#23 - To be horrific, a monster must be threatening. Whether

[bankerguy02]

I am not sure it is because my head is smoking but I am having a hard time with Q23.

I understand it is a must be true but I having a difficult following the structure.

"To be horrific, a monster must be threatening. Whether or not it presents psychological, moral, or social dangers or triggers enduring infantile fears, if a monster is physically dangerous then it is threatening. In fact, even a physically benign monster is horrific if it inspires revulsion."

The correct answers is (E) All monsters that are not physically dangerous, but that are psychologically dangerous and inspire revulsion, are threatening.

Thanks,

Matt

[Steve Stein]

Hi,

Good question--there just aren't enough monster-based questions on the LSAT.

That one uses quite a bit of conditional reasoning. Did you try diagramming the statements?

Let me know how you went about breaking this one down--thanks!

~Steve

[bankerguy02]

Horrific threatening inspire revulsion

[Steve Stein]

Hi,

Thanks for your response--let's take this one statement at a time, so that I can see where you had issues. The first part is correct: horrific threat.

Did you draw any contrapositives as you were going through the stimulus? Always a good idea.

Let me know--thanks!

~Steve

[bankerguy02]

Yes,

I put not threat not horr

[Steve Stein]

Hey Bankerguy,

Thanks for your response--that's correct. Lets continue the breakdown from there, and I'll number the statements for easy reference:

1) Horrific threatening
2) NOT threatening NOT horrific

3) Dangerous threatening
4) NOT threatening NOT Dangerous

5) Inspire revulsion horrific
6) NOT horrific NOT inspire revulsion

As you said this is a Must Be True question, so the correct answer choice will be the one that is confirmed by the statements above.

From statement 5 above, we know that if a monster inspires revulsion it is horrific, and from statement 1 we know that if a monster is horrific then it is threatening:

inspire revulsion horrific threatening

The combined statement above is sufficient to confirm correct answer choice E.

I hope that's helpful! Let me know whether this is clear--thanks!

~Steve

[gmosquera42]

Hey Bankerguy,

Thanks for your response--that's correct. Lets continue the breakdown from there, and I'll number the statements for easy reference:

1) Horrific threatening
2) NOT threatening NOT horrific

3) Dangerous threatening
4) NOT threatening NOT Dangerous

5) Inspire revulsion horrific
6) NOT horrific NOT inspire revulsion

As you said this is a Must Be True question, so the correct answer choice will be the one that is confirmed by the statements above.

From statement 5 above, we know that if a monster inspires revulsion it is horrific, and from statement 1 we know that if a monster is horrific then it is threatening:

inspire revulsion horrific threatening

The combined statement above is sufficient to confirm correct answer choice E.

I hope that's helpful! Let me know whether this is clear--thanks!

~Steve

Could you please elaborate a bit more on why E is correct.. It doesnt seem like there is enough evidence to satisfy the statement. What is the method of reasoning to not select each of the other answer choices?

[Francis O'Rourke]

Answer choice (E) is a bit loaded down with terms, but the most important part is that all monsters that inspire revulsion are threatening:
inspire revulsion threatening

This was a direct inference from the chain described above by Steve Shein

From statement 5 above, we know that if a monster inspires revulsion it is horrific, and from statement 1 we know that if a monster is horrific then it is threatening:

inspire revulsion horrific threatening

The combined statement above is sufficient to confirm correct answer choice E.

Those combined statements are enough to confirm E, because we can infer that the final condition is necessary for the first sufficient condition in a conditional chain. For example, if A B C, then A C

What made (E) difficult was the description of monsters that are not physically dangerous, but are psychologically dangerous. This is completely irrelevant. The stimulus told us that any monster that is revolting is threatening, so we don't care what other qualities the monster has.

Let me know if this helps you.


Answer choice (A) commits the Mistaken Reversal

Answer choice (B) commits the Mistaken Negation

We do not have enough information to assess the validity of Answer choice (C)

Answer choice (D) tells us the following:
horrific
+ revolting
psych. threatening

We only know that something does not inspire revulsion if it is not not horrific, so we cannot say if this answer choice is true or not.

[BrookeLSATQUEEN]

My issue with e is that it’s externe, and also because it goes from a physically benign monster inspiring revulsion to all monsters. Didn’t the passage qualify , how can we know about all monsters ?

[Adam Tyson]

It's okay that the answer is extreme, Queen, because the evidence is that powerful. That's the beauty of conditional reasoning, as shown in the diagrams earlier in this thread.

If a monster inspires revulsion, it's horrific. The part about "even if it's physically benign" doesn't mean that ONLY physically benign monsters are this way; it means that it doesn't matter if it's physically benign or if it's physically dangerous. And it doesn't matter if it's psychologically dangerous, either - that part of answer E is a red herring. If it inspires revulsion, it's horrific, and if it's horrific, it must be threatening. Thus, if it inspires revulsion, it must be threatening. That conditional chain takes us all the way there with absolute certainty!