Q18 - Coach: Our team has often

[clarafok]

hello,

i'm not really seeing why B is the correct answer instead of C. i chose C thinking that it was comparing the team with professionals, but i guess they aren't really generalizing anything right?

but why is B the answer? it doesn't even seem clear to me that we know what the critics claim is, besides that it's unprofessional. how would we know that it's a misinterpretation? is it because the coach didn't give any of the critics' reasons for finding the team unprofessional?

thanks in advance!

[noah]

This is a oddly tough question. Let's break it down to its core:

Professional players are effusive about X and Y --> Being effusive about X and Y can't be called "unprofessional"

When I read this, I tried to think of the gap - it's a flaw question after all - and I thought "Who's to say that just because the pros do it, it's OK to do it." It sounds like you thought something similar, which leads you to (C). However, as you suggest, there's a problem with "generalizes" in (C).

(B) names the gap if you slightly rephrase it (and read the argument a bit more closely than I did the first time): "Who's to say that just because a professional does something, it's professional to do it?"

If you still don't see the gap, consider this statement: "My cousin is a professional gambler, and he curses a lot, so we should consider cursing professional."

Hopefully you see that "professional" is being used in two different senses. There's professional as in "mature" (or something like that), and then there's professionals as in "actually paid to do something." So, the coach has misinterpreted what the critics mean when they said the behavior was "unprofessional." Get it?

As for the wrong answers:

(A) is out of scope since there's no discussion of ethics.

(C) is tempting, as noted above, however there is no generalization of the sport to different levels. That would look like "soccer is dangerous for professionals, so it's dangerous for all of us." This might seem like what's going on, but the coach never established that the professionals being effusive was professional (i.e. mature) behavior.

(D) is out of scope since there's no blame happening here. Calm down!

(E) names a flaw that we all hated as kids - "C'mon, it wasn't all of us, it was just them!" - but that did not happen here. There's no mention of only a few people doing something.

[skapur777]

Really confused by this.

here is my answer breakdown:

A- no, if anything they misleadingly use the term unprofessional
C- I can see how this makes sense but I felt like this answer choice was too ambiguous, also not too sure what they mean by 'different level'
D- I picked this, i thought the coach was saying their behavior is not unprofessional because the professionals do it...but now i see that answer D is SHIFTING the blame...and there's none of that involved here.
E- no

As for B, is this the correct choice because he is misinterpreting the critique of being 'unprofessional' as doing something that the professionals wouldn't do? and the coach replies that the professionals act even MORESO like this than the team does.

But what are the critics really saying? Are they saying that the team is being unprofessional because they are being immature, and no one, professionals or not, should act like that?

if that's the case, i don't see how they could expect me to think that much on one question when I have like two minutes to complete the problem at most.

[noah]

Yeah, it's a tricky question.

For (A), I agree with your critique, and I think that's the key to (B), as you initially suggest. The term professional is misinterpreted.

But what are the critics really saying? Are they saying that the team is being unprofessional because they are being immature, and no one, professionals or not, should act like that?

if that's the case, i don't see how they could expect me to think that much on one question when I have like two minutes to complete the problem at most.

I agree with your interpretation - the critics are saying that they're acting unprofessional in the sense of immature. But, I don't think they're saying that even professionals don't do that. The coach brings up the professionals - and that's where the error is.

I put an example above about the gambler, but here's a sillier one: The fashion police say my clothes are old school, but I walked around Harvard, which is an old school, and nobody was wearing my clothes, so the fashion police are wrong.

In terms of finishing this quickly, you've now seen this rare case of switching use of a word, so I bet you'll be quicker to notice it next time! But, it looks like you might have been adding the use of the what the professionals do to what the critics are saying, when that's actually part of what the coach is saying.

[Lpm62229]

This is not what I got out of the question. The flaw according to PowerScore's 18 flaws, is the StrawMan flaw, where the person assumes or exaggerates the persons claim to mean something that it isn't and than concludes that the person is wrong by showing how the mislead interpretation is wrong. Where in the BLUE HELL did we get that that the team is unprofessional because they were criticized, just because one is criticized doesn't mean that they're unprofessional there can be numerous other reasons for being criticized. So answer B is absolutely correct it is indicating the StrawMan flaw, that he misinterprets the critic's claim to be unprofessional when it isn't explicitly stated that way

[noah]

This is not what I got out of the question. The flaw according to PowerScore's 18 flaws, is the StrawMan flaw, where the person assumes or exaggerates the persons claim to mean something that it isn't and than concludes that the person is wrong by showing how the mislead interpretation is wrong. Where in the BLUE HELL did we get that that the team is unprofessional because they were criticized, just because one is criticized doesn't mean that they're unprofessional there can be numerous other reasons for being criticized. So answer B is absolutely correct it is indicating the StrawMan flaw, that he misinterprets the critic's claim to be unprofessional when it isn't explicitly stated that way

I can see where you're going, but to me the premise (or part of the premise) seems more specific: We've been "criticized for our enthusiasm...But this behavior is hardly unprofessional, as our critics have claimed." The author is being explicitly about the criticism including a reference to unprofessional enthusiasm. We need to accept that premise. The argument doesn't state there was a general criticism and then jump to the idea that it was about enthusiasm.

