Q18 - Some credit card companies allow

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

My understanding of the principle for this argument is that:

A policy(Something) is not useful for its target people.

Really lose my thoughts in this question, can somebody help me?

The first thing to do is determine your task. There are many variations on Principle questions but this one asks us to find an argument that has a similar underlying principle. The issue is that the stimulus doesn't state the principle, we need to determine it first. A principle is most often a broad generality that relates the evidence with the conclusion of an argument.

In this case the core of the stated argument is that because the long-run negative impacts would be greater than any short-term benefits, it's not in the interest of the credit-card holder to take advantage of this opportunity offered by credit card companies to skip some payments on the card for up to 6 months. Essentially, the principle employed is that if an opportunity has negative long-term impacts that outweigh any short-term positive impacts, then the opportunity is not to one's advantage.

Notice that the principle relates the evidence to the conclusion in an "if ... then ..." relationship from a very broad perspective. Answer choice (C) involves this same relationship but applies it to another situation.

(A) weighs the positive impacts with co-occurring negative impacts, but does not include the idea that the negative impacts are the result over the long-term. Here both the positive and the negative impacts occur at the "same time."
(B) includes the long-term vs short term impact but has the relationship backwards when it says that this the opportunity is to one's advantage.
(D) compares two different opportunities, rather than describing the positive and negative impacts of one opportunity alone.
(E) fails to include the long-term costs outweighing any short-term gains. This is just a discussion of pros and cons and saying that the cons outweigh the pros - similar to answer choice (A).

Does that answer your question on this one?


#officialexplanation

[sissixz]

My understanding of the principle for this argument is that:

A policy(Something) is not useful for its target people.

So I choose E, thinking sports car is car, but not useful for people, now I see there is something wrong with E, for sports car is not made for most drivers.

Furthermore, C doesn't qualify my principle.

Really lose my thoughts in this question, can somebody help me?

Thanks a ton!

[sissixz]

Thanks very mush!!! mshermn! Brilliant!

I found myself in an awkward LR position, sometimes got 8 wrong( though rarely), sometimes 1, well, what I want to say is that I think I improved a lot on principle question, but I still can completely lose thoughts, like this one, or misunderstand the stimulus.

So what is your suggestion for me if I want to possess well-equipped arsenals to beat LSAT? Just keep practicing? I already did most of PT tests twice and even more...

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Depends on what you mean by "just keep practicing." Clearly, continuing to work through problems is part of it. But you need to develop a strong understanding of the following:

1. what are the common forms the stimulus will take
2. what are the various question types
3. within each question type, what are some of the conceptual structures utilized.
3. how do you approach each of these structures within each of the various question types
4. learn how to spot the harder questions from the easier ones (when should you approach the question conceptually, and when should you just read, absorb, and not think too much).
5. get good at certain skills: conditional logic, recognizing language cues, describing the information abstractly, etc...
6. anticipate answer possible answer choices
7. what are some common characteristics within each question type
8. learn to map your way to incorrect answers even though you see that you're using flawed reasoning, so that you can more easily see the flawed reasoning that would lead you to one of the answers when you're down to 2.

And that's just for LR!

[e. chung]

I got hung up on the logically significant terms - I thought that almost never in the stimulus matched most drivers in answer E, because answer C's unequivocal it is unwise was too strong.

When does the subject matter (in this case, short term gain over long term loss) take precedence over logically significant terms?

So so so much thanks for help on this - it is a persistent source of wrong answers for me.

[dontmesswmeow]

*note: I'm just writing this post simply to articulate my understanding on the question by jotting down some of my thoughts in the course of retrying it.

In my first try, I saw the principle as a thing in general is not good if its side effects are much greater than what the thing might have done good in.

So I chose (A) at my first shot because I thought the insecticide was taken as an example for such a principle as I came up with.

(A): The insecticide might seem good in some aspects, and yet its harm/damage is greater.

This is what I saw from the answer choice (A).

However, in my second try, I recognized it has a completely different conclusion or the main point of the argument---(A) is suggesting we should find alternatives to the 'thing' that was discussed in its positive and negative effects, even if analyzing the answer choice based on my first analysis of the principle in the stimulus.

The stimulus says nothing about the alternative but just concluding the thing (The bad thing) is simply not good for a group of people---the cardholders. It is not suggesting anything.

And yet,

I eliminated (C) at my first shot because I had some qualms with its start, "It is unwise that..."

This felt not quite right (Lol) because the stimulus is telling us about good or bad of a thing, not about being wise or unwise to do something---that's what I thought.

Also, it addresses "immediate benefit directly" which the stimulus didn't even mention at all.

Eventually however, now I see the bigger pattern of reasoning that makes the stimulus and answer choice (C) similar. It seems that I might have tried to nitpick too much on details, which made me go too far.

Now I can see the problem was just as simple as you can just get the answer correct by noticing the pattern, "A thing might seem just right at a glance, but its cost/bad aspect is much greater IN THE LONG RUN," emphasizing the long-term damage of the thing in question despite its beneficial look at a first glance.

Hope my write-up of problem solving process as per my thinking flow helps.

[JoshF356]

Are match the principle questions a little different than match the reasoning? I originally eliminated C because of conclusion mismatch. It seems like match the principle is like match the flaw, where you need to make sure the answer is flawed in the same way the original argument is.