Q14 - Many movies starring top actors

[maryadkins]

Good question! Your thinking is exactly right on this. You caught the flaw--the false contrapositive--and you found it in (B).

And I'm including in my praise your note that "many" and "often" throw things a bit--you need to be wary of these terms. Rather than give you an absolute rule about whether you can diagram conditional logic statements with "many" and similar terms, I advise doing what you did here. You noted it, kept it in mind, and still found a flaw in the reasoning by working through a conditional-logic interpretation of it.

We of course need to be careful, because when we write:

Dogs --> Bark

It means if it's a dog, then it barks, right? ALL dogs bark. If it becomes "many" dogs bark, the meaning is different. But we can often take care of this in matching questions like this one by throwing "Many" in front of "dogs" and looking for a match. That works here, as you found.

(A) doesn't have a flaw.

(C) just gives us one relationship between two phenomena then calls one of them important.

(D) may be tempting to some. But we can think of it as:

Allow vivid conceptualization --> Using visual aids effective
If we didn't use visual aids, teaching math might be harder.

It's just throwing out an example that fits the statement. Also, "teaching math might sometimes be harder" is a weaker conclusion than what we have in the stimulus.

(E) Successful painter --> understand rules, therefore, if you understand the rules, you'll be successful. This is a mistaken contrapositive of another kind: it flips without negating. We're looking for one that negates without flipping.


#officialexplanation

[Shiggins]

I was able to get this question right in choosing B but I just want to clarify it out.

The stimulus states that "many" movies with top actors is sufficient to do well at box office.

MTA= Movies with Top actors

DWBO= Do well box office


MTA-> DWBO
This is bc the actors(Top) are well known and have loyal following.

So well known & loyal fan base -> do well at box office

It then states movies with unknown actors-> unlikely to do well.

Answer choice B simply reiterates the sufficient necessary mix up flaw that occurs when the sufficient term goes missing the necessary can not occur.

One question I have with this is, I believe we are not dealing with very direct conditional terms since it says "many" and "most likely" Is this logic ok to answer the question.

[char1psichan]

I was wondering if you could explain how you decided to use

"Allow vivid conceptualization --> Using visual aids effective
If we didn't use visual aids, teaching math might be harder. "

as a reasoning to rule out D? Also what do you mean by it simply fits the statement?

Thanks

[hms2011]

Hi,

I am failing to see why C is an incorrect answer/or why B is a better answer.

I see both as viable, could someone explain to me why C is wrong? In layman's terms.

Thank you!

[jeff.wongkachi]

Hi,

I am failing to see why C is an incorrect answer/or why B is a better answer.

I see both as viable, could someone explain to me why C is wrong? In layman's terms.

Thank you!

The original logical flaw in 14 is a flawed contrapositive where: MANY TA->do well thus ~TA->~do well

C) Ability part of Be Friend since it usually = High degree of Openness in comms (HD)
As such, HD -> F
This is a different kind of flaw. The first part doesn't have conditionality but the conclusion does

B) The language of B mirrors with C very nicely. Also, same flawed contrapositive: OFTEN BB->AC thus ~BB->~AC

Also you can see that they both infer from many instances of one thing that all instances of another thing must be the opposite.

[LSATN100]

D is incorrect for the following reasons:
1. visual aids CAN be very useful vs. top actors WILL do well.
CAN implies ability, so it will or will not be useful. but WILL is a statement of fact.
2. teaching math skills might sometimes be MORE DIFFICULT vs. unknown actors are unlikely to DO WELL.
MORE DIFFICULT is relative, but DO WELL is absolute.

[obobob]

Hi I am still unclear if the “often” part of the answer choice (b) matches with “many” in the first statement of the stimulus. Can someone plz confirm if it is so?

[ohthatpatrick]

Yes, "often" and "many" are pretty interchangeable.

I think many has a lower minimum than often, but it's not quantifiable and it's not important to any LSAT distinctions.

Often / many / commonly .... they need more than one or two examples to be true, but they certainly don't need more than 50% to be true (which is the case for "likely, probably, generally, typically, usually, tends to, most')

These seem fairly interchangeable:

Many people get hit by lightning each year.
People often get hit by lightning.

I've gotten stuck behind a truck many times on this road.
I've often gotten stuck behind a truck on this road.