#13- Specific Reference, Parallel, Except

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[lathlee]

I may be suck that's why i got this Q wrong but I honestly cannot find D) as the correct answer. I still think there is no right answer exist in Q 13.

[chian9010]

Is D wrong because teaching young generation the use of idiomatic is not presented in the fourth paragraph but in the second paragraph when author mentions about the function of radio?

[James Finch]

Hi guys,

(D) is the correct answer choice because, unlike all the others, it is the only one that fits under the example of "ineffective programming given in paragraph four: language lessons. All of the other answer choices would fall under one of the categories of examples given of effective programming.

Hope this helps!

[LSAThangman]

Hello all,

While I can readily see why D is correct, I do not see why we can't rule out E. E mentions recordings of TALES by ANTHROPOLOGISTS. By contrast, the fourth paragraph mentions only [indigenous] ELDERS/FLUENT SPEAKERS and SONGS, but not tales. I therefore don't see how we could say the author advocates for E in paragraph 4. Someone please explain this to me. Many thanks.

[Adam Tyson]

I think you are confusing what the anthropologists in that answer are doing, LSAThangman. They aren't telling the folk tales themselves - they just made the recordings of native speakers telling the folk tales in their language. That probably fits well with "recordings of elders speaking the native language." But even if the anthropologists were the ones telling the tales (which would seem odd - why record themselves telling the stories when they could record the people they are studying doing so?), they would have to be fluent enough in the language to do so, and that would probably fit under the umbrella idea of "speeches by fluent speakers", and it is pretty close to fulfilling the same purpose as traditional songs since these folks tales would also "make() it easier for novice speakers to grasp the language by familiarizing them with its rhythms." Folks tales weren't specifically mentioned, but this type of programming would at least fit under the broad umbrella of the sort of programming the author is advocating.

[mab9178]

Hi,

I headed into the answer-choices looking for the one that is "not necessarily true" or "could be false." I did not dive into the answer-choices looking for an answer-choice that "cannot be true," or "must be false."

My reasoning is this: Since the question is a "must be true, except," four of the wrong answer-choice are "must be true," and the correct one "is not necessarily be true," or "could be false."

And so my question concerns a standard way to approach selecting the correct answer-choice in the event that the LSAT writers include two answers, one that "is not necessarily true," and another that "cannot be true." This is not the case here in question 13, but in such circumstances, which one do the LSAT writers consider the correct answer?

The correct-answer choice in this question is not one that "could be false," but rather one that "must be false," or cannot be true." This is made abundantly clear by the fact that the author of the passage includes answer-choice D's elements under "ineffective programming."

Broadly speaking, clearly, there is a distinction between saying this "is not necessarily true," or "could be false," and saying this "cannot be true," or "must be false."

It is equally obvious that this question did not care for the difference between "not necessarily true" and "cannot be true." Or in other words, stated in terms of "false," the authors of this LSAT question did not care for the difference between "could be false" and "must be false."

In retrospect, would an LSAT expert please recall, an identical question-type for which two answer-choices are provided, an answer-choice that "is not necessarily true" ("could be false") and another that "cannot be true" ("must be false"). And if so, which one of these answer-choices did the LSAT writers count as the correct one?

I want to be absolutely clear about what I am asking --

Logic dictates that an exception to a "must be true" is a "not necessarily true." Logic further posits a distinction between something being "not necessarily true" and it being "cannot be true."

Mathematically/logically reasoning, a "cannot be true" instance is within the range of a "not necessarily true." That is because, a "not necessarily true" answer ranges from 0% to 49.999...%, and a "cannot be true" answer is indexed to the 0%, hence within the range of the "not necessarily true." I understand that!

And if the "cannot be true" answer is provided within the five answer-choices WITHOUT one that "cannot be true," I have no problem picking it!

My concern, however, is: when there an LSAT "must be true...except" instance for which five answer-choices are provided and two of the five are "not necessarily true," and "cannot be true," under such circumstance (has there ever been such a circumstance?) which one should we select?

Am I wrong to look for an answer that is "not necessarily true"?

Thank you immensely for whoever takes on this concern!

Mazen

[Robert Carroll]

Mazen,

I think a better approach here would have been to eliminate any answer that explicitly matched what the author was talking about in the fourth paragraph. In theory, what you did should have had the same result.

Anything that cannot be true is going to be something that is not necessarily true. You're misunderstanding what it means for something to be "not necessarily true".

Both of the following statements are "not necessarily true":

1. I will eat 2 bagels tomorrow.

2. I will eat 2 million bagels tomorrow.

Is 1 necessarily true? Clearly not - I might have no bagels, or 1 bagel, or 3 bagels, and maybe even a few more than that. So 1 is not necessarily true.

Is 2 necessarily true? Clearly not - I might have no bagels, or 1 bagel, or 2 bagels, or 3 bagels, or maybe even a few more than that. So 2 is not necessarily true.

2 looks different than 1 because 2 is also impossible - I can't physically consume that many bagels. What my discussion of 2 above just demonstrates is that things that are impossible - things that "cannot be true" or "must be false" - are just a part of the things that are "not necessarily true."

There is a distinction between "cannot be true" and "not necessarily true" just like there is a distinction between "beagle" and "dog". No beagle fails to be a dog - nothing that cannot be true fails to be something that is not necessarily true. There is a distinction because the inclusion only works one way - plenty of dogs aren't beagles; plenty of things are not necessarily true without being things that cannot be true.

The situation you're talking about thus cannot happen. If one answer cannot be true and another answer is not necessarily true, that's already TWO answers that aren't necessarily true - and that would make them both correct, for this question or anything like it in form. That's not possible.

The following thread is helpful for more on this topic: viewtopic.php?t=7011

Robert Carroll