Q12 - The foreign minister of Zeria

[greatwhiteshark100]

Hi, I totally missed this question.

The way I interpret it, the stem's logical structure is like:
A did B due to C.
Yet C is a bigger reason in D.
Thus, C is not the full reason for explaining B.

Is this a valid form of reasoning? I thought it flawed so I chose A. D seems like valid reasoning, but doesn't contain the "C is a bigger reason than D" part.

[bbirdwell]

That's not quite how I see it -- especially the "C is a bigger reason than D" part. Where does it say something is a bigger reason?

I don't think this one lends itself very well to "A,B,C" notation, so it looks like this to me:

1. Z severing relations with N because N violates human rights.

2. But Z maintains relations with many countries that have worse violations than N.

3. Therefore, there must be an additional reason.

This form of reasoning definitely requires some assumptions, but it's not exactly faulty. Remember that your job is simply to find the pattern that matches best.

(A) is incorrect because statement #2 is not well-matched. The choice says that the parents themselves don't eat breakfast, but to be a good match we need it to say something like "the parents don't care whether his sisters eat breakfast."

(D) is a better match:
1. A did not go to H's party because she's a co-worker.
2. But A went out with M, who is a co-worker.
3. Therefore there must be an additional reason.

[skapur777]

But isn't A and D quite similar?

A says that the parents insist he eats breakfast for health reasons but then again, the parents themselves don't eat breakfast...so what is the real reason?

D says that Armand believes socializing with coworkers is imprudent yet he himself went out with a coworker...so again what is the real reason?

I picked D because A's choice didn't match up with the first part of the original argument, which is that one person denounces another (might not be the best word choice but you get what i mean) because of a certain principle that they seemingly believe in

[bbirdwell]

Yeah, they're definitely similar.

I do see what you're saying about the "denounces another" and I think that's a fair way to break a tie on questions like this.

(A) misses an essential element regarding the relationship to a third party. It's only about the parents and the kid. A good match should mention the central party (Zeria), someone they "denounce" (Nandalo), and someone else that they don't (other countries).

(D) does this. Armando, Helen, and Maria...

[kpars21]

Brian & anyone else:

I narrowed it down to C & D, but failed to entirely discredit C and chose incorrectly. What makes C wrong?

Thanks for your help!

[alex.cheng.2012]

Here's my take on this question.

Z severing ties with N because N's flagrant violation of human rights. But Z continues relations with many other countries that have even worse violation of human rights. Z severing of ties cannot be explained solely due to N's flagrant violation of human rights.

I think the crux of the argument is that a contradiction occurred, so the result cannot be explained due to the contradiction.
In the case of X, because of B, A happened.
But in the case of Y, there was B, but A didn't happen.
In the case of X, B is not the reason why A happened.

Incorrect Answers:
(A): There does appear to be a contradiction. The reason I eliminated this question was because "almost never." This means that it isn't absolute, and thus does not parallel the absolute nature of the original argument. Perhaps parents can eat breakfast less often than children and still be healthy. Additionally, as the previous posters said, it does not involve a third party.
(B): Once again, there doesn't appear to be a third party. Additionally, it says "most handwriting." That doesn't parallel the absolute nature of the original argument.
(C): Where are the other parties? Where's the contradiction? I think the core of (C) boils down to this:
P: ~food readily available --> hunger could account for stealing
C: food readily available --> ~hunger could account for stealing
It appears there is a logical mistake going on, namely that when you fail the sufficient, you cannot know what will happen, much less infer that the necessary will fail as a result.
(E): Where are the other parties? Where's the contradiction? Teacher's salaries reached new low, thus less good teachers than before. But teachers always poorly paid, so this cannot fully explain the decline in good teachers. Just because the teachers have always been poorly paid, doesn't mean that the teacher's salaries can't get even lower. Perhaps it broke a threshold, and that is why there are less good teachers

Correct Answer (D):
A declined H invitation to dinner because socializing with coworkers is bad. A went to movie with another coworker (aka socializing with a coworker). A reason that "socializing with coworkers is bad" cannot fully explain why A declined dinner with H.
There are multiple parties. There is a contradiction.

