Q20 - Some people believe that good

[dan]

This question was discussed as part of a more general thread. Here's the link:

post920.html#p920

[brandonhsi]

I want to ask if I could say the reason A is wrong because it states "people make informed lifestyle decisions --> highly educated people". And A would be a correct answer if "highly educated people --> people make informed lifestyle decisions?" All other language in A stay the same.

Also, in Dan's post:
"For the sake of exercise, let's change the conclusion slightly to control for a separate issue we'll discuss later. For the moment, we’ll assume that making informed lifestyle decisions and being highly educated are equivalent concepts:"

It seems to me that the question makes two assumptions (term mismatch and correlation to causation) in order to draw conclusion. In order to say D is a correct answer, we have to make "mismatch" assumption disappears?

[ohthatpatrick]

Great questions.

In terms of (A), making your tweak would definitely improve it, putting the language shift into the proper
Prem --> Conc
order.

But, remember, "presumes w/o justification" just means "Necessary Assumption".

On Necessary Assumption, we're dubious of extreme language.
Saying the author "presumes that all highly educated people make informed lifestyle choices" seems to me more extreme than anything this author says.

The author is clearly associating one with the other, so it would be correct to say that the author "presumes that at least some highly educated people make informed lifestyle choices", but the language of this argument isn't harsh enough to accuse the author of assuming that ALL highly educated people make informed choices.

To your second point/question ... YES, that's what makes Flaw questions late in an LR section so tough. A lot of times there are multiple flaws, and if we only focus on language shifts (which LSAT probably considers the easier type of flaw to spot), we'll not have the others on our radar).

What I typically do, when I see a language shift is initially say, "Alright, well he's definitely assuming that X is associated with Y."

But then I say, "Let me assume for a second that X is associated with Y. Is there any other flaw?"

It's a weird skill, but Flaw essentially forces us to figure out what argument an author was trying to make before we then tear it down. So sometimes we have to play along with a language shift, because we know the author was trying to use those two ideas more or less interchangeably.

Hope this helps.

[samuelfbaron]

This one lends itself to understanding correlation vs causation well.

In the premise note it states "indicates a strong correlation", then the conclusion concludes "is largely the result", that made the argument fall apart instantly to me!

[lhermary]

Please help me out on this one. I looked at the link however I cannot find an adequate response.

I wanted to pick D however I had a problem with it. I was expecting the correlation/causation answer however D didn't fit my expectations. I assumed the fact that the conclusion mentions 'informed lifestyle choices' as the reasoning behind 'good health' that it already assumed that 'informed lifestyle choices' causally contributed to 'education' and 'good health' (I assumed that the passage already mentioned the third option, informed lifestyle choices, causually contributes to both). Thus if answer D said 'a causal contribution outside of informed lifestyle choices' I would have chosen it.



Please help

I hope one of the geeks understand my problem with this question.

[timsportschuetz]

@lhermary: The problem with your reasoning regarding D is that you are overlooking an essential and extremely common LSAT flaw. You state that the argument makes a causal conclusion. However, this causal conclusion is based solely on an observed correlation! Correlation NEVER proves causation! So, there are always 3 set-in-stone methods that can strengthen/weaken a causal conclusion based on only correlation:
1) Showing that the cause and effect from the conclusion are actually reversed! IE: "Making informed lifestyle choices are largely the effect of good health";
2) Showing that the two correlated items are actually caused by some unmentioned 3rd cause. IE: "Good health and high education is actually caused by the income-level of the person's parents";
3) Showing that the correlated items have no relationship or impact on each other whatsoever.

Answer choice D uses method 2. It reveals that the stated correlation of the two items stated in the argument are actually caused by an unmentioned third item. Thus, if this is the case, how could you ever validly conclude that the two correlated items are causally connected? You CAN'T!

[ohthatpatrick]

Great response!

