Q19 - Fishing columnist: When an independant

[mcrittell]

I'm not really sure I understand why D isn't a flaw. If there are 2 "best-selling brands of bait [...] that are equally effective," wouldn't that mean that Benton isn't necessarily "the best bait"?

[noah]

Good question.

We're asked to ID the flaw. The conclusion of this argument is that Benton is the best bait for trout-fishing. Them's are fighting words!

Why? Because tests showed that of the five best-selling baits, Benton out-performed.

I haven't finished writing and there are already issues!

Issue #1: What about the incredible bait that isn't a best-seller? Only five tins are produced each year!

But, there are more issues: the bait was tested by "top anglers."
Issue #2: What about bozos fly fisherman like me? Maybe we need something different.

And, they tested all this in a pristine northern stream!
Issue #3: What about when I fish for trout in a polluted stream next to a nuclear power plant?

And, they tested the bait while fishing for speckled trout, while the conclusion is about trout in general.
Issue #4: What about un-speckled trout?

And, the wrong answers match up nicely! (Almost like I knew them beforehand!)

(A) Issue #1

(B) Issue #2

(C) Issue #3

(E) Issue #4

(D) sure seems like a flaw. You might be thinking this: the research firm did figure out that Benton was more effective than all the other top-five best-selling baits in a specific situation, with specific fish, anglers, etc. but maybe the other ones are more effective overall (i.e. on average, in all settings). However, this is not what (D) is about. It's suggesting that perhaps the two best-selling baits are equally effective. Is Benton one of those two? Maybe not - and so who cares if the #1 and #2 best-sellers are equally effective? Benton could be still more effective than both of them.

Make sense?

[pewals13]

What if there is another best-selling brand of bait that was not included in the research firm's comparison yet is just as effective as Benton's bait? Doesn't the argument technically overlook this? Could this answer choice be correct because while maybe Benton's bait is tied for efficacy with another bait it can still technically be considered the best? Alternatively, could we operate under the reasonable inference that the only baits considered "best-selling" are the top five named in the research comparison, which would have accounted for ties in efficacy?

[maryadkins]

I agree with everything you said except the part about there being a bestseller than wasn't tested because we are told the five bestselling baits were tested (as you mention, this is a reasonable inference). For (D) to be referring to a different kind of bestseller, we'd have to redefine bestseller in the context of the question.

But sure, Benton being tied for best can still mean it's best, which also makes (D) the best answer.

[contropositive]

I have never seen flaw question come in an "except form" in fact in my homework this is the only question like this. Is this fkaw except question rare on the lsat?

[tommywallach]

Indeed it is. The LSAT has access to a nearly infinite number of "rare" question types, because you can do multiple variations on all the major types. Luckily, they're all testing the same sort of logic, it just means you need to pay close attention to the wording of questions, because you might end up doing the opposite of what they ask for, expecting a more common question type.

-t

[edjhan]

Hey guys, I got this question wrong under timed conditions and correct when doing blind review and wanted to run my reasoning by you guys.

When I did blind reviewed this question, I immediately had multiple prephrases for the possible flaws of this argument that I had to eliminate from the answer choices:

Prephrase 1: What worked for expert anglers might not translate over to regular anglers
Prephrase 2: The effectiveness of Benton bait might vary in locations other than the "pristine northern stream"
Prephrase 3: Benton was compared amongst 4 other best-selling baits but how do we know that the best selling = most effective? There might be another bait that is far better than all 5 of the best selling ones but might not be selling as many.

A) Matches my 3rd prephrase, so we have to eliminate (since this is an Except question)
B) Matches my 1st prephrase, so eliminate
C) Matches my 2nd prephrase, so eliminate
D) Voila! This is it because it's not a flaw in the columnist's argument. Even if there were two best-selling brands that were equally effective as each other, the columnist could still infer the same conclusion from his other premises.
E) The columnist specifies the type of fish as trout. So this isn't a flaw in the columnist's reasoning.

How was my reasoning overall for each answer choice? Did I miss anything important/make a mistake?