To be honest, after I re-read what I just typed, I'm still not 100% confident in my elimination of incorrect answers due to the "absolute nature" factor.

[sportsfan8491]

I thought the previous posts were all excellent and I don't want to repeat anything that was said, but I think I can shed some additional light on the tricky correct answer and help to definitively rule out the wrong answer(s). I must admit, I was stumped for a bit with this one until I went back to the stimulus and paraphrased it in my own words. Given that I hadn't really internalized the passage enough to be able to see the correct answer stand out on my first read of the answers, I was torn between (A) and (D), so I had to go back to the stimulus to analyse it a little more (i.e. a little better).

The stimulus tells us that Z is contradicting itself by saying one thing, on the surface of it, but we are led to believe that Z actually has ulterior motives given that it still maintains relations with several other countries that it should be denouncing. Thus, it seems to be trying to prove Z's hypocrisy indirectly by looking at how Z contradicts itself through its other actions (or rather lack thereof, at least in terms of denouncing other countries). Okay, so the gist of my paraphrase, after going back to the stimulus, was that: "the correct answer will try to prove hypocrisy in an indirect fashion".

So, I went back to (A) and (D) and looked at both answer individually:

(A) is incorrect for two reasons. I agree with bbirdwell that the second sentence isn't a match and this was my first red flag. My second red flag or reason for ruling out (A) was that I had a difficult time seeing how this answer was trying to prove hypocrisy in an indirect fashion. Why? Notice how the stimulus tries to prove hypocrisy indirectly from Z's actions with other countries (i.e. it doesn't denounce them) in the second sentence.

However, this answer tries to prove hypocrisy from the direct actions of the parents. It's not the same type of 'proof' method and in order for it to match, we would need a statement like the one bbirdwell provided in his post above (i.e. parents treating his other siblings in a fashion contrary to how H is being treated, in order to allow us to indirectly prove the parents' hypocrisy).

(D) is correct because it goes about trying to prove his hypocrisy in an indirect fashion. It's trying to prove, based off his actions with another co-worker and in a related type of situation, that he cannot mean what he said earlier.

Experts, please feel free to correct me if you see anything wrong with what I've written and I hope this is helpful.

[coco.wu1993]

I did this one right, but still a bit shaky on B.

I interpreted the stimulus as below:
1. A did something to X because of Z.
2. Y is worse in terms of Z but A didn't do the same thing to Y.
3. Z cannot fully explain what A did to X.

I think B is wrong because:
1. Walsh refused written term papers because he find them hard to read. This point matchs.
2. Walsh may not find his own handwritten notes hard to read because he himself wrote it. This is why B fails.

Can anyone please confirm my thoughts?

[ohthatpatrick]

You got it.

In order for (B) to match, it would AT LEAST have to say "But she lectures from handwritten notes, and those are even MORE difficult to read than handwritten term papers".

But it would still be pretty weak because
a) it's HER handwriting, so that's not a fair comparison
(the original argument compared a foreign country to OTHER foreign countries ... not the foreign country to Zeria itself)

b) the crux of the issue needs to be whether she accepts / doesn't accept something that's even MORE difficult to read.
(as the original hinged on whether Zeria did/didn't sever diplomatic relations)

[Jmaksimiuk]

Hey guys,

There seems to be a confusing mix of two questions in this posting.

In regards to question 11, section 4 in PT 10: "The foreign minister of Zeria..." the correct answer is A not D. I think some posts identified the wrong answer as being correct....

[ohthatpatrick]

Thanks for the heads-up, but it looks like everything's legit.

This thread is for Q12, not for Q11. The correct answer for Q12 is indeed (D), as all these posts have indicated.

The answer to Q11 is (A), but that question is not discussed here. There isn't actually a thread yet for Q11, so if you had a question about that problem and want to request an explanation, then go to this page and then Post a New Topic for Q11.
https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/foru ... -f577.html

Thanks!

[2009yan.wang]

Can anyone explain why C is not correct? Thanks a lot!

[kkate]

Can anyone explain why C is not correct? Thanks a lot!

The stimulus is indicating that foreign minister's claim cannot be the ONLY cause. It doesn't attempt to invalidate the minister's claim. (C) however indicates that James' reason cannot be true. Conclusion logic mismatch.