Q13 - Studies have shown that, contrary

[zainrizvi]

Confused between (B) and (C). They both seem pretty irrelevant. Although I thought (B) was more off-base.

[timmydoeslsat]

Confused between (B) and (C). They both seem pretty irrelevant. Although I thought (B) was more off-base.

Good question.

This is a resolve the paradox EXCEPT question. The paradox is that middle-aged people are more afraid of dying than the elderly.

Let us go through the answer choices. Remember, four of the five answer choices will contribute to an explanation.

A) This would help contribute to why middle-aged people have more fear of dying than the elderly. Older people have more than likely come to terms with it than middle-aged people.

B) This is relevant. If middle-aged people have more people dependent on them, then of course they would fear death more than the elderly. If people depend on them, what would those people do? Gives middle-aged people reason to worry.

C) Hmm. I would not say yes or no to this on my first pass through. I am not thrilled with it. Does not seem to contribute as to why they have more fear than the elderly? Many (some) that suffer from depression first become depressed in middle age. Ok, what about death? What about differing their situation with death from the elderly? I will still leave it here for now.

D) This contributes to an explanation. Older people are more unphased with life in general than middle-aged people.

E) Excellent contributory answer here. Middle-aged people are more aware of their mortal nature than any other age group. So they are more aware of their mortality than the elderly.

C is our answer.

[mcrittell]

Would it be appropriate to select C because of the following reasoning: if mid-age people first suffer from depression, this implies that they will still have it later on in life, thus debunking the claim that mid-age people have a higher propensity for necrophobia.

[timmydoeslsat]

Would it be appropriate to select C because of the following reasoning: if mid-age people first suffer from depression, this implies that they will still have it later on in life, thus debunking the claim that mid-age people have a higher propensity for necrophobia.

I like your thinking on that.

I would look at it a little differently however. We want an explanation that contributes to the idea that middle aged people have more fear of dying than the elderly.

Even if some people that have depression, first got it at middle age, then we cannot say what the relevance is with death.

If we were to somehow just play ball with this idea of depression = fear of death, it still would not save this answer choice.

The reasoning you are using can be implemented as a reason to choose this answer because it does nothing to help contribute to the idea.

Even if these people got depression initially at middle age, does that mean that they will be less depressed at an elderly age? No.

[xiongdy_vip]

I still don't get it. If Answer C is correct, than we have to assume that depression is associated with more fear of death. But can we make such assumption? This doesn't seem like a commonsense that LSAT testmakers expect us to know.

[contropositive]

I still don't get it. If Answer C is correct, than we have to assume that depression is associated with more fear of death. But can we make such assumption? This doesn't seem like a commonsense that LSAT testmakers expect us to know.

You probably already took the LSAT and got your 180 but in case anyone else has the same question as you, we are actually NOT assuming that depression is associated with fear of death, which is why C is incorrect. Remember, this is an paradox EXCEPT question. C is forcing us to make the assumption that depression is associated with fear of death, but it's not ...maybe or maybe not...we don't know.

[jmoffa001]

-If C is the right answer- Why isn't it logical to assume that Answer B. is also forcing us to make a connection, between the amount of people dependent on someone and that "someones" fear of dying? Seems to me C. would have more (if not the same) amount of relevance to the "phenomenon"

[Jmaksimiuk]

Hi,

I was also debating between B and C and ultimately I picked B. The way I reasoned C would work is that people who first become depressed will seek treatment and will thus be healthier, less depressed, and thus less afraid of death when they got older. That kind of reasoning was obviously wrong.

Now that I look at it, I think the answer may lie in the fact that middle aged people in B have MORE people dependent on them, which may make them MORE afraid of death. Meanwhile, the middle aged people in C FIRST become depressed (and afraid of death) in middle age, but nothing leads us to conclude that they become less depressed (and less afraid of death) as they get older.

Does that make any sense?

[andreperez7]

Guys, C's problem, which makes it the correct answer, is the word many. "Many" is way too weak to explain anything. There are always "some" people with relevant attributes, but that's not enough to explain anything.

I hope this helps.

[smiller]

Excellent point. "Many" is vague, so we do normally interpret it to just mean "some." And "some" could be a very small number.

[HughM388]

Excellent point. "Many" is vague, so we do normally interpret it to just mean "some." And "some" could be a very small number.

You say that, and yet on a PT I recently did (I don't remember which; I think the question had to do with farming techniques and pesticides or some such nonsense) and "many" was used in the correct answer, to signal only the feeblest support for a claim. What the test-writers were doing was fairly obvious, but it was not edifying to find a correct answer trying to establish that two farmers using a certain farming technique constituted viable evidence for using that technique—a stark betrayal of the principles the test allegedly cherishes.