Q19 - According to an article in this newsmagazine

[peg_city]

After reading the question and answers a few times I'm still having difficulty with this one.

The reply seems perfectly fine to me (I don't see a flaw, which is obviously bothersome).

Alan attacks the conclusion by showing that the respective ages of the kids do not correlate to the study's age group.

Where is the error?

Thanks

[bbirdwell]

It helps to look at the explicit language of arguments, especially conclusions.

Jane
premise: hand-eye coordination suffers due to TV
conclusion: kids shouldn't watch TV

Alan
premise: the hand-eye coordination thing only affects younger kiddos
conclusion: ok for kids to watch TV

There are several ways to view this argument. If we really have our "LSAT goggles" on, we can see that Jane's argument is based on the hand-eye coordination article. Alan attempts to refute her ENTIRE argument simply by taking away the article.

In other words, there might be 1000 other reasons why the kids should not watch TV. Just because their hand-eye coordination won't be damaged does not lead us to Alan's conclusion that the kids should have unlimited TV time.

Another way to look at it is through the ballpark lense of conditional logic. Jane basically says "A --> B: damage --> no TV."

Alan replies "~A --> ~B: no damage --> TV"
This is a classic "illegal negation."

Once some kind of understanding of the argument is reached, it's time for the choices.

(A)
He does indeed cite the same source... and there's nothing illogical about that! Eliminate.

(B)
Kinda wordy. The part that says "showing the conclusion itself to be false" is a good match -- that's what Alan does, he shows Jane's entire conclusion to be false. And he did it badly, so "confuses" seems pretty good. Before investing any more energy trying to understand this choice, I note that it's a ballpark match and move on.

(C)
Eliminate. He does not avoid the main issue.

(D)
Eliminate. He doesn't appeal to any authority.

(E)
Eliminate. This describes a reversal flaw (A-->B so B-->A).

Wow. (B) is the only one that's even close, and I got it right without totally interpreting and understanding the correct choice! That's what the LSAT game is all about.

Now, we can go back to see how exactly (B) matches by breaking the choice into small pieces.

(B)
confuses these two things
1. undermining an argument in support of a conclusion
2. showing the conclusion to be false

Sometimes, when the test says "confuses 2 things," this means that the author actually did 1 of those things (incorrectly), when they should've done the other (correctly). I'll start with 2 since that's what Alan actually does; he shows Jane's conclusion to be false, via "illegal negation."

Now let's understand 1. What's the conclusion, and what's in support of that? Again, the conclusion referred to would be Jane's, "no TV." So the question is, should Alan have simply undermined the SUPPORT for that conclusion?

Well, Jane's argument is "damage --> no TV," and Alan's evidence says "no damage." That's called undermining support. Match!

Hope that helps. Good luck!

[eve.lederman]

(B)
confuses these two things
1. undermining an argument in support of a conclusion
2. showing the conclusion to be false

Sometimes, when the test says "confuses 2 things," this means that the author actually did 1 of those things (incorrectly), when they should've done the other (correctly). I'll start with 2 since that's what Alan actually does; he shows Jane's conclusion to be false, via "illegal negation."

Now let's understand 1. What's the conclusion, and what's in support of that? Again, the conclusion referred to would be Jane's, "no TV." So the question is, should Alan have simply undermined the SUPPORT for that conclusion?

Well, Jane's argument is "damage --> no TV," and Alan's evidence says "no damage." That's called undermining support. Match!

Hope that helps. Good luck!

That explanation makes it sound like Alan is doing both of those things. I got to B through POE but i'm still not seeing how it's B.

[christine.defenbaugh]

Thanks for posting, eve.lederman!

I find that generally, when a flaw answer choice says that an argument "confuses" two things, the two things it's talking about are 1) the premise and 2) the conclusion.

For instance, if I made the argument that:

Brand X is the most expensive brand on the market. So, if you want the best quality, you should buy Brand X.

I would be "confusing" 1) cost and 2) quality.

What bbirdwell is suggesting above is that the item in the premise is really the argument the person SHOULD have been making (since that's the one they actually had support for). Applying that to the Brand X argument, I *should* have been making an argument about cost, since that's what I actually had information about - instead, I randomly tried to make a conclusion about quality.

If we break down the premise and conclusion of Alan's argument, we can see what he 'confuses'. His premise is that Jacqueline and Mildred wouldn't be affected by the dangers reported in the argument - this premise undermines Jane's argument. However, his conclusion goes WAY farther - by saying that they DON'T need to restrict TV, he's claiming her conclusion is just FALSE.

As flawed arguments often do, he's confused the information in his premise for information in his conclusion - specifically, he's confused undermining Jane's argument (his premise) with proving her conclusion false (his flawed conclusion).

Alan *is* doing both of these things - one in the premise (which would support the argument he SHOULD have made) and one in the unsupported conclusion.

What do you think?

[roflcoptersoisoi]

Got this right through PoE, but had a difficult eliminating (E), can someone explain why it is not correct?

[tuckeralbers]

I believe (E) is incorrect because it states that he confuses a cause for an effect. He never does.

[rhkwk1441]

So (B) is basically saying

"Alan, you can't say that her conclusion is false (kids can have unlimited television viewing) Just because you weakened Jane's argument."

Instead, the conclusion of Alan should have been something like "Therefore, there is not enough evidence to restrict children's tv watching based on the article alone." not "We need not restrict their television viewing."

I mean think about it. For example, A says that, according to some article, there is certain harm consuming chocolate. Then B refutes A's argument by saying that that the article only applies to dogs and he concludes "You are not a dog (hopefully) so you can eat all the chocolate you want."
Does this make sense? Absolutely not.

In my interpretation, it's just a convoluted way to say that the conclusion is extreme and unwarranted.

[donghai819]

Tough question, and it proves that lsat authors love conditionality, again and again. What Jane is saying is essentially a conditional argument: When kids watch TV too much, then they suffer. Watch too much --> suffer. By concluding that Jac and Mil should not be allowed to watch too much, Jane essentially implies that we shouldn't let kids suffer hand-eye coordi., ~suffer --> ~ watch too much.
We can actually see that suffering is only one of many reason that will justify preventing kids from watching too much tv. There could be tons of other reasons doing "suffering"'s job. Alan's reasoning is wrong because he takes for granted that suffering from hand-eye coordination is the ONLY reason that suffices stopping kids watching TV.

Is my understanding correct?

[maryadkins]

Yessir, well done.