#22 - Any writer whose purpose is personal expression

[Kp13]

Hi there,

I am having trouble understanding how to arrive at the correct answer choice in this problem. Especially translating the correct answer choice C) into a conditional statement. I picked answer choice A).

I translated the stimulus like this:

P1: Any writer whose purpose is personal expression Sometimes ambiguous
P2: Every poet Personal expression
Thus: Poet Personal expression sometimes ambiguous

C: Poetry reader's enjoyment NOT precise understanding (i.e.: Ambiguous use of words).

I know that the correct answer must connect the poetry reader's enjoyment back to the premises to justify the conclusion, but I am unclear as to how answer C does it and importantly how to even translate answer C into a conditional statement. Also, what exactly makes answer A wrong?

Please help!

Thank you,

[Adam Tyson]

You're on the right track, KP, and your diagram of the stimulus is, in my opinion, perfect. Put another way, they add up to "if you are a poet you sometimes use words ambiguously".

You're absolutely right that to justify this conclusion about readers' enjoyment we have to tie it back to the premises - more specifically, we need to make the conclusion necessary in the presence of those premises. Conditionally, the premises need to be sufficient for the conclusion.

Your prephrase, then, should be something like "if you sometimes use words ambiguously, then your readers' enjoyment can't depend on a perfect understanding." That would complete the conditional chain that ends with that conclusion being justified - and that is exactly what answer choice C does. If we were to diagram answer C, it would look like just what we need: use words ambiguously ---> enjoyment depends on understanding

Answer A has some of the right elements, but it's a shell game of sorts. Rather than including the required element of enjoyment, it instead introduces a different element of trying (call that the element of desire), which is not quite the same. Could it be that some readers try to attain perfect understanding, but still enjoy the poems without ever attaining that level of understanding? Sure it could! Answer A doesn't justify our conclusion because it never gets all the way to the critical element of enjoyment.

Good job analyzing this one - keep up the good work! Practice with these conditional justify questions will really pay off.

[Kp13]

Thanks very much! It's much clearer to me now.

[brettb]

I have a question regarding the diagram.

How can we determine when to use and when to use Sometimes

For example,

I diagrammed it as Personal Expression Uses Words Ambiguously.
But I've seen it diagrammed as Personal Expression Sometimes Uses Words Ambiguously.

I believe based on the some rules my diagram technically is not incorrect. But the 2nd diagram is more correct. Because of this I wasn't able to justify the conclusion. I was able to eliminate the other answer choices because I could disprove them based on my diagram, but I'm currently struggling with time, and I think being able to identify the correct answer choice as opposed to eliminating all of the other answer choices is one area I can improve on time.

So any feedback on how to determine when to use would be helpful.

Thanks!

[Claire Horan]

Hi Brett,

is a way of qualifying a conditional statement in the situation where not all individuals of the group behave a certain way. For example, doctors women.

But the situation in #22 is different. In that example EVERY poet sometimes uses language in ambiguous ways. Therefore, there is no reason to qualify the conditional statement itself because the contrapositive can be taken without worrying. If you never (logical opposite of sometimes) uses language ambiguously, then you are not a poet.

I hope this helps!

-Claire
PowerScore LSAT and GRE Instructor

[alexmcc]

Thanks for all the previous discussion you guys do on these questions.

I'm still a bit confused on answer A. I know it's a shell game answer with the desire element of trying, and I know that C is better, but I'm having trouble crossing out A.

Answer A has some of the right elements, but it's a shell game of sorts. Rather than including the required element of enjoyment, it instead introduces a different element of trying (call that the element of desire), which is not quite the same. Could it be that some readers try to attain perfect understanding, but still enjoy the poems without ever attaining that level of understanding? Sure it could! Answer A doesn't justify our conclusion because it never gets all the way to the critical element of enjoyment.

Answer A has some right elements and says that no readers try to attain a perfect understanding. In reference to the quote from Adam T., just because some readers might try to attain a perfect understanding but fail in doing so, yet still enjoy the poetry-- that doesn't seem to make Answer A wrong. You know this question is a Justify question and not a Necessary Assumption question. Rather, wouldn't it be that if no one tried to attain a perfect understanding, as answer A says, there might still be some people who attain a perfect understanding without trying, and whose enjoyment could still rely on that perfect understanding there-developed? And if so, would it only be the second situation that fails to justify our conclusion?

