#14 - Zachary: One would have to be blind to the reality of

[Adam Tyson]

Great question, tug59567! A good rule to follow is "when in doubt it's a contender." Don't cross out an answer because you don't fully understand it, because that means you cannot know that it is wrong! Losers are answers that you KNOW are wrong, and can explain, at least to yourself and preferably to a room full of judgmental strangers, WHY it's wrong. When faced with challenging vocabulary, you usually won't be able to explain the problem with the answer, so you MUST keep it around and focus on either eliminating the other four or else finding another one that you know for sure is right, a perfect match for your prephrase.

So what's wrong with E that should have allowed you to confidently eliminate it, and thus comfortably settle on the one remaining contender that you did not fully understand? It's that the issue isn't that Zachary doesn't understand the moral obligations of artists. That's not his problem. And it's not that his understanding is too narrow, but perhaps too broad? His problem was probably better prephrased along the lines of "Zacahry's ideas about moral obligations can lead to an unsolvable contradiction." Or maybe "if we follow Zachary's, we may be faced with an impossible conundrum."

And that's pretty much what "untenable" means - a position that cannot be maintained or defended, because it is too problematic or not possible.

Final bit of advice: whenever you encounter challenging vocab on the LSAT, add that word to a list and then look it up! If it shows up in one question, it will likely show up in another, and they do love to push us in that way!

[anureet]

Hey again, jcough! It sure looks that way at first glance, doesn't it? But no, it's not, although I have to believe the authors knew that many people would attack it as if it was one because there are so many elements that are similar to a classic Method question. Two speakers, a question about the second one's response, the use of the word "structured" - it's all there, looking familiar enough to send us down the wrong path if we aren't careful.

In fact, this question is really asking for Cynthia's Main Point! It's not about how she responded to Zachary but about what her reply was meant to demonstrate. That means what she tried to show, or prove. Looked at that way, it gets a lot easier to prephrase a good answer. What Cynthia is trying to do, or prove, is that Zachary's position is inherently flawed.


That one was pretty mean, wasn't it? The authors at LSAC never seem to tire of finding new ways to trick...*ahem* I mean challenge...us. This one is pretty old, over 20 years ago, but it's the kind of thing I would still expect them to pull on us today if they were feeling especially ornery.

Don't fall for it, jcough! Stay alert! Good luck fighting the good fight, brother.

Just a quick question. If we see the word demonstrate in the question stem, does that usually mean it is asking for the author's main point? For example, questions such as, what does this argument demonstrate or what does the structure of this argument demonstrate? I just want to know for future reference as this question stem really confused me.

[Robert Carroll]

anureet,

Most of the examples I found with the word "demonstrate" or similar in the question were Parallel Flaw questions, saying something like "The flawed nature of the argument above can most effectively be demonstrated by noting that, by parallel reasoning, we could conclude that..." The question stem in this thread may be unique. Instead of memorizing wording, think about what the question is asking. What is any argument structured to demonstrate? Its conclusion.

Robert Carroll