Q7 - Columnist: It has been noted

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Determine the Function

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: The extra awesomeness of seeing music live can't be just because we can suddenly SEE the performers.
Evidence: There's little difference between hearing someone read a story over the radio and SEEING that person read a story.

Answer Anticipation:
Remember -- not our job to evaluate the legitimacy of that dicey analogy.

Finding the conclusion is a simple matter of keywords.
"Some say ___. However ____, for _____."
That will always mean
1st idea = counterpoint,
2nd = conclusion,
3rd = premise.

The four big premise indicators are "because, since, after all, and for".

The stem is asking us about the first sentence. This is not part of the author's evidence, technically. It's just the background fact that SOME people would explain with reason X, and our author is saying "there must be some other reason for the background fact, because reason X sounds like an unlikely reason."

Correct Answer:
E

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) This means "main conclusion". Not even close.

(B) The argument is attempting to undermine the claim that "SEEING the performers is what makes live music extra awesome". This answer says that the first sentence is the reason WHY seeing performers is what makes live music extra awesome. Nope. The first sentence isn't anyone's premise. It's just a background fact.

(C) This argument only purports to take down one possible explanation, but the author never provides a new one to replace it with.

(D) The author isn't refuting the first sentence. By concluding, "there must be some other reason [for the first sentence]" our author implictly accepts the truth of the first sentence.

(E) The columnist is trying to undermine the position that "SEEING performers is what makes live music extra awesome". This answer is saying "seeing performers is what makes live music extra awesome" is purported to explain why "live music is extra awesome, compared to just hearing recorded music". This works!

Takeaway/Pattern: The language of (E) and (B) is pretty tortured. When it's one of those run-on abstract answer choices, I always narrow my attention to ONE phrase. With (B), I started by finding "the claim the argument is trying to undermine". THEN I see if the relationship described holds. With (E), I started by finding "the position the argument tries to undermine", and THEN evaluated the rest of the answer choice.

#officialexplanation

[sunhwa2881]

Can you please explain this question? Thank you.

[aileenann]

So let's first think about what the text they are asking about is doing. It looks like the conclusion to me - or at least a conclusion of someone, even if not explicitly of the columnist. And the next two sentences are facts that are offered - 1 in support of the conclusion and then 1 in opposition to the support that was offered. Note that in refuting this support, the columnist isn't necessarily rejecting the conclusion. Rather he's simply pointing out that the reason offered doesn't seem to stand up.

(E) gets to this perfectly. The columnist tries to undermine the visual rationale offered, and the visual rationale tries to support the conclusion. (E) is a convoluted way of saying this.

I hope this helps! Maybe you could take a shot at trying to explain why the other 4 answer choices are incorrect?

[clarafok]

i think i missed E because i got thrown off by 'purported to explain'. i instantlly eliminated it because i didn't think the role of the first sentence was to explain anything...

so i'm just trying to understand the answer more clearly...

basically, the first sentence is the position that the columnist is trying to undermine with the last sentence. right?

i actually chose C for this question, but i'm thinking it's wrong because it doesn't mention that the columnist is actually trying to undermine the first sentence, right?

thanks in advance!

[bbirdwell]

No, the columnist is not trying to undermine the first sentence, and the first sentence is not the conclusion. The first sentence is just a fact:

"It has been noted that live music is better than recorded music."

Hmm. Ok...

"Some say this is because..."

Without reading any further, we can see that this is an explanation of the first sentence. And at this point, without reading any more, we can predict what will happen. How many times have you seen "Some experts" or "Some critics" on this test? 99.999% of the time, what soon follows is "BUT, those people are wrong."

So without even reading the rest of the argument, let's guess what will happen. I bet the author disagrees, and perhaps even offers a different explanation!

"However..." (here it is) "there must be another reason." Bingo! He doesn't actually go so far as to offer a different explanation, though. He just says "Those idiots are wrong."

So, how does the first sentence function? It's the thing that "some" try to explain, and the author doesn't like their explanation.

