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- Wed Apr 27, 2016 10:42 am
#23485
Complete Question Explanation
Must Be True. The correct answer choice is (D)
The language in the question stem lets us know that we our task is to treat the stimulus as true in order to infer an answer choice without any outside information. Therefore, we are dealing with a Must Be True question. In must be true questions, the situation described by the stimulus absolutely must lead to some further idea which is not stated. We must have a strong command of the facts in play, especially key qualifying words.
First, we are told that it is very difficult to establish animal rights merely on the basis that animals are "living things." The problem is that a broad definition of "living things" would include more than we want and a narrow definition would not include everything we want. If we are alert readers, we will notice the following: it may be possible (though extremely challenging) to define "living things" in exactly the right way, neither too broadly nor too narrowly. We should feel pretty confident about our understanding of the situation, so we should turn to the answer choices as long as we remember that so many LSAT problems hinge on the most subtle of qualifications.
Answer choice (A): This is not the correct answer not only because the author seems to be engaged precisely in figuring out how one would give rights to all the animals but also because this answer choice reflects a value judgment whereas the stimulus contains dry facts. We should always be alert for points at which the author attaches value to a situation, and here the author never once advocates granting of rights. The author is merely describing a problem which would arise if one attempted to do so.
Answer choice (B): This is not the correct answer. As we noted in the analysis of answer choice A, the stimulus concerns a potential problem. The problem is very specific: IF someone tried to capture all animals with a definition that included only the requirement of being "a living thing," then that person would have a major hurdle to clear on the matter of scope. Because this is a tightly-confined conditional statement, we can realize that someone could simply go back to the drawing board and come up with another definition that would never include plants. Consider the following: an animal has cells without chlorophyll. Such a definition might have problems of its own, but it would never bestow rights on plants.
Answer choice (C): This is not correct. As we saw in the analysis of answer choice B, we are NOT required to maintain loyalty to including "living things" in our definition of animals. The stimulus is doing nothing more than stating a problem for anyone who does one very specific thing: defining animals solely on the basis of the phrase "living things."
Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice, but we do have some layers to work through. The first thing we see is "successful attempts to establish rights for all animals," which means we have to figure out whether the language following this phrase describes a way to pull off giving rights to all animals. The next thing we see is "are likely," and we know that this lines up with our original observation that we are talking about strong probabilities but not about certainties. The rest of the answer choice is two-pronged. The first prong is basically saying that we could find a way to give rights to all animals but some plants might get thrown in the mix. Again, we are trying to figure out if there is a way to give rights to all animals, but we should recognize that doing so does not require that we give rights to animals only. This is comparable to someone who decides to kill all the weeds in his or her lawn by setting the whole thing on fire. We already know that we could accomplish this goal by defining "living things" very broadly, so now we look at the second prong. Here, the answer choice gives us the option of defining animals by using qualifications more than just "living things." As we noted originally, a narrow definition would require more to capture all animals, and the second prong provides this. In conclusion, this answer choice covers the two most likely scenarios we would encounter if we successfully defined animals by starting with the category of "living things."
Answer choice (E): This answer choice attempts to mislead us by playing on the difficulty encountered with the phrase "living things." Hopefully, we can discard this answer choice quickly because we see that the stimulus focuses on potential problems with trying to define animals in one very specific manner. On top of this, answer choice E begins to wade into matters of relevance involving value judgments, and the stimulus lacked any judgments about the matter.
Must Be True. The correct answer choice is (D)
The language in the question stem lets us know that we our task is to treat the stimulus as true in order to infer an answer choice without any outside information. Therefore, we are dealing with a Must Be True question. In must be true questions, the situation described by the stimulus absolutely must lead to some further idea which is not stated. We must have a strong command of the facts in play, especially key qualifying words.
First, we are told that it is very difficult to establish animal rights merely on the basis that animals are "living things." The problem is that a broad definition of "living things" would include more than we want and a narrow definition would not include everything we want. If we are alert readers, we will notice the following: it may be possible (though extremely challenging) to define "living things" in exactly the right way, neither too broadly nor too narrowly. We should feel pretty confident about our understanding of the situation, so we should turn to the answer choices as long as we remember that so many LSAT problems hinge on the most subtle of qualifications.
Answer choice (A): This is not the correct answer not only because the author seems to be engaged precisely in figuring out how one would give rights to all the animals but also because this answer choice reflects a value judgment whereas the stimulus contains dry facts. We should always be alert for points at which the author attaches value to a situation, and here the author never once advocates granting of rights. The author is merely describing a problem which would arise if one attempted to do so.
Answer choice (B): This is not the correct answer. As we noted in the analysis of answer choice A, the stimulus concerns a potential problem. The problem is very specific: IF someone tried to capture all animals with a definition that included only the requirement of being "a living thing," then that person would have a major hurdle to clear on the matter of scope. Because this is a tightly-confined conditional statement, we can realize that someone could simply go back to the drawing board and come up with another definition that would never include plants. Consider the following: an animal has cells without chlorophyll. Such a definition might have problems of its own, but it would never bestow rights on plants.
Answer choice (C): This is not correct. As we saw in the analysis of answer choice B, we are NOT required to maintain loyalty to including "living things" in our definition of animals. The stimulus is doing nothing more than stating a problem for anyone who does one very specific thing: defining animals solely on the basis of the phrase "living things."
Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice, but we do have some layers to work through. The first thing we see is "successful attempts to establish rights for all animals," which means we have to figure out whether the language following this phrase describes a way to pull off giving rights to all animals. The next thing we see is "are likely," and we know that this lines up with our original observation that we are talking about strong probabilities but not about certainties. The rest of the answer choice is two-pronged. The first prong is basically saying that we could find a way to give rights to all animals but some plants might get thrown in the mix. Again, we are trying to figure out if there is a way to give rights to all animals, but we should recognize that doing so does not require that we give rights to animals only. This is comparable to someone who decides to kill all the weeds in his or her lawn by setting the whole thing on fire. We already know that we could accomplish this goal by defining "living things" very broadly, so now we look at the second prong. Here, the answer choice gives us the option of defining animals by using qualifications more than just "living things." As we noted originally, a narrow definition would require more to capture all animals, and the second prong provides this. In conclusion, this answer choice covers the two most likely scenarios we would encounter if we successfully defined animals by starting with the category of "living things."
Answer choice (E): This answer choice attempts to mislead us by playing on the difficulty encountered with the phrase "living things." Hopefully, we can discard this answer choice quickly because we see that the stimulus focuses on potential problems with trying to define animals in one very specific manner. On top of this, answer choice E begins to wade into matters of relevance involving value judgments, and the stimulus lacked any judgments about the matter.
Non-animals Included