Q13

[trulybird]

Why is E the answer? I can't seem to locate a reference from the passage. I chose B cuz the last 4 lines say that because of the cheer volume, it's virtually impossible to sort them out. --- so better preserve them first -- B.

Thank you!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

The question charges us with finding a view the passage most strongly suggests is one the author holds. In lines 43-44 the author suggests that archivists should decide what documents should (and should not) be preserved based on an assessment of the document's value. The author also suggests that the archivists will find the task of sorting the essential from the dispensable challenging due to the sheer volume of accumulated records stored on nondurable media. So it is the value judgements made by archivists that will impact how future generations view and understand the past - answer choice (E).

Incorrect Answers

(A) is unsupported. The author does not suggest that future storage devices will be no less capable of storing material than those that are available today.
(B) is contradicted. The author believes that value judgements as to what should be preserved (or not preserved) should be made by archivists.
(C) is out of scope. The author does not discuss deception on the part of manufacturers of long-term information storage systems.
(D) is contradicted. The passage discusses other pieces of information that were stored by previous archivists of early times.

[Gerald]

13. E
Question Type: Inference (40-44, 56-end)

We are again asked to infer an opinion of the author. Lines 40-44 reveal the author believes archivists should make value judgments about what material to keep and what to discard. This idea is reinforced by 56-end, which reveal archivists don’t even have time to sort all essential data from the dispensable. Thus, the archivist’s judgment on whether something is valuable will determine whether it will be preserved for future generations to review (and, they better get to judging fast). This is nicely reflected by (E). Future generations will view and understand past works based on archivists’ value judgments in what to preserve.

(A) This is contradicted by the passage in lines 38-40, which state technologies will soon emerge that will provide the requisite durability.

(B) This is contradicted by lines 40-44, which state archivists should make value judgments about what to preserve before media deteriorates, and lines 57-59, which indicate it will be virtually impossible to sort even the essential material in time to save it.

(C) General public? We’re talking about archivists. Also, misled by manufacturers? Doubly out of scope.

(D) Perhaps tempting, because Paragraph 3 stresses the importance of modern archivists making value judgments. However, the passage never mentions whether Ancient Babylonian archivists had to make any tough calls about which clay tablets to toss and which to keep, nor does it mention whether there used to be 40 commandments before the stones became too heavy to carry around the desert. Since we don’t have this kind of information, we can’t make any inferences about value judgments made in the past.

[Drake-ob]

Hey Matt,

Thanks for your post. I think what threw me off on E, and what I'm still having trouble understanding, is how the passage "strongly suggests" that decisions in archival work will "influence how future generations view and understand the past." This seems like the type of logical leap that we'd see in an LR section, where a potential "sufficient assumption" correct answer choice would be something like "the archival documentation of history affects how people in the future will perceive the past."

Is the lesson here that it's OK to make the inference that the telling of history will influence how future generations view and understand the past? (Again, in "real life logic" this seems perfectly reasonable, but even via LSAT inference logic it seemed too far a leap to be the right answer.)

Thanks very much.
-Drake-ob

[ericha3535]

Seriously...

This question is really a stretch for me.

I get the idea that the archivists are using their "subjective" values in making a decision - which one to include and which one to dispose.

However, how can we draw an inference that the "future" generations will be influenced by such inference?

The logical force of E is strong too: will influence?

This is a stretch...

[crf2132]

I'm having a bit of trouble on this one as well. Lines 54-59 "the danger now is not so much that some recent masterpiece will be lost.....but rather..." make it seem as if the issue of "sorting" essential from non-essential is relatively recent. I know we can't know whether or not ancient archivists also had to do this from the passage but it seems like less of a leap than assuming that value judgements will influence how people understand the past. I know we could assume that stored information (if studied and read) will influence what we believe about the past, but I felt like "e" was taking too big of a leap in saying it would influence what people "understand". In addition... if things are saved but not read will it really influence anything? I felt like for "e" I would have to assume that someone was reading and analyzing everything the archivists chose to store and also that that would affect their understanding. This felt like too much for me to safely go with it, although it made it to my final two choices. How could I have approached this differently to get the correct answer?

[ohthatpatrick]

First and foremost, remind yourself you're not looking for a provable answer, just the most supportable.

What this means to me is this:
FIRST PASS, decide the sketchiest part of every claim.
- what sounds TOO STRONG?
- does this answer invent some COMPARISON we never discussed?
- are there any ideas that seem real OUT OF SCOPE?
- does this 'feel' like the author?

(A) EXTREME! Nothing we invent in the future will provide us with ANY extra capabilities than what we currently have.

(B) EXTREME! "As much as possible" should be stored. There is "NO way" to predict what might be considered a great work.

(C) EXTREME / DOESN'T SOUND LIKE AUTHOR. The public has been "misled"? Harsh. Accusatory. Where did that come from.

(D) EXTREME "only recently". So prior to the last twenty years, archivists were NOT concerned with distinguishing between essential and dispensable? If you're an archivist who's NOT distinguishing between essential and dispensable, then you're really just a garbage man or a hoarder (keeping nothing or everything).

This answer could have been safer if it used comparative wording, such as "distinguishing has become MORE of a concern recently".

(E) GOES BEYOND / FUTURE / TOO STRONG? "will influence the future"?

"WILL" is certain, but "influence" is super weak. If ANYTHING today's archivists do in deciding what to keep or lose has ANY affect on future generations, then (E) is saying something true.

You can see how weak this claim actually is by considering how strong its negation would be: "Today's archivists will have NO influence on how future generations understand the past." Wow. Well, then why is the author even bothering to write this passage? Who cares about the stuff we're doing right now if we will have NO influence on the future?

Lines 49-54 show how our CURRENT generation's view and understanding of the past is influenced by what survived (f.e. Plato) vs. what was lost (unknown). So it's reasonable to think that future generations WILL consider available historical evidence when trying to view and understand the past.

Once again, the "cheat code" for "most likely agree" is to beware of claims that are too STRONG/SPECIFIC/COMPARATIVE.