Q22 - One of the most useful

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Sufficient Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Money was probably invented independently in more than one society.
Evidence: Money is an artificial, human invention, not an innate ability.

Answer Anticipation:
Okay … weak argument. Couldn't money have been invented just once, and then it was such a cool invention that it spread to all other societies that way? Either way, our task here is to prove the conclusion: "money was probably invented independently more than once". Evidence: "money is artificially invented, not innate, and money is universally found across societies". Missing bridge idea: "If something is not innate, was artificially invented, and is found in all societies, then it was probably invented independently in more than one society".

Correct Answer:
A

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Yes! This rules out our possible objection that "ONE society invented money, and everyone else just copied it." Since money is found in all societies, and some societies are completely removed from the influence of any other society, then money had to be invented independently at least twice.

(B) The conclusion/logic has nothing to do with language.

(C) We don't need a rule to prove that something is innate. We need a rule that says "if it's artificially invented and found everywhere, it got invented more than once".

(D) We don't need a counterfactual about what would happen if money were NOT useful.

(E) We only care about how the invention of money took place. Whether it was abandoned later doesn't address the mystery of whether it was invented more than once.

Takeaway/Pattern: Very weird correct answer. This is more typical of modern Sufficient Assumption corect answers: they find a way to get you to the finish line (i.e. proving the conclusion), but they don't use the classic format of "If premise, then conclusion".

#officialexplanation

[elizabeth.r.casanova]

I am struggling with this problem. Below is how I interpreted it -- please correct my analysis and add any thoughts for clarity. Thank you kindly!

Reasoning: Money is a universal, but artificial, human invention that is not rooted in innate ability (like language is).

Conclusion: Invention of money occurred independently in more than one society.

(A) Correct. We are given the assumption that at least one society,(call it X), has not been influenced by any other society, (call it Z), due to geographical isolation. So this means society X must have independently developed money, given that all societies, X and Z, have money (universal).

(B) This doesn't fill the gap between the reasoning and conclusion, which is about where money was developed, not language. This answer choice is basically giving a description of the universal development of language.

(C) Once again, this doesn't fill the gap between the reasoning and conclusion, which is about where money was developed.

(D) This proves that money is useful, but again, doesn't prove where money was invented.

(E) We already know this: money is universal across all societies.

[noah]

This looks great. I clarified the conclusion ("probably"), discussed the gap (which is something you should try to identify when looking at assumption family questions) and added a bit to (C) and (D) bit:

Reasoning: Money is a universal, but artificial, human invention that is not rooted in innate ability (like language is).

Conclusion: Invention of money probably occurred independently in more than one society.

The gap that I see here is the one between something being invented and it therefore having been independently developed. Couldn't it have been developed first in one place and then passed around everywhere?

(A) Correct. We are given the assumption that at least one society,(call it X), has not been influenced by any other society, (call it Z), due to geographical isolation. So this means society X must have independently developed money, given that all societies, X and Z, have money (universal).

(B) This doesn't fill the gap between the reasoning and conclusion, which is about where money was developed, not language. This answer choice is basically giving a description of the universal development of language.

(C) Once again, this doesn't fill the gap between the reasoning and conclusion, which is about where money was developed. We care about something is IS an invention!

(D) This proves that money is useful - which we already know - but again, doesn't prove where money was invented.

(E) We already know this: money is universal across all societies.

[timmydoeslsat]

Rare case of this answer choice being both a sufficient and a necessary assumption correct?

[noah]

I don't think it's necessary that the groups are geographically isolated. While that seems like the most likely, and perhaps only way that a group could be not influenced by another group, all we need is that some cultures independently develop the idea. As long as another culture didn't influence in that arena.

[kdeclark]

I'm sorry. I still don't understand. Here is how I understand the argument, after A is inserted:

1. Money is an artificial, human invention; it is not innate, like language.

2. Some societies have been geographically isolated enough so that they have not been influenced by any other society

Thus,

3. It seems probable that the invention of money occurred independently in more than one society.

I do not see how 3 follows from 1 and 2. To show this, I just need to come up with a case in which 1 and 2 are true, and 3 is false. So here: Suppose there are 100 societies: S1-S100. Say that S1-S99 are connected to one another, while S100 is isolated in some jungle. Well, perhaps S1-S99 have money (developed, say, in S1, and spread through the others), while S100 doesn't have money.

So here we have a situation in which money is artificial, and some societies have been isolated so that they have not been influenced. That doesn't make it probable that the invention of money occurred independently in more than one society!

Here is the broader point: I don't understand how the fact that at least one society was geographically isolated has any bearing on the probability of money having been developed independently.

Can someone please help me understand this?

[noah]

The argument also states that money is a universal convention which it seems like you might have overlooked. So, every society has it. So, if we know that some societies are isolated in such a way that they haven't been influenced by others, and they have money, those societies must have developed it independently (and thus, it occurred in more than one country).

Make sense now?

[kdeclark]

Well, it's good to know that I just made a mistake. When I feel like the LSAT made a mistake, I feel angry. When I feel like I made a mistake, I feel motivated not to make the mistake again. Definitely feeling the latter now. Thanks!

[all_boost]

This looks great. I clarified the conclusion ("probably"), discussed the gap (which is something you should try to identify when looking at assumption family questions) and added a bit to (C) and (D) bit:

Reasoning: Money is a universal, but artificial, human invention that is not rooted in innate ability (like language is).

Conclusion: Invention of money probably occurred independently in more than one society.

The gap that I see here is the one between something being invented and it therefore having been independently developed. Couldn't it have been developed first in one place and then passed around everywhere?

(A) Correct. We are given the assumption that at least one society,(call it X), has not been influenced by any other society, (call it Z), due to geographical isolation. So this means society X must have independently developed money, given that all societies, X and Z, have money (universal).

