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PT 35; S4; 23 - The higher the altitude, the thinner the air

by GRAMMOHAN.BUSINESS Sat Jan 09, 2010 7:58 pm

Why not answer choice A (As one gets older.....) correct?

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Re: PT 35, S4, Q23 - The higher the altitude, the thinner the

by noah Sun Jan 10, 2010 3:53 pm

The original argument sets up a general rule -- the higher you go, the thinner the air. Then it goes on to compare two places with different altitudes and conclude the the higher place has thinner air. Simple enough. If we want to complicate it, we can write it as this:

If A has more X than B, then A has more Y than B as well.

(D) has the same structure. If something is ______er (in this case, "older"), it has more _______ (in this case rings, in the original argument, thin air). Then (D) goes on to apply this rule in comparing two trees.

(A) is extremely tempting -- tricky of the LSAT to place it first! It sets up a comparison: as one gets ______er, one gets ______er. However, what is important to notice here is that this is a comparison between someone at one age and that same person at another age. What we cannot do -- and this is exactly what (A) does do! -- is use this to compare two people. Let's say we're comparing me to King Solomon (who, we'll agree for the sake of discussion, was a very wise guy). Well, I'm good at the LSAT, but I'm not King Solomon, so even when I hit 70, I probably won't be wiser than King Sol was at 37.

Let me challenge you: what should (A) end with in order for it to work as a parallel argument?

(B) is promising, except is has two conditions used in the comparison, and then it goes on to only use one of them.
(C) shows a similar error to (A). It sets up a comparison between groups but goes on to misapply it to one person in two periods of his life.
(E) is reversed. For it to be correct, it should end by saying "English has a larger vocabulary, therefore it is harder to learn than Italian."
 
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Re: PT 35; S4; 23 - The higher the altitude, the thinner the air

by ms365 Mon May 24, 2010 4:35 pm

Hey Noah, I was reading your reply to this question and I was wondering if the appropriate ending to answer Choice A was -

As one gets older, one gets wiser. Therefore Henrietta is currently the wisest she has ever been.

I'm not quite sure what you could add at the end to make this a parallel to the argument.

Is it even possible to parallel an original argument that compares two things to an argument that compares only one? Like I wrote above?

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Re: PT 35; S4; 23 - The higher the altitude, the thinner the air

by noah Mon May 24, 2010 5:14 pm

Yeah! You're on the right track. As one gets older, one gets wiser, and since Henrietta is older today than last year, she is wiser.

You wouldn't want to get into that "wisest" stuff -- since the original argument doesn't say that Mexico City has the thinnest air of any city, just thinner than the comparison. So, we'd only want to say Henrietta is wiser than her earlier self. That said, you'd be correct she'd be the wisest she's ever been -- assuming nothing else can make us less wise!

Good grappling!
 
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Re: PT 35; S4; 23 - The higher the altitude, the thinner the air

by lovelessim Mon Sep 27, 2010 12:35 pm

Noah,

So if "A" read: The older a person is, the wiser they are. Since H is older than her daughter, H must be wiser than her daughter.

Would that work is paralleling the argument? Since you are not explicitly comparing the person to themselves.
 
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Re: PT 35; S4; 23 - The higher the altitude, the thinner the air

by hoffman36 Wed Apr 06, 2011 11:45 pm

I think that noah misquoted answer choice (A). Answer choice (A) does compare two people: it says "as one gets older one gets wiser. Since Henrietta is older than her daughter, Henrietta must be wiser than her daughter."

Since Henrietta and her daughter cannot be the same person, then the answer choice is comparing two different people.

I think that (A) is wrong because the stim is discussing a measurable comparison (altitude and density of the air) whereas (A) is discussing something rather subjective. So even if as one gets older one gets wiser whose to say that Henrietta wasn't so dumb in the past that her daughter has already surpassed her level of wisdom?

I know for PR questions it's all about the structure of the passage and not the content but that's really all I can see that differentiates it from the stim and correct answer choice (D).