Let me just address where her confusion was coming from. I think she realized that a #2 type idea was possible, that given a correlation between X and Y, maybe Z is really causing both of them.

The problem is that she was interpreting "informed lifestyle choices" as Z ... something that was causing high educational levels and something that was causing good health.

LSAT wanted us to interpret this argument as
"correlation between X and Y" (good health & high ed. levels)
thus,
"X is largely the result of Y" (good health is largely the result of informed lifestyles ... i.e. high ed. levels)

If you re-read some of the earlier posts, many people were bothered by this stretch of equating
high ed. levels = informed lifestyle choices

It seems that you read them to be wholly distinct, but LSAT was intending them to be stand-in's for each other. (there is certainly an assumption being made connecting them, but LSAT wanted us to realize that the author was treating them interchangeably)

We can't get the interpretation that the original argument was saying that informed lifestyle causes good health AND causes high educational levels. There's no supporting reason presented for how informed lifestyle causes either one of them.

Meanwhile, if we interpret "high educational levels" and "informed lifestyle" and two different names for the same thing, then the argument has at least SOME supporting reason
correlation between X and Y
thus, X is largely caused by Y

Hope this helps.

[timsportschuetz]

Thanks for your great response! I understand your point regarding the LSAT's intent on this particular question. This is an EXTREMELY unusual case and I have yet to see another question that intentionally equates two dissimilar terms. I noticed the scope shift and it bugged me as well, however, after eliminating 4 out of the 5 answer choices rather quickly, I didn't give it much more thought.

[christinachenn]

I understand why the correct answer is D. However, I would like an explanation for why B and E is wrong. Is B wrong because "inherited diseases" is too far a stretch from the absence "good health"? In the real world, it's not, but does this answer require an extra assumption and that's why it's wrong?

[WaltGrace1983]

I understand why the correct answer is D. However, I would like an explanation for why B and E is wrong. Is B wrong because "inherited diseases" is too far a stretch from the absence "good health"? In the real world, it's not, but does this answer require an extra assumption and that's why it's wrong?

I'll break apart this argument and maybe that will help.

Strong correlation between good health and high education levels
→
Good health is largely the result of making informed lifestyle choices

There are two flaws in here however one is definitely more prominent than the other.

Flaw #1 (Correlation/Causation): This is not good. We can never infer causation from correlation; ever. However, this argument does so. It talks about a strong correlation and then infers a causal relationship between the two. More importantly, it assumes that high education levels (generally) causes good health. Now it is not an ideal causal relationship as it doesn't assert an 100% causal, X definitely caused Y kind of thing, but asserting any causal connection from a correlation is still problematic. Keep the sufficient condition and necessary condition for what the author asserts in mind: The author is saying (ILC → GH).

Flaw #2 (Term mismatch): Yes this is definitely pointing to something wrong in the argument. In fact, it makes the argument appear very confusing. Who's to say that "high education levels" is the same as "informed lifestyle choices?" I can be highly educated and not make informed lifestyle choices! This flaw, however, is of secondary nature. The correlation/causation issue on the LSAT is like the test's magnum opus - it loves it. Either way, the author is still assuming that people with high education levels are in general the same people that make informed lifestyle choices.

Now let's move onto the questions...

(A) is super tempting! I initially chose it! It looked great at the time. Yet the word "only" made me think about this answer choice a lot more. (A) is saying that the argument asserts (Informed lifestyle choices → highly educated). Well the argument definitely asserts that there is some connection between having "informed lifestyle choices" and being "highly educated." However, does the argument assert that ONLY highly educated people make informed lifestyle choices? I don't think it does! The nature of this answer choice is incredibly confusing because we aren't exactly sure what the relationship between education and lifestyle choices is! Maybe its causal; maybe its not? There just simply isn't enough information in the stimulus to say that this is definitely the flaw, especially when (A) doesn't even mention "good health" which is a central component of this argument.