(B) This doesn't fill the gap between the reasoning and conclusion, which is about where money was developed, not language. This answer choice is basically giving a description of the universal development of language.

(C) Once again, this doesn't fill the gap between the reasoning and conclusion, which is about where money was developed. We care about something is IS an invention!

(D) This proves that money is useful - which we already know - but again, doesn't prove where money was invented.

(E) We already know this: money is universal across all societies.

Need further clarity on this explanation...

So we know that:
- money was invented in at least one place independently of any influence.
- money is in every place
- money is artificial

I'm having an issue with this explanation:
"We are given the assumption that at least one society,(call it X), has not been influenced by any other society, (call it Z), due to geographical isolation. So this means society X must have independently developed money, given that all societies, X and Z, have money (universal)."

The conclusion says that it occurred independently in more than one society... and the explanation above seems to presuppose that the "at least 1 society" (i.e. the some) to be isolated enough to be free from influence was not also the same society that influenced all the others. But what reason do we have to believe this? It seems that answer choice (A) is perfectly consistent with a scenario where the only society to be free from influence is the original society to have invented money, with that society influencing all the others.

Why am I wrong? (I feel like I must be, because this why I eliminated this AC)

[noah]

The conclusion says that it occurred independently in more than one society... and the explanation above seems to presuppose that the "at least 1 society" (i.e. the some) to be isolated enough to be free from influence was not also the same society that influenced all the others. But what reason do we have to believe this? It seems that answer choice (A) is perfectly consistent with a scenario where the only society to be free from influence is the original society to have invented money, with that society influencing all the others.

Why am I wrong? (I feel like I must be, because this why I eliminated this AC)

Great question--it's based on a very close reading of the question and answer.

The fact that the conclusion is hedged by "probable" gives us a bit more wiggle room. One possible place to wiggle is that "some societies" can be referring to more than one society. Also, I'd say that the fact that the society is geographically isolated means that it also won't influence others. Admittedly, that's a leap, though a very small one.

[all_boost]

Thanks Noah, makes sense.

[rachel.miklaszewski]

Hi! I'm struggling with this one.

I understand the logic now that I'm reading these answers and I realize if I understood the stem a little more I would have used the negation test to quickly ID A as the correct answer. But instead, as I was answering the question I was looking for a way to connect the premises to the conclusion, since it doesn't make sense that just because money is universal and artificial, it would be probable that the invention of money occurred independently.

And while A strengthens the argument by ruling out the possible that countries are too close for independent invention of money, it doesn't connect the premises at all to the conclusion. This makes it hard for me to answer and hard to feel like answer A completely lets the argument "be properly drawn."

[andrewgong01]

"A" seems more like a defender assumption. I was reluctant to choose "A" except all the other choices were eliminated but i thought sufficient assumptions tend (or only?) to bridge instead of giving you a possible objection since the possible objection should not be able to be sufficient to allow a conclusion to be drawn. However,r in this case it does seem like this "objection"/"defender" allows the conclusion to be drawn but it is not a required assumption since you don't need geographical isolation to prevent an area from influence
Is there any general rule regarding if defenders can be sufficient to or if this was even a defender? My pre-phase was was similar to yours that something about being not innate allows us to conclude independence in development

[ohthatpatrick]

You're exactly right about the "tend to" and incorrect about "only".

And it's a STRONG tendency. 95% or more Sufficient Assumption questions (historically) had correct answers that were clearly Bridge ideas or Missing Ideas.

But on more recent tests, they find ways to trigger certainty about the conclusion that are NOT what we would consider a classic Bridge idea.

And sometimes you just need to rule out something in order to guarantee the conclusion. So moral of the story is: be flexible.

EXAMPLES
Last year the police force was 40% female. This year it's 45% female. So this year there are more females on the force.

S.A. BRIDGE
If there is a higher percentage of something, there is a higher number of that thing.

S.A. DEFENDER
The number of males on the police force did not decrease

S.A. WEIRD FORM
There was an equal number of men on the force unless the number of males increased.

Those are all doing the same thing: guaranteeing the truth of the conclusion. And ultimately, that's the only standard of right/wrong here.

[BarryM800]

The first sentence talks about the similarity between money and language and the second sentence talks about the difference between money and language. I thought the focus here is the difference, i.e., money is an artificial, human invention. Therefore, I categorized the first sentence as background information and identified the argument core is: money is an artificial, human invention ⇒ money occurred independently in more than one society. But apparently a mechanistic approach would not yield a match to any of the answer choices. After knowing the correct answer and reading the instructors' explanations I realized the argument core is actually "money is universal ⇒ money occurred independently in more than one society." So how can we do better in analyzing the stimulus? Is there any subtle cue words or structural patterns that we can learn from this question? What is the role of the second sentence - pure distraction? Thanks!

[Misti Duvall]

The first sentence talks about the similarity between money and language and the second sentence talks about the difference between money and language. I thought the focus here is the difference, i.e., money is an artificial, human invention. Therefore, I categorized the first sentence as background information and identified the argument core is: money is an artificial, human invention ⇒ money occurred independently in more than one society. But apparently a mechanistic approach would not yield a match to any of the answer choices. After knowing the correct answer and reading the instructors' explanations I realized the argument core is actually "money is universal ⇒ money occurred independently in more than one society." So how can we do better in analyzing the stimulus? Is there any subtle cue words or structural patterns that we can learn from this question? What is the role of the second sentence - pure distraction? Thanks!

Hi! I think you had it right the first time. What you initially noted with the second sentence as the premise and last as the conclusion matches the official explanation at the top of this thread.

If finding the answer was still tricky, it's likely it was because of something in the answer choices themselves, or maybe about the question type. But you definitely had the right argument core.