mshinners
Thanks Received: 135
Atticus Finch
Atticus Finch
 
Posts: 367
Joined: March 17th, 2014
Location: New York City
 
 
 

Q2 - Successful stand-up comedians are

by mshinners Thu Jul 20, 2017 1:23 pm

Question Type:
Inference (Most Logically Completes)

Stimulus Breakdown:
Comedians use humor to get people to pay attention and remember stuff. Professors want to do the same.

Answer Anticipation:
Being funny could help professors achieve their goals.

Correct answer:
(B)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Degree/unwarranted comparison. Professors can reach their goals by emulating comedians, but there's nothing in the stimulus to say that they already do it, or have those same skills.

(B) Love it. It suggests professors use humor to be like comedians, and it's nice and weak ("can help").

(C) Degree. "only if" is too strong. Humor might be an effective tool, but there's nothing suggesting it's the only one that would work.

(D) Limited scope. While this statement is supported by the first line of the stimulus, it doesn't deal with the rest of the argument, and thus is too limited to address a question asking about a concluding statement.

(E) Degree. "should" is a strong statement if there isn't similar language in the premises. However, I probably wouldn't rule this out just because of that (the LSAT will generally use "should" to describe an action that will help achieve goals). The bigger issue is that it treats this one solution - humor - as a solution for any lecture, which is too broad based on the stimulus.

Takeaway/Pattern:
For questions asking you to complete an argument, be sure to pick an answer that brings all the premises together instead of just reflects a piece of it.

#officialexplanation