LSAT 131 – Section 2 – Question 17

LSAT 131 - Section 2 - Question 17

December 2009

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT131 S2 Q17
+LR
Sufficient assumption +SA
Conditional Reasoning +CondR
Link Assumption +LinkA
A
1%
151
B
1%
155
C
2%
158
D
1%
152
E
96%
164
127
136
145
 +Easier 147.936 +SubsectionMedium

Teachers should not do anything to cause their students to lose respect for them. And students can sense when someone is trying to hide his or her ignorance. Therefore, a teacher who does not know the answer to a question a student has asked should not pretend to know the answer.

Summary
The author concludes that a teacher should never pretend to know the answer to a question asked by a student. Why? Because students are aware when a teacher pretends to know something, and teachers should never do anything that causes students to lose respect for them.

Missing Connection
The conclusion is about a very specific action (pretending to know the answer), and we know that teachers should preserve respect at all costs. So, the premises would lead to the conclusion if we knew that students lose respect for a teacher when they sense that teachers are feigning knowledge.

A
A teacher cannot be effective unless he or she retains the respect of students.
The argument doesn’t address effectiveness. We need to conclude that teachers shouldn’t pretend to know things.
B
Students respect honesty above all else.
We do not need to know what students respect most. We need to know how to avoid losing the respect of students. We cannot assume that just because students respect honesty above everything else, that dishonesty will lose their respect.
C
Students’ respect for a teacher is independent of the amount of knowledge they attribute to that teacher.
This is, if anything, trying to weaken the argument: If student respect has nothing to do with knowledge, then the teacher won’t lose respect when they pretend due to lack of knowledge. It still isn’t a Weaken answer, because they could lose respect due to the lying itself.
D
Teachers are able to tell when students respect them.
Irrelevant. Based on the information we have, we don’t know that a teacher’s awareness of student respect doesn’t change it for the better or worse.
E
Students lose respect for teachers whenever they sense that the teachers are trying to hide their ignorance.
This provides a link from something we know to be true (students can sense when teachers are faking) to something we’ve been told must be avoided (loss of respect). So, teachers should not fake it.

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LSAT PrepTest 131 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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