P.S. I know that this is an old thread, but maybe a new discussion will be helpful for June 2011 test-takers.
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Re: PT 35; S4; 23 - The higher the altitude, the thinner the air

by noah Thu Apr 07, 2011 10:08 am

lovelessim Wrote:Noah,

So if "A" read: The older a person is, the wiser they are. Since H is older than her daughter, H must be wiser than her daughter.

Would that work is paralleling the argument? Since you are not explicitly comparing the person to themselves.

I think this is still problematic because of the shift in topic from air to wisdom. But, it's getting closer for sure.
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Re: PT 35; S4; 23 - The higher the altitude, the thinner the air

by noah Thu Apr 07, 2011 10:13 am

hoffman36 Wrote:I think that noah misquoted answer choice (A). Answer choice (A) does compare two people: it says "as one gets older one gets wiser. Since Henrietta is older than her daughter, Henrietta must be wiser than her daughter."

Since Henrietta and her daughter cannot be the same person, then the answer choice is comparing two different people.

I think that (A) is wrong because the stim is discussing a measurable comparison (altitude and density of the air) whereas (A) is discussing something rather subjective. So even if as one gets older one gets wiser whose to say that Henrietta wasn't so dumb in the past that her daughter has already surpassed her level of wisdom?

I know for PR questions it's all about the structure of the passage and not the content but that's really all I can see that differentiates it from the stim and correct answer choice (D).

P.S. I know that this is an old thread, but maybe a new discussion will be helpful for June 2011 test-takers.

Thanks for restarting this thread - and it helped me notice that I never responded to an earlier reply!

I agree that the shift from discussing air to discussing wisdom is problematic. But, as you mention, we want to have a firmer reason to eliminate (A). I agree that the second part of (A) compares two people, but does the first part? "As one gets older, one gets wiser." In part because of the shift to a quality that is not standardized (i.e. my starting level of wisdom might be much lower than yours), and in part because the statement says "as one," I see this as discussing one's personal development, not development in comparison to others.
 
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Re: PT 35; S4; 23 - The higher the altitude, the thinner the air

by manoridesilva Fri May 20, 2011 11:17 am

I got this wrong the first time I looked at it. I was so used to reasoning patterns with flaws that I overlooked the fact that the original argument is not flawed. I was so then focused on finding a flaw in one of the answers that I overlooked that (D) was perfectly logical, hence it mirrored the original argument and was therefore the correct answer.
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Re: PT 35; S4; 23 - The higher the altitude, the thinner the air

by geverett Tue Jun 21, 2011 2:48 pm

Hmmmm . . . How about if it said this "If one person is older then another person then the former person is wiser then the latter person. Since Henrietta is older than her daughter, Henrietta is wiser than her daughter."

What say Noah?
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Re: PT 35; S4; 23 - The higher the altitude, the thinner the air

by noah Tue Jun 21, 2011 3:00 pm

geverett Wrote:Hmmmm . . . How about if it said this "If one person is older then another person then the former person is wiser then the latter person. Since Henrietta is older than her daughter, Henrietta is wiser than her daughter."

What say Noah?

I think that would work, though I imagine the LSAT would shy away from that since wisdom is - intuitively speaking - very personal in that we probably can't really set up this sort of rule, while the density of air can be rule-ified.

Thanks for playing! :)
 
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Q23 - The higher the altitude

by chike_eze Fri Jul 22, 2011 5:56 pm

It came down to (A) and (D) for me on this one. I see how D matches the the reasoning in the prompt. But I need a second opinion on why (A) is wrong.

From our October (M/W) study group, I gathered that (A) is wrong because we do not know the level of wiseness that both Henrietta and her daughter may have attained relative to each other. The daughter may have gotten wiser by a faster rate than her Mom. On the other hand, (D) and the "prompt" clearly state the relative positions of both elements to each other.

Prompt:
Higher altitude --> thinner air
Mexico city (compared to Panama city) --> higher altitude
therefore,
Mexico city (compared to Panama city) --> thinner air

Correct Answer (D)
Older tree --> more rings
Lou's tree (compared to Theresa's tree) --> Older tree
therefore,
Lou's tree (compared to Theresa's tree) --> more rings

Wrong (A)
Wiser (directly correlates with) Older
therefore, no cause and effect? <-- not too sure about this

Would (A) have been correct if it had stated "The older one is, the wiser one is. Henrietta older than daughter, therefore Henrietta wiser than daughter.

