Q9 - Early pencil leads were made of solid graphite

[Nina]

why is B better than D? i know D maybe too strong due to its wording "frequently", while we only know one case in the stimulus. but for B, what if the government did know some resources, but only because those sources weren't plenty enough for worthing mining?

thanks for the help!

[sumukh09]

You're right about why D is wrong. "Frequently" is much too strong for this MSS question, and generally is for most MSS questions.

B is correct because it says in the stimulus that France had no access to Cumberland graphite because it was at war with Britain. Methods used today are because of the research that went into place back in 1970 by France so in 1970 there was no solid graphite available.

[jwms]

I chose (D) as well, though I saw the issues with the word 'frequently'.

(B) is problematic to me.

How do we know what the French gov't knew? As the original poster here wrote, perhaps the French did know of a source, but it wasn't a worthwhile source, and so they decided to develop another method. The fact that this answer choice writes about the gov't's knowledge is what turned me away.

In other words, I don't think it's fair to presume that gov't-sponsored research is dedicated exclusively to areas of need (no access to solid graphite), rather than areas where improved efficiency (or creating self-sufficiency) would be good for the economy in some way.

[gaheexlee]

How do we know what the French gov't knew? As the original poster here wrote, perhaps the French did know of a source, but it wasn't a worthwhile source, and so they decided to develop another method. The fact that this answer choice writes about the gov't's knowledge is what turned me away.

We don't actually, and we don't have to Inference questions can ask us to either pick an answer that must be true, or for an answer that is the most provable. This question happens to fall into the latter.

You're doing an awful lot of reasoning to justify why (B) should be eliminated. A LR should never have to make you work that hard and compel you to make so many unwarranted assumptions (i.e. that pursuing another source wasn't worthwhile).

Be very wary of answer choices like (D) that broaden the scope and generalize from just a simple, singular example.

[ohthatpatrick]

Great point about (B), in terms of how it cannot be proven, and AWESOME response ...

Even on Inference "must be true" questions, you sometimes see correct answers that aren't completely proven. You can scheme some exotic thought experiment in which the answer choice does not have to follow. Nevertheless, we're not holding LSAT test writers to the standard of perfection. We're just looking for the best answer, the credited response.

On a question such as this, the best answer is the one with the most support.

(A) "only" is too extreme .. this is present tense; all we know about the present is that at least one method of making pencil lead from powdered graphite exists ... even if we overstated and said that Cumberland was the only deposit suitable for SOLID graphite, we still couldn't leap to saying it's the only deposit suitable for ANY graphite pencil.

(B) The correct answer to most Inference questions synthesizes two or more claims based on Conditional, Causal, or Quantitative language. This one is Causal. Powdered graphite pencil leads are the result of a time when France was at war with Britain and had no access to Cumberland graphite. If having no access to Cumberland solid graphite resulted in developing powdered graphite, then we have some support for Inferring that France didn't have a good substitute source for solid graphite.

(C) This is speculating about the CAUSE of war. We don't have any supporting text for that.

(D) "frequently" is too strong (and "great benefit" is out of scope). One example is NOT good support for "frequently". And we have no support for the idea that powdered graphite has been of great benefit to society.

(E) "All" is way too extreme.

Hope this helps.

[lissethbayona]

The first time around I also incorrectly picked (B) on this question. I had a similar mental process as jwms in that I thought --maybe the French government did know of other solid graphite sources but these other sources were too inconvenient/disadvantageous.

However, now after reading (B) more closely the words "accessible" and "appropriate" stick out to me. (B) is not saying the French government didn't know of any other solid graphite sources AT ALL. It's just saying that it didn't know of any that were "accessible" and "appropriate" to meet France's need for pencils. If France did know of solid graphite sources that were APPROPRIATE then it obviously would have used those and wouldn't have lead research efforts for alternative methods. The word "appropriate" is vague and so leaves open a wide range of possible reasons as to why France decided to pursue alternative methods.

[donghai819]

I feel lissethbayona's elaboration on "appropriate" and "accessible" is helpful.
"No access" = "not [any] accessible"

Big takeaway:
The tone of language could change so long as the degree does not change ("no access" to "not any accessible"). But the generalization from one incident is always wrong.