(B) Now remember what the conclusion said. It said that "good health is largely the result of informed lifestyle choices." So while informed lifestyle choices seem to bring about good health (at least this is what the author is saying) the author is NOT saying that informed lifestyle choices is sufficient for good health. In other words, if you make informed lifestyle choices that doesn't mean that you are guaranteed to be healthy. Thus, we can definitely say that the author never mentions "inherited diseases." However, we cannot say that the author overlooks the possibility that some who make good lifestyle choices may have inherited diseases. The author merely says that good health generally comes from informed lifestyle choices.

(C) We are only talking about the people that are in good health here. Does good health need to be available to everyone? Nope!

(D) This looks like the flaw! Maybe informed health doesn't cause good health! Maybe something else does! A just-as-valid would have also been "overlooks the possibility that good health causes informed lifestyle choices."

(E) So in a general sense, we have already shown that the author is concluding that (education → good health). Now (E) gives us something the author doesn't really do. The author does say that education in general leads to good health but NEVER says that ~education can also lead to good health. In other words, by saying that education is sufficient to bring about good health does not mean that the author is saying that education is the only way to bring about good health. Otherwise, the author would have said something like, "good health can ONLY be the result of education."

In addition, even if you think (E) does happen, it's not really the flaw of the argument. The author doesn't really need to say that ~education → good health.

Hope that helps.

[pewals13]

I got rid of (E) because I always thought correlations allowed for exceptions- the fact that good health doesn't always result from making informed lifestyle decisions is therefore not a flaw in the reasoning

[JoshC580]

Great questions.

In terms of (A), making your tweak would definitely improve it, putting the language shift into the proper
Prem --> Conc
order.

But, remember, "presumes w/o justification" just means "Necessary Assumption".

On Necessary Assumption, we're dubious of extreme language.
Saying the author "presumes that all highly educated people make informed lifestyle choices" seems to me more extreme than anything this author says.

The author is clearly associating one with the other, so it would be correct to say that the author "presumes that at least some highly educated people make informed lifestyle choices", but the language of this argument isn't harsh enough to accuse the author of assuming that ALL highly educated people make informed choices.

To your second point/question ... YES, that's what makes Flaw questions late in an LR section so tough. A lot of times there are multiple flaws, and if we only focus on language shifts (which LSAT probably considers the easier type of flaw to spot), we'll not have the others on our radar).

What I typically do, when I see a language shift is initially say, "Alright, well he's definitely assuming that X is associated with Y."

But then I say, "Let me assume for a second that X is associated with Y. Is there any other flaw?"

It's a weird skill, but Flaw essentially forces us to figure out what argument an author was trying to make before we then tear it down. So sometimes we have to play along with a language shift, because we know the author was trying to use those two ideas more or less interchangeably.

Hope this helps.

I think your responses are totally great and I understand them clearly. However, my concern is that while I understand how this sort of LSAT question or other works when reading the explanation, I am not sure if I could get correct when I get to see them at first. What keeps happening to me is that when I got wrong on some LSAT questions, I understand them why I got wrong but that doesn't improve my thinking ability. I really want to improve my LSAT thinking but is difficult to do so. How can I overcome this problem?

[Emmeline Ndongue]

LSAT wanted us to interpret this argument as
"correlation between X and Y" (good health & high ed. levels)
thus,
"X is largely the result of Y" (good health is largely the result of informed lifestyles ... i.e. high ed. levels)

If you re-read some of the earlier posts, many people were bothered by this stretch of equating
high ed. levels = informed lifestyle choices

The correct answer choice is kind of weird to me as "the same thing" supposedly refer to "informed lifestyles", as it's explicitly stated in the conclusion as (largely) the cause of good health. If so, we would want to look at high ed. levels & informed lifestyle choices as different things, or else we'd be saying the stated cause can cause the stated effect and the stated cause itself???? Or "the same thing" actually refers to "luck"?

[Amy K994]

is there anybody who can explain why (B) is incorrect?