#16 - If a novelist is popular he or she can vividly imagine

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[lsatbossintraining]

Hi -

This one was the hardest question in both LR sections for me.

Here's my breakdown: Didn't see an argument so I just thought in terms of what could be possible. Whatever seemed possible, I ruled out.

(A): Possible. Some people who aren't popular novelists could themselves have the same qualities as popular novelists.
(B): Possible. The stimulus never said all novelists were capable of empathizing - just that some were incapable of doing so.
(C): Possible that some popular novelists lack this ability. The stimulus just says that such writers are capable of empathizing, not that they must have that quality.
(D): I don't think this is possible based on the stimulus.
(E): I wasn't sure this was possible either, but chose (D) on kind of an "instinctual guess".

A step-by-step breakdown would be greatly appreciated, since this was such a difficult question.

Thanks very much,
Kyle

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Kyle,

In a Cannot Be True question with conditional reasoning in the stimulus (like this one), I find it helpful to sketch the conditional relationships, and then prephrase based on my conditional sketches. The prephrase centers around the one thing that absolutely cannot happen in any conditional relationship, which is that you can never have a sufficient condition present without its necessary condition.

The first statement in the stimulus is conditional (we know from the "if," a sufficient condition indicator word). The sketch of that first statement is as follows: Popular Vividly Imagine. I'm simplifying that necessary condition for the sake of my diagram, but what "Vividly Imagine" stands in for is that entire phrase in the stimulus, "vividly imagine large numbers of characters, each with a personality and attitudes that are completely different from those of the others and from those of the novelist."

Based on my sketch, one of my prephrases is to look for an answer choice that states a novelist IS popular, but CANNOT vividly imagine large numbers of that certain type of characters. Sadly, none of the answers matches that prephrase.

The second statement in the stimulus is also conditional (we know because the statement is an implied "all" statement, about all popular novelists, and also because of the "will," which makes the following information necessarily true of popular novelists). The sketch of that second statement is as follows: Popular Capable of Empathizing. Again, I've simplified that necessary condition for the sake of the diagram, but what "Capable of Empathizing" stands in for is this entire phrase, "capable of empathizing with people who have goals completely different from his or her own."

Based on my sketch, another of my prephrases is an answer choice that states a novelist IS popular, but CANNOT empathize with people who have goals completely different from his or her own. Happily, that one is stated in the answer choices, answer choice C, which is about a popular novelist who cannot empathize with such people. That cannot occur, because capacity for such empathy is (under the second sentence in the stimulus) a necessary condition of being a popular novelist.

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[mirah.abu1]

Hello,

Can someone explain to me what exactly Answer choice D is saying?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Sure, Mirah.

The structure of answer choice (D) means that there are not people who have both characteristics mentioned. So if someone has doubts about the value of their desires, then the are not incapable of empathizing. And if someone is incapable of empathizing, then they cannot have doubts about the value of their desires. It essentially sets up a diagram that looks like this:

has doubts about values of desires incapable of empathizing

It's a bit tricky with all those double negatives floating around!

[ange.li6778]

So is D wrong because the scope is too broad? "No people who lack doubts" rather than confining the statement to only popular novelists?

[Robert Carroll]

ange.li6778,

Answer choice (D) is a bad use of a conditional - from the second sentence of the stimulus, we can infer

such a writer able to empathize AND have doubts

Answer choice (D) diagrams as follows:

have doubts able to empathize

That's just trying to combine two necessary conditions with each other into a conditional, which isn't possible. That doesn't make it false - it's just an invalid inference, so cannot be proved true or false. Thus, for a Cannot Be True question, since we can't prove this statement true OR false, we can't prove it false, and thus it's not correct.

Robert Carroll

[mab9178]

Hi

So regarding D and based on the explanations offered above, the word "so" in the stimulus is superseded by the conjunction "and," that came before it. Correct?

The last sentence inn the stimulus states: "Such a writer also will be capable of empathizing with people who have goals completely different from his or her own AND SO will have some doubts about the genuine value of his or her own desires."

However, what if the last sentence was broken into two sentences separated by a period that read as follows,
"Such a writer also will be capable of empathizing with people who have goals completely different from his or her own. AND SO such a writer will have some doubts about the genuine value of his or her own desires," then how would the logic be diagrammed as? Still two necessaries guaranteed by the sufficient condition a popular novelist?

Please and thank You
Mazen

[Adam Tyson]

My read of "and so" is that it introduces a conclusion ("so" is a common conclusion indicator). That line is saying that these writers will have empathy, and therefore they will have doubts.

D is a wrong answer because it's also possible that everyone who has those doubts also feels empathy. It's not necessarily true, but it could be, and we need to select an answer that cannot be true (as opposed to one that we just can't prove is true).

Breaking it into two distinct sentences would not change that meaning.