Q10 - Interviewer: You have shown that

[eagerlawstudent]

Not sure how the answer was derived from this question...

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

This is an extremely unusual question - thanks for bringing it up, and please let me know if I haven't addressed any of our concerns:

We are asked to evaluate what is wrong with the therapist's reply. To see this clearly, we can think of an analogous argument.

Suppose some "healer" came into your town and said "If you spread my ointment and you wish hard enough, anything ill can be cured."

People believe this guy and buy the product and wish and wish and wish, but nothing happens for them.

They go back to healer, and, each time, his excuse is "you are not wishing hard enough."

Is that fair? No -- he's created a situation in which it is impossible to refute him -- if anyone says it doesn't work - he can just say they are not wishing hard enough.

That's the case here. Notice, per the therapist's argument, there is no way to prove his treatment isn't effective -- rigorous adherence is the automatic built in excuse.

The therapist doesn't fill in the gaps in his claim with reasoning -- instead, he tries to "block" them through arguably faulty logic.

(A) says as much, certainly in more formal language. We can translate (A) to mean "prevents the possibility of proving wrong."

Again, this is a very unusual problem, so don't go looking for this issue in every question, but I hope that helped clear things up a bit.

[esmail.dana]

Hi,

I'm having a lot of trouble seeing why answer choice (E) is wrong on this one. I can see why (A) is correct, but the therapist doesn't take into consideration that maybe the patient doesn't need treatment at all. Couldn't that be a flaw too?

Any thoughts?

Thank you!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Good question esmail.dana!

We're looking for a flaw in the therapist's argument. Does the therapist assert that anyone who gets better has to have gone through treatment? Not really. That's what the therapist would have to assert in order for answer choie (E) to correctly describe a flaw in the therapist's argument. Since the therapist's claim is about people who are not getting better, while answer choice (E) is about people who are getting better, we can say that answer choice (E) is out of scope of the therapist's argument.

You are right that answer choice (E) is describing something that happens in the argument. But I could also say truthfully that the therapist has failed to consider whether the summer monsoon rains will ever return to sub-Saharan Africa. It may be true (it is something the therapist did not consider in his/her argument), but clearly out of the scope of the therapist's argument.

Does that answer your question?

[tzyc]

How about (C)?
Why is this a wrong answer?

Thank you!

[WaltGrace1983]

This is, as has been said, a very interesting argument unlike one I've ever seen on the LSAT. Let's break it down.

Interviewer:
Therapist says that, with rigorous adherence to the proper treatment, any case of insomnia is curable
+
Some patients suffering from insomnia do not respond to treatment
→
[The therapist is wrong]

Therapist:
Patients do not respond to treatment
→
They are not rigorous enough in adhering to treatment

Things to note:

(1) We are focused on the therapist's reply. Thus, don't focus too much on finding the flaw in the interviewer's statement if a flaw exists at all.
(2) The "conclusion" of the interviewer is more or less implied. The interviewer is basically saying that the therapist is wrong in his statement that ALL cases of insomnia can be cured with certain treatment.
(3) Notice the gap in the Therapist's argument. The Therapist is saying that IF they don't respond THEN they must not be doing something right. Well what if they are doing everything right? The therapist is merely assuming that he is right; no if's and's or but's. As Mike already said, this is an argument unlike I have ever seen before so I wouldn't (and won't) make this into something that I look for frequently. Are there even any other problems like this, Manhattan Geeks?

(A) describes the flaw very well. The Therapist is merely concluding "I'm right...no matter what!" As Mike says...

he's created a situation in which it is impossible to refute him -- if anyone says it doesn't work - he can just say they are not wishing hard enough.

(B) is, in my opinion, the most tempting answer actually. I thought this was tempting because there was a little bit of funny business going on with the word "treatment." The interviewer is talking about "with rigorous adherence to the PROPER treatment..." while the Therapist is talking about "if patients do not respond to TREATMENT," period. Maybe the treatment isn't the right treatment? However, the problem with this thinking is that whether or not the treatment is proper doesn't matter. We are talking about ALL treatment. The Therapist says, "If patients don't respond to treatment..." This includes ALL treatment - both proper and improper. Thus, "treatment" is not really ambiguous here but I would still like some clarification on my thought process, if possible.

(C) is wrong because we don't know how the causes affect anything. Maybe the same treatment treats all causes of insomnia. It's possible as the stimulus never refuted it! Whenever it says "fails to acknowledge," we can simply acknowledge it and see how it changes the argument. If it doesn't really change the argument then it isn't a flaw.

(D) No statistics are needed. In fact, how would he even provide stats for not "adhering rigorously enough to the treatment?"

(E) The problem with this answer is that we are concerned with the people who DON'T improve, not those that DO.

[jeanne'sjean]

If I can conclude that the therapist just use a contrapositive of his statement?

IF rigorous adherence --> will be cured

do NOT be cured --> do NOT rigorously adherent