#6 - Citizen: The primary factor determining a dog’s

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Main Point. The correct answer choice is (A)

This stimulus opens with two premises: A dog’s disposition is primarily determined by its home environment; and breed-specific legislation does not address the dog’s environment, breeding, or training. The conclusion indicator here is the phrase “as a result” (synonymous with “therefore,” “thus,” etc.), which leads into the Main Point: “such breed-specific legislation could never effectively protect the public from vicious dogs.” The additional premise indicator “moreover” in the final sentence is used to present the author’s view that current laws are adequate.

Answer choice (A) is the correct answer choice, as it restates the prephrased conclusion above.

Answer choices (B) and (C) present the two premises from the stimulus, and answer choice (D) is supported by the stimulus, but it is certainly not the main point.

Answer choice (E) is unsupported the stimulus; if the author believes that current laws are adequate, and the author’s main concern is home environment, then it seems likely that current laws do address such effects.

[blade21cn]

I understand the stimulus fine, until the last sentence. Before the last sentence, I identified the conclusion as "As a result, such breed-specific legislation could never effectively protect the public from vicious dogs," especially with the conclusion indicator "as a result." However, the next sentence, which is also the last one, states, "Moreover, in my view, the current laws are perfectly adequate." I know "moreover" is a premise indicator to add another premise, but its meaning really threw me off. Where does "current laws" come from? The discussion in the stimulus so far is about breed-specific legislation in general. How does that support the previous sentence, which is the conclusion? The conclusion essentially says that breed-specific legislation is inadequate. The addition of such a new concept does indicate the existence of a "new" legislation, which correlates with the breed-specific legislation at issue. So it sounds like the argument is not over yet, when the last sentence is added. In other words, since there's no overlapping concept/noun between the last two sentences, they should be combined to prove something else. I tend to think it's pointing toward either "the current legislation is not breed-specific" or "we should not replace current laws with a breed-specific legislation." I know none of these thinking proves fruitful in finding a better answer choice than (A), but I lost valuable time contemplating these issues, especially because some LSAT Main Point questions would provide answer choices that are not originally from the stimulus text, but a paraphrased or summarized conclusion. I think my takeaway is that whenever a sentence is confirmed to be a premise, just ignore it, as LSAC will attempt to confuse us with word meaning as its second wave of attack, after we have successfully analyzed the structure of the discourse. But to seek a deeper understanding, can anyone shed lights on the logical link between the last two sentences, while the last premise still supports, rather than changes, the conclusion? Thanks!

[Claire Horan]

Hi Blade21cn,

You've done a great job of analyzing the challenges you encountered in approaching this problem for the first time. You stated:

I think my takeaway is that whenever a sentence is confirmed to be a premise, just ignore it

Of course! LSAT questions can be distracting, but try not to lose sight of what the question asked you to identify: the conclusion. The overall conclusion will be supported by premises. It will not be a premise, a statement asserted without support. The last sentence of the stimulus does use an indicator word ("moreover"), but you also know it is a premise and not a conclusion because, as you point out in your post, the discussion of "current laws" comes out of nowhere and is not supported by any statement in the stimulus.

Finally, you ask:

can anyone shed lights on the logical link between the last two sentences, while the last premise still supports, rather than changes, the conclusion?

Within your question is an assumption that every premise must support the conclusion. This is not true. In fact, a conclusion may be supported by only one premise. In some cases, a stimulus is full of irrelevant statements, background statements, or even counterpremises that do not support the conclusion. I disagree that the last sentence changes the conclusion in the stimulus rather than supports it, but it doesn't really matter either way because there does not need to be any logical link at all between these two sentences.

I hope this response clears things up. If not, please post more questions! Good luck!

[cd1010]

Hello! I am currently in the Live Online course.

I got this question correctly, but I was confused by the explanation for why answer E was wrong: "Answer choice (E) is unsupported the stimulus; if the author believes that current laws are adequate, and the author’s main concern is home environment, then it seems likely that current laws do address such effects."

I read the last sentence in the stimulus to be implying that vicious-dog laws are not part of current laws, and that vicious dog laws are not necessary if we already have current laws in place. So, I didn't cross this answer out because it was unsupported, but because I thought it was a premise (a paraphrase of the sentence: "Legislation focusing on specific breeds of dogs would not address the effects of human behavior in raising and training animals"). Now that I am re-reading this answer choice though, the word "currently" is inaccurate because it's not stated in the stimulus that these legislations currently are in place (versus, say, just a bill).

Can you clarify?

[Adam Tyson]

My take on answer E is that it is neither a premise nor a conclusion, cd1010. It's just extra info that has no bearing on the argument. Do the current laws address human behavior? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe they just deal with the steps to be taken when a dog bites someone. Is there evidence to support the claim that the current laws are adequate? No. Did the author use that claim to support another claim? No.

Your interpretation of that line in the stimulus is also unsupported; be careful about bringing in your own assumptions! There may very well be laws in place that do an adequate job of protecting the public from vicious dogs, and they may, or may not, address the effects of human behavior. We just can't know what those laws say or do. That's why E is not only not the conclusion, but not even something that must be true.