Does that make sense?

(E) says this, just in totally awkward language.

(B) is awkward and perhaps tempting. Don't fall for the trap of trying to match up all those pieces. We can eliminate this as soon as we read "reason given for the claim." This is not true -- it's not a reason that supports a claim at all. It's just a thing that some people try to explain.

(C) is close, but, remember, the author doesn't offer an explanation -- he just rules out the other explanation.

Does that clear things up?

[chike_eze]

The grammar in (E) does not even make sense! I think this was done on purpose to make option (E) less attractive. And they say LSAT does not try to deceive....

Essentially, we have the following structure:

1. It has been noted that X is the case
2. Some claim that X is due to Y
3. However, there must be some other explanation for X.
4. Because the relationship between Y and X is weak

Conslusion: Must be some other explanation for X (4)
Premise: Because X and Y relationship is weak (3)

Question: What is the role of statement 1?

(4) supports (3) by undermining (2) which attempts to explain (1)

C) states that the argument is in support of (1) -- this is not accurate, because the core is (3) supports (4) -- BTW, I picked this answer choice during the real test -- grrrhh

Correct = (D) states, though in a weird way, that (1) is explained by a position that the argument attempts to undermine. i.e.,
(1) explained by (2) which is undermined by argument (4) --> (3)

[kaseyb002]

Once you understand E, this becomes a baby question IMO.

Here's how I re-worded E (I know plenty of good explanations have been already given, just thought I would throw in mine as well):

(E) - it's the phenonmenon that the "wrong critics" are attempting to explain

[id_dbouk]

I answered this question correctly, only because I figured that (A) and (C) were synonymous and couldn't both be correct. Is it fair to assume that "show" and "explain" have the same meaning? Thanks in advance.

[dontmesswmeow]

@id_dbouk,

I don't think "show" and "explain" mean the same though it seems that they play sort of identical role here against the rest.

Personally, I think "show" is actually closer to more actively teach something, as compared to "explain" which feels somewhat less graphic.

Actually, what bothered me in this question was the word "purport" as a non-native English user.

While I did know the meaning of the word, I haven't used or seen it for a while and so it sort of distracted or confused me -

But now after I got this problem wrong, the confusing answer choices actually shed light on my understanding on the structure of the stimulus -

Although I could get the "observation" in question was the central topic of the columnist's argument right off the bat, I wasn't really keeping answer choices (A), (C), and (E) straight -

I just grasped the big picture like, "oh, the columnist is trying to explain what might be the more accurate reason for the "observation" is---while there's the (kind of) opponent's argument.

But, digging the question deeper, it becomes clearer that "the observation" is NOT JUST what the columnist's argument is "purporting" to explain (about the reason) -

I think it is true (the Columnist's argument does purport to explain "the observation" or "the exact reason for such phenomenon") but there's more than just simple purporting to explain.

There are other important things going on in the stimulus -

So, as the question stem goes, the "most accurate" role is the question here. Not just any role it's playing (or just a generally correct role) which are essentially (A) and (C).

That "some" population is trying explain the noted observation (regarding why), and yet the columnist is suspecting and trying to come up another scenario---which will essentially undermine the first hypothesis by "some".

Now the correct answer is self-evident.

I think the takeaway from this problem or its answer choices is that we need to figure out "the most accurate" and additionally, the ultimately correct answer is purposefully trying to trick us with using the unnecessarily complicated compound (twisting), all-in-one sentence structure which eventually bears everything which depicts the structure of the stimulus (or the debate) the most accurately, or the most holistically.

I think I'll try to deconstruct such tweaked answer choices and cut them down to legible two to three sentences next time ---because THEY ARE purposefully tweaked to trick me and I won't let them bring me down (

[jenoh82223]

Here's how I understand E,

(E) It's what the position that the columnist <tries to undermine> is purported to explain.

And <tries to undermine> = second sentence, which supports the first sentence = the position.