#17 - Members of the Amazonian Akabe people commonly take

[Robert Carroll]

Gayusom,

The stimulus is a cause and effect argument. We have the fact that the Akabe drink only small amounts of a certain tea in the morning. It seems pretty clear that this is a fact, not subject to any doubt, but that the explanation for why the Akabe do that is subject to some dispute. Anthropologists hypothesize that the Akabe drink little in the morning because the high caffeine content would destroy their surefootedness.

In short, the anthropologists think "avoidance of high caffeine content that would destroy surefootedness" is the cause and "taking only small amounts of the tea in the morning" is the effect.

As with any cause and effect argument, we can weaken it by positing some other cause for the effect.

Answer choice (C), the correct answer, has been pretty well discussed in this thread, but if you have any further questions about it, let us know. Adam's post above yours does a great job on answer choice (B), also. So I'll cover the others.

Answer choice (A) brings up another reason to drink the tea, but certainly not a reason to avoid drinking it in large amounts in the morning. If the nutrients were essential, why limit consumption? It's a mystery.

Answer choice (D) has an unclear effect on the argument. Why aren't children introduced to it in large amounts? Because of the caffeine? Some other reason? We have no idea how this could affect the argument.

Answer choice (E) shows that the Akabe drink much more when celebrating. Well, when celebrating, do they need to be surefooted? Probably not. You might object "How do you know they don't have to be surefooted during celebrations?" I truly don't know. But I don't know that they do have to be surefooted during celebrations. So I don't know how this fits into the argument. I can't say it weakens if it has no effect.

Robert Carroll

[InspectahDeck]

Hi Powerscore, this question tripped me up. The area that caused the confusion for me is their use of the word "narcotics".

The lsat authors might have used the word "narcotics" with the intention of catching people who would overthink it. The issue that I ran into is while reading answer choice (C) I immediately debated the definition of narcotic. I wasn't sure if narcotic could refer to any drug. If it does then caffeine would be a narcotic because caffeine is a psychoactive drug. If the definition of narcotic refers to an illegal drug, well I'm not sure if drugs are illegal in the Amazon and if they are then this answer choice rewards us for giving the fictional people a narcotic. The other definition of a narcotic is probably the definition that they wanted us to use? Here, narcotic refers to an opioid. Any thoughts on this idea. It seems that getting this question correct depends on knowing the definition of narcotic.

The next thought was if narcotic is synonymous with drug then could they be playing a dirty trick. The trick being that answer choice C is an empty answer. Telling us that the tea has a narcotic in it, but they already told us that the tea had a narcotic= drug because caffeine in the hypothetical is a narcotic. I now know that my line of reasoning was wrong, however, would they ever play a trick in a weaken question where they tell us something that they already told us (such as caffeine = narcotic) if caffeine = narcotic then answer choice C would not weaken or strengthen the argument.

I know that it's common for them to put answer choices in weaken questions that have no effect on the argument and I wasn't sure if they were doing this with choice C. Maybe next time I should assume that if a certain definition of a word could weaken the argument then I should use that definition.

In the end it seems like I needed to know that they define a narcotic as being an opioid which is a separate drug from caffeine. Anyways, I'm interested in someone else's thoughts on this issue.

[Beatrice Brown]

Hi Inspectah! Thanks for your question

You're definitely right that "narcotic" can mean several different things, and answer choice (C) does not define the meaning of the term. However, I think you ran into an issue here because you were bringing in a lot of outside knowledge of what a narcotic is vs. what caffeine is. On the LSAT, you want to stick as closely as possible to the information given in the stimulus without bringing in outside information that the average person may not be aware of.

To be successful on this question, you don't necessarily need a full understanding of what the test makers meant by "narcotic." Instead, we can rule out all four other answer choices since they do not weaken the conclusion of the argument, leaving us with answer choice (C).

Since this is a causal argument (the author is arguing that the caffeine content is why the Akabe do not drink more of the tea at this time of day), we want to find an answer choice that is a classic way to weaken a causal conclusion. There are several ways to do so, including presenting an alternative cause, showing that the effect does not happen when the cause is present, or showing that the effect happens when the cause is not present. With this in mind, let's look at the other incorrect answer choices.

Answer choice (A) gives us a reason why the Akabe drink this tea in the first place. However, the argument is concerned with why the Akabe don't drink more of it at a certain time of day. This answer choice is more general than that and does not tell us why they do or do not drink a certain amount of tea at a certain time of day. As such, this answer choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (B) tells us another time the Akabe drink the tea: after the work day. However, this does not weaken the conclusion. The author argues that more tea would affect their surefootedness, which is necessary during the day. Just because they drink the tea after the work day does not mean that the caffeine in the tea doesn't affect their surefootedness. Maybe they drink more after the work day since it doesn't matter if their surefootedness is affected! As such, this answer choice is also incorrect.

Answer choice (D) tells us about Akabe children. However, the argument in the stimulus is about the effect of the tea on their ability to complete their daily tasks. In this sense, whether or not children drink a weakened form of the tea does not weaken the conclusion, as this doesn't tell us about whether the caffeine content is why the Akabe don't drink more tea before their work day. As such, this answer choice is incorrect.

Finally, answer choice (E) tells us that the Akabe drink the tea in large quantities when they celebrate. The reason this answer choice is incorrect is similar to why answer choice (B) is incorrect. Maybe they drink large amounts of tea when they celebrate because their surefootedness doesn't matter. Since this answer choice does not weaken the causal connection between the caffeine in the tea and how much tea they drink before the work day, this answer choice is incorrect.

This leaves us with answer choice (C). Answer choice (C) is correct because it provides us with an alternate cause: the Akabe restrict their intake of the tea before the work day not because of its caffeine content, but because the tea leaves contain a soluble narcotic. Regardless of the definition of "narcotic," this answer choice presents an alternate reason for why the Akabe restrict their tea intake at this time of day.

Turning back to your definition of "narcotic," you are correct that the answer choice requires you to understand that caffeine and narcotics are different. However, this type of outside information is something that is acceptable to rely on during the LSAT. Even if you were stuck on the definition, though, process of elimination suggests that answer choice (C) is the best answer choice since it is the only one that presents a classic way to weaken a causal conclusion: presenting an alternate cause.

I hope this helps, and let me know if you have any further questions!