LSAT 119 – Section 3 – Question 24

LSAT 119 - Section 3 - Question 24

June 2005

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Target time: 1:21

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT119 S3 Q24
+LR
Sufficient assumption +SA
Conditional Reasoning +CondR
Link Assumption +LinkA
A
46%
168
B
5%
161
C
11%
159
D
19%
159
E
19%
163
157
166
174
 +Hardest 145.195 +SubsectionEasier

J.Y.’s explanation

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Editorialist: Despite the importance it seems to have in our lives, money does not really exist. This is evident from the fact that all that would be needed to make money disappear would be a universal loss of belief in it. We witness this phenomenon on a small scale daily in the rises and falls of financial markets, whose fluctuations are often entirely independent of concrete causes and are the results of mere beliefs of investors.

Summary
The author concludes that money doesn’t really exist. This is based on the following:
Money disappears if there’s a universal loss of belief in it. (The author follows up with an illustration of this occurring in financial markets.)

Missing Connection
The conclusion brings up the new concept of “does not really exist.” The premises don’t tell us how we can know that something does not really exist. To make the argument valid, we want to know that if universal loss of belief in something would make that thing disappear, then that thing does not really exist. Or, in other words, in order for something to exist, universal loss of belief in something would NOT make that thing disappear.

A
Anything that exists would continue to exist even if everyone were to stop believing in it.
(A) establishes that in order for something to exist, it must be the case that the thing would not disappear from a universal loss of belief. But since we know money does disappear from a universal loss of belief, we can conclude that money does not exist.
B
Only if one can have mistaken beliefs about a thing does that thing exist, strictly speaking.
The premises don’t establish that it’s impossible to have mistaken beliefs about money. So (B) doesn’t interact with the premises and does not establish the conclusion.
C
In order to exist, an entity must have practical consequences for those who believe in it.
The premises don’t establish that there are no practical consequences for those who believe in money. There could be many practical consequences for people who believe in money. So (C) doesn’t interact with the premises and does not establish the conclusion.
D
If everyone believes in something, then that thing exists.
(D) allows us to prove that something DOES exist. But we’re trying to prove that money does NOT exist.
E
Whatever is true of money is true of financial markets generally.
(E) establishes that what’s true of money is true of financial markets. But we’re not trying to conclude that something is true of financial markets. The contrapositive of (E) also would not help; we’re not trying to prove that, because something isn’t true of financial markets, it’s also not true of money.

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LSAT PrepTest 119 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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