#4 - A work of architecture, if it is to be both inviting

[kky215]

Hi, I am prepping for June13 LSAT and I am going over the old PT's for drills.

While reviewing PT 3, S2, I came across a question.
Initially, I chose E as the answer, and now that I look back at it, I understand why E is not the correct answer.

1) Why is B the correct answer?
2) What does it mean by "violating the precept"? does this mean that modern architects have violated the necessity portion or the sufficiency portion of the conditional diagram?

Below is my interpretation of the question:
Original: inviting and functional for public use unobtrusive (taking 2nd place to the total environment)
Contra: ~unobtrusive (obtrusive) ~inviting or ~functional
modern architects let strong personalities dominate work ~functional for public use

I am confused because the latter half portion of the stimulus does not follow the conditional diagram that I drew for the former half portion of the stimulus.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!
Please help!

[Jon Denning]

Thanks for the questions! This one's pretty tricky, so I'll try to walk you through both the specifics of this stimulus, as well as the broader idea at work. In doing so I'll answer both your questions, but I think it would actually be most helpful to answer them in reverse order, explaining #2 (violate a precept) to help explain #1 (why B is correct).

What exactly are we being told when the stimulus says "modern architects have violated this precept"? Well in a general sense what that means is that people have been able to act in a way that breaks the rule, potentially achieving/accomplishing some thing without fulfilling the necessary component for it. What's interesting is that on the LSAT they go just a bit further with it, and by "violate a precept" they mean specifically that the necessary condition did NOT occur.

Imagine I told you some principle was true, like "People who score well on the LSAT must study hard." And then I said "But recently people have been violating this precept [breaking this rule/avoiding this truth]." What would that mean? For us it would mean that recently people have been scoring well on the LSAT without having to study hard...essentially the necessary condition wasn't necessary anymore. So a disconnect in the original relationship. And the same is true for the test makers, with just a little extra: not only is the necessary no longer necessary, but it's specifically not occurring. So for our example here it wouldn't just be that studying hard is no longer necessary, it would be even more explicit that some people aren't studying hard.

And that's exactly what happens in this stimulus. We are told that if architecture is inviting and functional, it must be unobtrusive (your diagram is correct). But then we are told that modern architects "violate this precept." That means their architecture IS obtrusive (not unobtrusive). Now, it gets confusing of course with the final sentence, where we're told they produce buildings that are not functional, but that doesn't undermine the second sentence: as soon as the precept is violated we can reasonably conclude the original necessary condition (unobtrusive) is no longer present (not unobtrusive), and that's why answer choice B is correct.

A final point: it's pretty unusual for the test makers to set up relationships like this, where a specific condition or absence of a condition (like "not functional" here) doesn't really matter--again, all we need to know to prove B is the original precept where architecture is unobtrusive is being violated. Usually something like the final sentence of this stimulus would yield inferences of its own, but here it would just lead to a mistaken negation of the original and so it isn't relevant.

Again, tricky question and very uncommon idea/language, but hopefully that helps explain it and also prepares you in case you encounter something similar moving forward!

Jon

[karen4300]

I am really, really confused about this question. I felt like all of them (cept A & D) was plausible...
I understand why B is right...but I couldn't narrow it down.

My diagramming looked like this:

inviting & functional unobtrusive

contra: ~unobstrusive ~inviting or ~functional

strong personality ~ unobstrusive ~functional

Why would C be wrong? Since strong personality ~functional.
Why can't E be right?

Thank you

[Adam Tyson]

Having a strong personality isn't the problem for these architects, Karen. The problem is when they let their strong personalities take over their work! That's why answers like C and E do not necessarily follow from the stimulus. Perhaps there are some architects with strong personalities who don't let their personalities take over their work, and they produce unobtrusive buildings that are functional and inviting?

[karen4300]

Having a strong personality isn't the problem for these architects, Karen. The problem is when they let their strong personalities take over their work! That's why answers like C and E do not necessarily follow from the stimulus. Perhaps there are some architects with strong personalities who don't let their personalities take over their work, and they produce unobtrusive buildings that are functional and inviting?

Ah!!!! Thank you so much. I understand now.

