#20- Sociologist: Climate and geology determine where human

[Roadto170]

Is it fair to say that answer choice C is the contrapositive of a premise in the stimulus. Although I missed this during my initial attempt, I am seeing this as a possibility now.

Premise: drastic shifts in climate always result in migrations ( Climate Shift (CS) > Migration (M))
C: A population remains settled only when the climate is fairly stable (Settled pop (-M) > Climate Fairly Stable (-CS).

Additionally, if this is the case, how should I pick this up during the test if I am not allowed/advised to use scratch paper?

Thanks!

[tessajw]

In terms of the LSAT, we were taught that in questions where Cause and Effect occurs, the author states that their is only one cause. We were taught that we should take the authors meaning to imply that there is only one cause for one effect. How come this rule doesnt apply to this question? Why is A not right, if the author, as described by powerscore, indicates that the cause always brings about the effect, therefor is the only cause.

[tessajw]

This is a direct response I have received from a power score staff regarding cause and effect:

"Hey Tessajw,

For cause and effect conditional logic, the stated cause must be the only cause of the effect. In this case, if the argument says reading causes a person to be intelligent, we must assume that no other factors cause a person to be intelligent. This is how the LSAT treats cause and effect arguments, which I understand is different from how we might use them in regular daily life. Because only 1 cause can bring about the 1 effect, we must assume that any other possible causes do not actually bring about intelligence - that is why these examples are used as defender assumptions. They help defend our argument against possible ways to weaken it.

I would suggest reviewing the lessons on cause and effect arguments in order to better understand this concept if it's still giving you trouble! Hope that helps."

So I am just confused.

[Luke Haqq]

Hi tessajw!

There seems to be a slight difference in the wording that takes answer choice (A) out of contention for a must be true question. Note that the stimulus only refers to "drastic shifts in climate" always resulting in migration. Thus, if answer choice (A) had said "drastic shifts in climate cause migration," then it would have been true based on the stimulus. However, (A) makes a slightly different claim in asserting that climate in general is the primary cause of migration, which we don't know to be true based off the stimulus.