I think your analysis would be spot on for this argument:

I learned that our team was once again criticized. It's clear that our team is unprofessional.

Here, it'd make a lot of sense to say "Where in the BLUE HELL did we get that that the team is unprofessional because they were criticized, just because one is criticized doesn't mean that they're unprofessional there can be numerous other reasons for being criticized."

And, I love the phrase "where in the blue hell." Last night I just learned "screw the pooch" and so in 10 hours, my idiom list has grown nicely...

[leroyjenkins]

I think even more specifically, we see that the critic uses the term unprofessional in a prescriptive sense (i.e. how professional players should behave) while they coach seems to be interpreting it in a descriptive sense (how professional players do behave).

but that is just my take on it. either way, i didn't like this question.

[Amir.m.shoar]

So is this an equivocation of the term "professional?"

[tommywallach]

2 questions!

To Leo: I don't see any issue of prescriptivist versus descriptivist here. Anything that is "unprofessional" (in the way it's being used here) is, by definition, something people shouldn't really be doing. So that would be both descriptive and prescriptive. The issue is that the coach thinks that this isn't unprofessional behavior; he then cites the actual professionals to defend it!

Amir: You are misusing the word "equivocation," so I'm not quite sure what you mean here.

-t

[WaltGrace1983]

I picked (A) because I could not understand how (B) fit. The worst thing is that I pre-phrased the exact flaw that (B) is getting to in my head but, because I didn't understand how (B) fit in, I thought that (A) was the best answer (or closest answer to what I was thinking).

However, wouldn't (C) be wrong just because the coach is not "too quickly" generalizing? He is saying to "look at the professionals," as in, professionals as a whole. It would be different if he was saying, "look at the players of team X and Y" because that would be generalizing that what they do constitutes what all professionals do.

What do you guys think about that?

So (B) is correct because the coach and the critics have a different idea of what the word "professional" means. The coach thinks that "professional" means in line with what a professional would do. How do we know this? We know this because the coach appeals to professionals and how they act to prove his point. Meanwhile, the critics think that "professional" means acting in accordance with certain principles. How do we know this? Because the main way that the critics back up their argument against this team is by discussing their actions. Their attack of action implies that these actions go against something - a principle.

(A) is wrong because, although unethical play might be implied by "enthusiasm in response to successes and opponents' failures," we do not actually know if this is unethical behavior. It may be considered unethical in the real world, but we don't know this in LSAT land.

This is definitely a tricky one I will continue to go over this problem again and again and again.

[rinagoldfield]

Hey WaltGrace,

So (B) is correct because the coach and the critics have a different idea of what the word "professional" means. The coach thinks that "professional" means in line with what a professional would do. How do we know this? We know this because the coach appeals to professionals and how they act to prove his point. Meanwhile, the critics think that "professional" means acting in accordance with certain principles. How do we know this? Because the main way that the critics back up their argument against this team is by discussing their actions. Their attack of action implies that these actions go against something - a principle.

(A) is wrong because, although unethical play might be implied by "enthusiasm in response to successes and opponents' failures," we do not actually know if this is unethical behavior. It may be considered unethical in the real world, but we don't know this in LSAT land.

^This is totally and completely on point, and very well articulated.

In terms of (C), I agree that the coach isn’t "too quick" about anything; quickness of thought is rarely, if ever, a problem on the LSAT. But I also think it’s important to note that the coach isn’t really "generalizing" either, as you explain. Rather, he/she makes unwarranted assumptions about what "professional" means.

Keep up the great work

[dukeag]

This is not what I got out of the question. The flaw according to PowerScore's 18 flaws, is the StrawMan flaw, where the person assumes or exaggerates the persons claim to mean something that it isn't and than concludes that the person is wrong by showing how the mislead interpretation is wrong. Where in the BLUE HELL did we get that that the team is unprofessional because they were criticized, just because one is criticized doesn't mean that they're unprofessional there can be numerous other reasons for being criticized. So answer B is absolutely correct it is indicating the StrawMan flaw, that he misinterprets the critic's claim to be unprofessional when it isn't explicitly stated that way

I can see where you're going, but to me the premise (or part of the premise) seems more specific: We've been "criticized for our enthusiasm...But this behavior is hardly unprofessional, as our critics have claimed." The author is being explicitly about the criticism including a reference to unprofessional enthusiasm. We need to accept that premise. The argument doesn't state there was a general criticism and then jump to the idea that it was about enthusiasm.

I think your analysis would be spot on for this argument:

I learned that our team was once again criticized. It's clear that our team is unprofessional.

Here, it'd make a lot of sense to say "Where in the BLUE HELL did we get that that the team is unprofessional because they were criticized, just because one is criticized doesn't mean that they're unprofessional there can be numerous other reasons for being criticized."

And, I love the phrase "where in the blue hell." Last night I just learned "screw the pooch" and so in 10 hours, my idiom list has grown nicely...

Hey Noah, I must disagree with you on this one. You refer to the author's statement which implies that the criticism is about unprofessionalism is a part of the premise, which we must accept, but isn't this not a part of the premise, but instead of the conclusion? The conclusion is: "Our behavior is not as unprofessional as the critics have claimed"

I also think that this is a strawman argument, as the other poster has described.