Thoughts on this one..??
 
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Re: Q23 - The higher the altitude

by timmydoeslsat Fri Jul 22, 2011 8:48 pm

You are absolutely correct with your line of thinking.

If answer choice A were to have said, "The older one is, the wiser one is. Henrietta older than daughter, therefore Henrietta wiser than daughter." then it would have been a correct answer.

Answer choice A brings that relative comparison to the table, but the end statement does not reflect the variables being compared accurately. It is comparing how wise person A is compared to person B, where as the comparison statement called for person A's wisdom to itself, person A, not a comparison of wisdom between two people.
 
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Re: PT 35; S4; 23 - The higher the altitude, the thinner the air

by kaseyb002 Sun Jul 15, 2012 11:50 pm

I'm still having trouble with it. Here's my best explanation of why I think A should be wrong, although I am not sure if it is right.

(A) - This says that the more the age, the wiser one gets; however, age is just ONE factor that promotes wisdom. Although greater age promotes wisdom, there are a million other things that effect wisdom as well. So it's not an absolute rule that if one is older than another, then that person will absolutely be wiser (goes along with King Solomon example I believe).

For the stimulus, altitude is the THE factor. It's an absolute rule. In other words, it would be impossible for a city of higher altitude to have thicker air than a city of lower altitude.

That seems to be the distinguishing factor - now that I see the correct answer choice - but how am I supposed to perceive that difference in the language? Or does it have something to do with inherent nature of wisdom vs. natural stuff like altitude and tree rings?
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Re: PT 35; S4; 23 - The higher the altitude, the thinner the air

by noah Mon Jul 16, 2012 12:53 pm

kaseyb002 Wrote:I'm still having trouble with it. Here's my best explanation of why I think A should be wrong, although I am not sure if it is right.

(A) - This says that the more the age, the wiser one gets; however, age is just ONE factor that promotes wisdom. Although greater age promotes wisdom, there are a million other things that effect wisdom as well. So it's not an absolute rule that if one is older than another, then that person will absolutely be wiser (goes along with King Solomon example I believe).

For the stimulus, altitude is the THE factor. It's an absolute rule. In other words, it would be impossible for a city of higher altitude to have thicker air than a city of lower altitude.

That seems to be the distinguishing factor - now that I see the correct answer choice - but how am I supposed to perceive that difference in the language? Or does it have something to do with inherent nature of wisdom vs. natural stuff like altitude and tree rings?

Looks like you're working yourself right back to the explanation above. While two baseline degrees of wisdom aren't necessarily the same, baseline tree rings and air density are.

I think the issue does involve the different natures of wisdom and the natural phenomena the answer and original argument discuss. I don't see there being language clues for that.

Good thinking!
 
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Re: Q23 - The higher the altitude

by johnwmatthewsiv Wed Sep 11, 2013 5:30 am

I have a problem with this question. I understand that "as one gets older one gets wiser, H older than daughter, therefore H is wiser than daughter" is flawed as it uses something that only establishes one person's relative wisdom at different ages, without relevance to other people, and based on that argues that that person is wiser than another.

But the stim is flawed as well. The thinness of air is dependent on more than altitude; particularly, it's affected by cold weather, and if Panama City were located on the North Pole, with a slightly lower altitude than Mexico City, the air would probably still be "thinner" than in Mexico City. Because the situations for various people mean that wisdom may increase individually with age but still less than or more than other people due to other factors, a city located in a unique climate zone might have higher altitude - thin air but still be more dense than another city at lower altitude due to other conditions, similar to answer A.

As for D, I'm not committed to this one, but it could be a different kind of tree in Lou's yard, and though the older the tree, the more rings it has, one kind of tree may have 1 ring at 100 and 3 rings at 1000 and one tree might have 1 ring at 1 month and 1000 at 2 months.

I admit that despite all of my overthinking, D is still probably a better answer than A, and no one thinks Panama City is on the North Pole, and altitude is a concrete measurement. but this question still irritates me like most other LSAT questions do not. Can anyone help me out?
 
