Q11 - Biologist: Humans have five fingers

[weiyichen1986]

Hi,

I pick A in this question, the conclusion states " if humans....then we would be just as content with that configuration (six per hand"

then i look back to the evidence, and get lost......is it saying we are content with what we have???? then i pick A.....

can anyone explain why C is right....thanks.

[maryadkins]

The core here is:

Six fingers would be just as useful as five

-->

If we had six, we'd be just as happy

The gap is between usefulness and happiness. It assumes that usefulness determines our happiness. In other words:

equally useful --> equally happy

(C) address this gap!

(A) is wrong because we don't need for everyone to be equally content for the argument to work. We just need them to be as content with six as they are with five. So this ends up being irrelevant.

(B) tells us: not equally useful --> not equally happy. This is reversing the logic of (C), which strengthens it.

(D) definitely doesn't strengthen!

(E) but would we be as happy if we had it? Give us a reason!

[hyewonkim89]

Hi Mary,

I understood the passage and the core well, but I didn't really understand the wording of the answer choices.

Will you please explain what C means by "two things of equal usefulness" ?? What does it refer?

Thanks in advance!

[kelseyjschutte]

I also had issues with this question.

I narrowed it down easily to B and C. I wanted to pick C, but I didn't like that it was 1) super strong--"always equally content"--i wish it would have hedged a bit more because from the stim I didn't get that we are always as content. 2) I did not like that "equally content" was different than "just as content." "Just as content" allows for us to be happier if we have 6 instead of 5 fingers, and does not, in my mind, imply that we must always be equally content.

Could someone explain how these things can be connected? Am I thinking too much into it?

Thanks!

[griffin.811]

Hi Kelsey,

So the fact that C uses always is fine in this case. The core is: People would be just as content with a 6 finger configuration as they are with the current 5 finger configuration BECAUSE, our current 5 finger config is no more useful than a 6 finger, or some other config.

The fact that people are always content with two things of equal usefulness strengthens our case by showing that since a 5 and 6 finger config are equally useful, people would be equally content, as the passage states.

To answer your 2 question, I don't think of "just as..." as leaving room for something to be even more whatever the case may be (taller, bigger, etc...). If I said this kid is just as tall as that kid, that means their heights are equal. Otherwise, the kid would not be JUST as tall (which implies there is a limit), rather he'd be taller.

The case you mention is reserved for the saying "just as tall, IF NOT TALLER"

[Mab6q]

Man was I off on this one. I'm going to break it down.

Conclusion: if humans had descended from fish with six fins and had six fingers on each hand, we would be just as content with that configuration as we are with our current configuration.

WHY: our configuration of fingers is no more or less useful than other configurations.

Notice that in the premise the author is talking about usefulness, but then in the conclusion he switches to usefulness. This is a typical flaw that occurs often on the LSAT, especially on Assumption question. The trick here is to slow down a bit before jumping to the answer choices and understand the flaw. A little extra work up from pays off in the end.

This is a strengthen question so we want to bolster the reasoning in the argument: we want to focus on bridging the relationship between the premise and the conclusion.

Let's look at the ACs

a. whether everyone is equally content tells us nothing about usefulness equating to contentment.

b. this is the opposite of what we want. If we can't ever be content with two things that are usefully equal, how can we say that a different configuration would have a similar effect.

c. this is a strong answer choice, but it's okay, it actually does a good job of filling our gap.

Equal usefulness (premise) --> equally content (conclusion)

Nice, this works

d. this tells us that the usefulness that we perceive actually is a result of our prejudices. This was what I originally chose. I figured that if we had a different configuration to begin with (6 fingers), then we would perceive that as equally useful. The problem is that we don't know anything about contentment from this. So this answer choice fails to strengthen the argument.

e. irrelevant, we are not trying to prove that humans did descend from animals from six fins.

The main thing to take away from this question for me personally is that time spent on the stimulus figuring out the flaw before going into the answer choices pays off.