is from the powerscore book page 150. In the third paragraph, the author talks about the view of "many anthropologists." However, in question #3, the correct answer says that "Aug sought to gain magical powers XYZ in addition to painted images." However, on line #40, the passage clearly talks about the view of many anthropologists. I am not sure why E) is the correct answer.

I ended up choosing C because A,B,D are clear cut wrong. I thought E was an opinion held by "many anthropols." C did sound like author's opinion. I understand that it's extreme but the author uses a bit of an extreme language in line #26 "....makes it unlikely." The author rules out artistry or aesthetics as an explanation of the paintings. Hence, I thought that "any" could be fine.

Question #2) Because there is another question on author's implicit acceptance of claims of many anthropologists, I believe that the third paragraph MUST HAVE "some" clue that would conclusively tell me that the author agrees with many anthropologists. I couldn't find ANY clue that would conclusively say that the author agrees.

Please help.

Thanks

[Steve Stein]

Hi voodoochild,

This question is closely related to your other question about this passage. In the third paragraph, the author explains the basis for many anthropologists' hypothesis that cave paintings were intended to help ensure a steady supply of food. The author continues to explain this hypothesis, having adopted it by line 43, rather than continuing to attribute it: "The images were probably intended to make these animals vulnerable..."

As for answer choice C, that's a pretty bold claim: Prehistoric hunter-gatherers did not create any art solely for aesthetic purposes. Not a single hunter-gatherer? Not a single piece of art for its own sake? We have no basis for attributing such a perspective to the author of this passage.

I hope that's helpful! Please let me know--thanks!

~Steve

[biskam]

I thought E would be incorrect because in lines 51-54, no connection is made between magical powers and the ceremonies. Magical powers is only made in connection to the paintings in lines 41-43. So I thought it would be wrong to assume that we could extend the idea of magical powers to the ceremonies. Am I missing something?

[biskam]

And if it's a MBT q, doesn't all the information in the choices HAVE to be found in the stimulus. So new info (aka I'm arguing this extending of magical powers to the ceremonies) is suspect?

[Francis O'Rourke]

Hi Biskam,

Are you saying that the passage never discussed interpreting the cave paintings as magic? Take another look at lines 37 - 43: "Since it was common ... mammoths and bison." From this we can conclude that these people saw the images as magical.

In the final lines of the passage, the author states that this group likely performed ceremonies over the magic (to them) images with shamans in "fantastic costumes." These line tells us that the ceremonies had the intended effect of granting the people something. We could describe this as magical powers.

[Sophia123]

Hello!

For this question, I was between B and E. I understand why E is correct, but I just want to be sure my line of reasoning for eliminating B is correct. The answer choice says that skill in art was essential to becoming a Shaman, but technically one would not need to have the natural skills of a Shaman since that can be passed on. Would this answer choice have been correct if it said "skill in art was essential to being an Aurignacian Shaman"?

Thank you in advance!

Sophia

[nicholaspavic]

Hi Sophia,

Answer Option (B) tries to connect the concept of the artists spoken of throughout the passage to the final line about depictions of the potential shamans. The passage suggests the possibility of shamans but does not go so far as to actually confirm their existence. In other words, were these shamans or other religious leaders? So it's impossible to say even if shamans existed in this culture much less how one could become a shaman in it. On the LSAT, avoid undue inferences at all costs because they lead down the rabbit hole.

Thanks for the great question!

[bengs49]

I'm curious to hear an expert arguement against D. My logic is as follows:

(line 40) "Antropologists maintain that the Aurignacians (As) paintings were meant to grant magical power over the Aurignacian's prey" -- this is not refuted anywhere else, including lines 49-51; it's phrasing with "Also" seems to be a continuation of the discussion of the "magical" concept.

The passage uses "art" and "paintings" interchangeably, so paintings tacitly are the art that As produce.

Based on this, while the phrasing of D ("All art") is extreme, it seems like it is more supported by the passage itself.

I was ultimately tied between D (more extreme phrasing but better supported) vs E (Which seems less directly supported by the passage itself but also lets extreme in phrasing).

The ask: Could someone point out anything in the passage that specifically weakens D to be less attractive than E?
As a side note, is there any lesson to be learned in terms of "what the passage says" vs "what you can reasonably infer"? I'm finding the LSAT's RC sections to be capricious when it comes to sticking to the passage vs making the leap to an inference.

Thanks!

[Jeremy Press]

Hi bengs49,

You've basically got the right idea for eliminating answer choice D, the use of the term "all." Take a look at the first 5 lines of the stimulus: "One of the intriguing questions considered by anthropologists concerns the purpose our early
ancestors had in first creating images of the world around them. Among these images are 25,000-year-old cave paintings made by the Aurignacians." Notice the underlined phrase: carving out a smaller set of art (that the passage then focuses on exclusively) out of the broader subset of "images of the world" created by our ancestors. We don't know, even with the Aurignacians, if the cave paintings that are the sole focus of the passage were the only art created by the Aurignacians. And since we don't know that, it's impossible to infer anything about "all" Aurignacian art. Extreme quantitative terms like "all" and "none" are often indicative of wrong answers on inference oriented questions (including "likely to agree" questions) in the Reading Comprehension section.

The reason we can more confidently choose answer E is not that we have sufficient evidence in the passage that, as a matter of actual fact, the Aurignacians used ceremonies to try to gain magical power over their prey. Rather, use the language of the question stem to evaluate the answer choice: would the author be "likely to agree" with answer choice E. The author spends most of paragraph 3 presenting anthropologists' argument that the paintings were intended as a means of asserting magical power. The author indicates agreement with the argument, where, for example, the phrases "[t]he images were probably intended," and "[o]ther paintings clearly show," appear. Since it's in that context that the author discusses the ceremonies of the Aurignacians (and since those ceremonies took place near the paintings), it's not a stretch to infer that the author would agree with answer choice E. Remember, at the end of the day for this particular question stem, it's about whether the author is likely to agree, not about whether the answer choice must in fact be true based on that passage.

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[Chris_GRZ]

Hello, I thought A) was the right answer instead of E) because I thought it was a stretch to say that the ceremonies was performed to gain magical powers. Both statement were specified in the passage following "some anthropologist view" and thus it was difficult to determine what the author believed or not.