Q23 - No non fiction book published by

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Match the Reasoning

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: CB did not publish a nonfiction book last year. Evidence: CB earned a profit on every book it published last year, and CB's nonfiction books have never earned a profit.

Answer Anticipation:
Is it valid? Seems like it.

Most of the time we see a Match the Reasoning question stem that doesn't specifically mention "flawed reasoning", we get a valid, or at least highly reasonable argument.

This gives us a conditional rule and then applies the rule to profitable books from last year in a valid way.

So we want something like:
p1: if you're X, then you're ~Y. (if you were profitable, you're not nonfiction)
p2: everything last year was X (everything last year was profitable)
conc: thus, everything last year was ~Y (everything last year was not nonfiction)

Correct Answer:
C

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) From the conditional + fact, we could fairly conclude "the important role must not have been in a major movie", but we can't conclude the much broader "they must not have worked in a movie".

(B) From the conditional + fact, we could infer that CSH does not specialize in serving business travelers. That's what the conclusion says, so we should be good here. Ultimately, it is less than a perfect match. Like (D), it lacks the contingent time period of the original argument, which (C) faithfully replicates.

(C) From the conditional + fact, we could infer that "the system analysts who got bonuses were NOT part of the marketing division". This conclusion looks to be that, so we should keep it.

(D) From the conditional + fact, we could infer that Waldville doesn't have a business file on JB, which is the conclusion. Again, this is very close to the original, but not as close as (C). Both of its conditional rules are "timeless". (C), like the original, draws an inference about a more narrow factual situation. (D) is really just combining two conditional rules to derive a chain.

(E) From the conditional + fact, we could infer that "CF never installed hardwood flooring for any of its Woodridge customers", but we can't infer that the company NEVER installs hardwood floring.

Takeaway/Pattern: Wow, what a terrible question.

In the end, B/C/D all look like legal arguments, so we have to get more nuanced then just "did the author legitimately combine a conditional and a specific fact?" (C) seems to have the most similarity because the specific fact and the conclusion are both restricted to a certain time period ("last year"), whereas the conclusions of (B) and (D) are more universal in nature.

I am honestly pretty surprised that LSAT is making us pick based on such a narrow, superficial difference. But since the question stem is worded, "Which is MOST similar", we will sometimes have to get less coarse-grained about what we're looking for (a valid argument using a conditional rule) and more granular (a valid argument that takes a timeless conditional rule and applies it to a specific time frame).

#officialexplanation

[Ellesat]

I struggled with this one and would appreciate help, including whether or not each of the answer choices are valid arguments. IF we weren't sure whether or not the stimulus presented a valid argument, do we look to the question stem? is it already telling us it is valid because it does not specifically tell us to look for similar flawed argument?

[KenM242]

In case there is anyone who is struggling between (A) and (C) just like I did, here is the conditional logic breakdown:

For simplicity, I rephrased the first sentence of (A):
No major movie actor represented by the talent agent Mira Roberts has ever won an important role.

Conditional Logic for (A)
Major Movie -> ~ Win Role (If you work in MAJOR MOVIE, you did not win any roles.)
Last year -> Win Role (If you worked last year, you won a role.)
---------------------
Last year -> ~ Movie (If you worked last year, you did not work in a movie)

So yes, a subtle shift from MAJOR MOVIE to just ANY MOVIE is the reason that (A) is wrong. I failed to catch that.


I also rephrased (C) to make the structure of the sentences as parallel to (A) as possible:

No one in marketing division employed by PC has ever received a bonus.
Since PC gave bonuses to every systems analyst employed last year,
it is clear that the company employed no systems analyst in its marketing division last year.

Conditional Logic for (C):
marketing division -> ~ bonus (If you work in marketing division, you never received a bonus.)
last year AND systems analyst -> bonus (If you are a systems analyst and worked last year, you received a bonus.)
-----------------------------------
last year AND systems analyst -> ~ md (If you are a systems analyst and worked last year, you did not work in md.)

This matches the the pattern in the stimulus, which is:
nonfiction -> ~ profit
last year -> profit
-----------
last year -> ~nonfiction

I'm not smart at all and it took me a LONG time until I was able to correctly arrange the elements in (C) to make it parallel to the stimulus.

[obobob]

Question Type:

So we want something like:
p1: if you're X, then you're ~Y. (if you were profitable, you're not nonfiction)
p2: everything last year was X (everything last year was profitable)
conc: thus, everything last year was ~Y (everything last year was not nonfiction)


#officialexplanation

Hi, just a quick question: for the first sentence (p1), I was thinking that this sentence is just saying something about the profitability of Carriage Book's nonfiction books until the current time period-- so, basically, I was still leaving a possibility that Carriage Book's nonfiction books earn a profit anytime in the future.
From there, I thought the argument is valid, for p2 and the conclusion talk about their nonfiction books published during last year (p1 covers all the time periods in the past including last year).

I guess I am unsure if it's okay to translate statements about what has been the case 100% of the time ("no CB nonfictions has ever earned a profit) into conditional statements (if you were profitable, you're not CB nonfiction). Can anyone please help me out?

[ohthatpatrick]

Right, you're correct in thinking that the first sentence is a universal rule that only pertains to the past.

It has no bearing on the future. Were you thinking that we were saying it does?

In my rough sketch of the argument's logic,
So we want something like:
p1: if you're X, then you're ~Y. (if you were profitable, you're not nonfiction)
p2: everything last year was X (everything last year was profitable)
conc: thus, everything last year was ~Y (everything last year was not nonfiction)

... I'm writing P1 as a "timeless conditional", but that's just because we're looking at the general form, not the specific content. In the parenthesis to the right is the specific content that this general form is representing, and you can see that it is a "past-tense" conditional:
"if you WERE profitable, you're not nonfiction"

You're nervous (correctly) about translating the first sentence into
"if a book by Carriage Books is profitable, it can't be nonfiction"
We definitely wouldn't do that.

And, yes, as you said (and as we were saying), the original argument is perfectly valid.