This question is grinding my gears.

Alex

[James Finch]

Hi Alex,

With Justify questions, we have to tie new elements in a conclusion with an element present in one of the premises. Think of it as putting in a missing link in a chain.
Despite answer choice (A) having the element present in a premise (poets being writers who sometimes use words ambiguously) it's missing the new element in the conclusion, which is readers' enjoyment of a written work. As Adam pointed out, it instead substitutes another unrelated condition (trying to know the precise meaning). So (A) cannot justify our stimulus, because it lacks the required elements to link the conclusion to the premises and allow us to know the conclusion is 100% true.

Contrast that to (C), where we have the linkage poets (who all sometimes use words ambiguously) with readers' enjoyment. Justify questions are almost a mechanical or structural issue, where you have to avoid putting a round peg in a square hole, even if it does fit inside, because the it has to fit perfectly, with no space for doubt around the edges.

Hope this clears things up!

[alexmcc]

OK, thanks for the analogy James!

[Imcuffy]

I seem to be having some trouble with connecting the conclusion with the premises. I understand most conclusions and most premises separately but it seems the gap is where I go wrong. For example:

When I diagrammed my conditional statement it was as such:

P1: Any writer whose purpose is personal expression ---> Sometimes ambiguous
P2: Every poet ---> Personal expression
Thus: Poet ---> Personal expression ---> sometimes ambiguous

Conclusion: I did not see any conditional statement indicators so I did not put it as one. However, I understood that that the conclusion switched to poetry readers while the premises talked about 1- writers and 2- poets. Thus it seems to me that the stimulus has 3 things: writers, poets, and readers.

I understand that I have to bridge the gap to readers but whether from writers or poets, I was not sure. Additionally, I did catch the inference that all poets had to have personal expression because writers have personal expression.

Now.. having all of these components together, I am not clear on how to bridge that gap. I can see each element separately and can see where they should meet but bringing them together seems to confuse me at time.

Additionally I went back and read the other posts which did help. However there were a few things that I did not clearly grasp. ie: THIS was the tutor's response:

You're on the right track, KP, and your diagram of the stimulus is, in my opinion, perfect. Put another way, they add up to "if you are a poet you sometimes use words ambiguously".

You're absolutely right that to justify this conclusion about readers' enjoyment we have to tie it back to the premises - more specifically, we need to make the conclusion necessary in the presence of those premises. Conditionally, the premises need to be sufficient for the conclusion.

Your prephrase, then, should be something like "if you sometimes use words ambiguously, then your readers' enjoyment can't depend on a perfect understanding." That would complete the conditional chain that ends with that conclusion being justified - and that is exactly what answer choice C does. If we were to diagram answer C, it would look like just what we need: use words ambiguously ---> NO enjoyment depends on understanding

Answer A has some of the right elements, but it's a shell game of sorts. Rather than including the required element of enjoyment, it instead introduces a different element of trying (call that the element of desire), which is not quite the same. Could it be that some readers try to attain perfect understanding, but still enjoy the poems without ever attaining that level of understanding? Sure it could! Answer A doesn't justify our conclusion because it never gets all the way to the critical element of enjoyment.

Good job analyzing this one - keep up the good work! Practice with these conditional justify questions will really pay off.

1. I did not understand why I would have to make the conclusion a necessary condition.
2. I did not understand how to muster up a prephrase in this one. Perhaps there is a step I am missing that will bring it all together.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Cuffy,

The conclusion is necessary because of the structure of a justify question. Justify questions ask us to find what is sufficient to draw the conclusion. 'We are always looking in this question type to find the answer choice that is sufficient, and we treat the conclusion as necessary.

So here, we prephrase by thinking about what would be enough to get us to draw the conclusion they draw---that there can't be any poetry reader whose enjoyment depends on precise understanding. To get there, we'd need to link the idea of ambiguous word use from the premises to reader enjoyment in the conclusion. It's a strong conclusion--NO reader's enjoyment depends on precise understanding. To get there we'd need something that tells us that ambiguous writers have no readers that depend on that understanding. That's the phrephrase I'd use here.

Hope that helps!
Rachael