LSAT 104 – Section 4 – Question 07

LSAT 104 - Section 4 - Question 07

December 1998

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT104 S4 Q07
+LR
Flaw or descriptive weakening +Flaw
Conditional Reasoning +CondR
A
4%
160
B
4%
161
C
0%
160
D
92%
169
E
0%
131
141
152
 +Easier 147.438 +SubsectionMedium

J.Y.’s explanation

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If you know a lot about history, it will be easy for you to impress people who are intellectuals. But unfortunately, you will not know much about history if you have not, for example, read a large number of history books. Therefore, if you are not well versed in history due to a lack of reading, it will not be easy for you to impress people who are intellectuals.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author’s conditional conclusion is that if you’re not widely read—and therefore don’t know a lot about history—then it won’t be easy to impress intellectuals. As premises, he gives two conditional claims:

(1) If you know a lot about history, it’s easy to impress intellectuals.

(2) If you’re not well-read on history, you won’t know a lot about history (or, taking the contrapositive, to know a lot about history, you must be well-read on history).

Identify and Describe Flaw
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of mistaking sufficiency for necessity. The author treats “know history” as necessary for “impress.” But “know history” is sufficient, not necessary. So negating “know history” tells us nothing about “impress.”

In other words, the argument overlooks the possibility that one can not know a lot about history and yet still easily impress intellectuals.

A
many intellectuals are not widely read in history
This wouldn’t damage the argument, so overlooking it can’t be a flaw. The author argues that knowing a lot about history is necessary to easily impress intellectuals, but he makes no assumptions about those intellectuals’ own knowledge or reading of history.
B
there are people who learn about history who do not impress intellectuals
This wouldn’t damage the argument, so overlooking it can’t be a flaw. The author argues that knowing a lot about history is necessary to easily impress. The possibility that learning something about history isn’t sufficient to impress is entirely consistent with his argument.
C
it is more important to impress people who are not intellectuals than people who are intellectuals
This wouldn’t damage the argument, so overlooking it can’t be a flaw. The argument is simply about whether one can, or cannot, easily impress intellectuals. How important it might be to impress them, or to impress anyone else, is irrelevant.
D
there are other easy ways to impress intellectuals that do not involve knowing history
This means that knowing a lot about history isn’t necessary to easily impress intellectuals. This is exactly what the argument overlooks. The conclusion mistakenly treats “know history” as a necessary condition, while in the premises, “know history” is merely sufficient.
E
people who are not intellectuals can be impressed more easily than people who are intellectuals
This wouldn’t damage the argument, so overlooking it can’t be a flaw. The argument is about whether one can, or cannot, easily impress intellectuals. How easy it is to impress anyone else is irrelevant.

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LSAT PrepTest 104 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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