[kupwarriors9]

Is this a justify the conclusion question? I attempted this question at 'finding the gap' from the premises and conclusion, and got the right answer since I noticed B did not contain functional in it (functional was talked about alot in the stimulus). Or is my way just pure luck?

Having a strong personality isn't the problem for these architects, Karen. The problem is when they let their strong personalities take over their work! That's why answers like C and E do not necessarily follow from the stimulus. Perhaps there are some architects with strong personalities who don't let their personalities take over their work, and they produce unobtrusive buildings that are functional and inviting?

[Adam Tyson]

"Which one of the statements below follows logically" in the stem means that it's a Must Be True question, kupwarriors9. You can think of Justify the Conclusion and Must Be True as mirror images of each other: in the former, the answer proves the stimulus, while in the latter the stimulus proves the answer. The biggest difference is usually in the strength of the correct answer, because a Justify answer is usually very strong (it must be if it is going to do the heavy lifting of proving the argument is valid), while a Must Be True answer tends to be meek and mild (so that the stimulus doesn't have to do as much heavy lifting to prove it).

[kupwarriors9]

Thanks a bunch

"Which one of the statements below follows logically" in the stem means that it's a Must Be True question, kupwarriors9. You can think of Justify the Conclusion and Must Be True as mirror images of each other: in the former, the answer proves the stimulus, while in the latter the stimulus proves the answer. The biggest difference is usually in the strength of the correct answer, because a Justify answer is usually very strong (it must be if it is going to do the heavy lifting of proving the argument is valid), while a Must Be True answer tends to be meek and mild (so that the stimulus doesn't have to do as much heavy lifting to prove it).

[pelusolakes]

I have read through this thread and while I can understand why the incorrect answer choices are incorrect, I still do not understand how it is that answer choice B is correct. I am stumped by this question. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

STATEMENT 1: "A work of architecture, if it is to be both inviting and functional for public use, must be unobtrusive, taking second place to the total environment."

inviting + functional for public use --> ~obtrusive

contrapositive: obtrusive --> ~inviting or ~functional for public use

STATEMENT 2: "Modern architects, plagued by egoism, have violated this precept. They have let their strong personalities take over their work, producing buildings that are not functional for public use."

We are thus told that modern architects (because they let their strong personalities take over their work) are producing buildings that are not functional for public use.

Answer choice B states that "modern architects who let their strong personalities take over their work produce buildings that are not unobtrusive." In other words, they produce obtrusive buildings.

The stimulus tells us that modern architects are producing buildings that are not functional for public use. We know from the contrapositive of the first statement that if a building is obtrusive, then it is either not inviting or it is not functional for public use. Does it follow that a building that is not functional for public use is obtrusive? No it does not: that would constitute a mistaken reversal of the conditional statement!

"not functional for public use" is nowhere a sufficient condition. It is a necessary condition of the contrapositive obtrusive --> ~inviting or ~functional for public use. We learn in the PowerScore Bibles that we cannot know what happens when a necessary condition is satisfied: we only know what happens when a sufficient condition is satisfied. Therefore, we cannot infer from the fact that modern architects produce buildings that are not functional for public use, that they produce obtrusive buildings.

[Luke Haqq]

Hi pelusolakes!

Happy to explain the correct answer choice on this one.

We're told in the stimulus that modern architects have violated the given precept by producing buildings that are not functional for public use.

Modern architects, plagued by egoism, have violated this precept.

In other words, the stimulus is telling us that their work is not functional for public use by virtue of violating the precept in the first sentence.

And that precept you correctly diagram. If a given piece of architecture is to be both inviting and functional for public use, then we know that it cannot be obtrusive. The stimulus doesn't say anything about whether or not modern architects produce works that are "inviting," it only speaks to them being "not functional for public use," yet we know that they violate the precept in the stimulus. These works violate the mentioned precept by virtue of not being functional for public use, and the precept indicates that obtrusive works are not functional for public use.

In sum, we know that modern architects violate the precept, we don't know if their works are inviting, but we do know that they are not functional for public use. In what possible ways then can we know that they violated the precept? The only possibility that we are left with is that these works are obtrusive (or "not unobtrusive" in the language of answer choice (B)). This would make them not functional for public use.