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Re: Q23 - The higher the altitude

by aznriceboi17 Sun Sep 22, 2013 4:27 am

I have the exact same issue that johnwmatthewsiv has. After reading the stimulus and question, my initial reaction was to see if I had misread something, because I expected the question to be of the form 'The questionable pattern of reasoning in the argument above is most similar to that in which one of the following?'

As others have pointed out, A has the added condition that the inequality (more wisdom vs less wisdom) only applies to the same entity at different stages, whereas it seems the intended meaning of the stimulus is that 'The higher the altitude, the thinner the air' applies across different entities (cities in this case).

However, when you have a statement that says 'The higher the altitude, the thinner the air', isn't the understanding that what they actually mean is that 'The higher the altitude, the thinner the air -- all other relevant factors held the same.'? Leaving out the part in italics doesn't seem reasonable because of all the examples (such as the one johnwmatthewsiv gave) where there are multiple factors at play.

It seems that if you don't accept the part in italics, then you are committed to concluding that given any two cities A and B, if A is at a higher altitude than B then A's air is thinner than B (so you can ignore every other possible relevant attribute, such as climate) -- to me this seems very unlikely/unreasonable. However, if you then accept the part in italics, then it seems that the stimulus, A, and D all commit the same error of doing a comparison across different entities when the other possible relevant attributes (besides altitude, age, age, respectively) are not necessarily equal.

Can someone comment on this? Thanks!
 
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Re: Q23 - The higher the altitude

by aznriceboi17 Sat Mar 15, 2014 6:50 pm

I just revisited this question, and now that I reread it, I think the claim that 'The higher the altitude the thinner the air' is meant to be interpreted as saying that for any two points A and B, if Point A is higher in altitude than Point B, then the air at Point A is thinner than at Point B.

I.e., the thinness level of the air is essentially constant across all regions of equal altitude (physically, I guess this makes sense).
 
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Re: Q23 - The higher the altitude

by 513852276 Fri Oct 10, 2014 9:26 am

A may wrong because of the relationship between two objects in comparison. Mexico city and Panama city are less related, compared to Henrietta and her daughter.
 
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Re: Q23 - The higher the altitude

by christine.defenbaugh Wed Oct 15, 2014 11:51 am

513852276 Wrote:A may wrong because of the relationship between two objects in comparison. Mexico city and Panama city are less related, compared to Henrietta and her daughter.


Hmmm, I'm not sure that I follow you on that. Even if (A) had said "Henrietta is older than Bob, the President of the Australian Scuba Diving Association, so she must be wiser than he is", it would still be incorrect for all the reasons discussed above.

Don't start chasing superficial differences like this, or you'll start to see the LSAT as a terribly arbitrary exam. Stick to strong logical relationships. The rule set out in (A) only applies to a single person, as that person gets older and older. The stimulus (and (D)), give a rule that is meant to be universal.



aznriceboi17 Wrote:I just revisited this question, and now that I reread it, I think the claim that 'The higher the altitude the thinner the air' is meant to be interpreted as saying that for any two points A and B, if Point A is higher in altitude than Point B, then the air at Point A is thinner than at Point B.

I.e., the thinness level of the air is essentially constant across all regions of equal altitude (physically, I guess this makes sense).


That's exactly it!!

Here's the thing you've got to remember - it doesn't matter if that rule is actually true in real life. It's a PREMISE. We have to accept premises as gospel truth.

So, yes, in real life perhaps other things contribute to the thinness of the air (and other things probably contribute to the number of rings a tree has), but these two arguments hand us a tightly wrapped rule that we should not question: "The bigger X characteristic is, the bigger Y characteristic is."

Don't bring in your outside biases about how air thinness is actually determined. The premise, as written, suggests a blanket rule that applies in all situations - and significantly, it applies to all situations at once: for any point A that is higher than a point B, point A will have thinner air.

The blanket rule in (A) does apply to all people - but only to one person at a time. Every person is wiser than their younger self, but we can't use this rule to compare two different people.

I hope this helps clarify a few things!