LSAT and Law School Admissions Forum

Get expert LSAT preparation and law school admissions advice from PowerScore Test Preparation.

 Administrator
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
  • Posts: 8919
  • Joined: Feb 02, 2011
|
#27186
Complete Question Explanation

Flaw in the Reasoning. The correct answer choice is (B)

Although not explicitly written out, the music critic’s conclusion is that Vierne’s works should be considered religious music. This is based on the fact that, even though Vierne’s works are apparently not based on familiar religious texts (like Handel’s works), hearing Vierne’s music in a particular setting invokes emotional feelings of divine inspiration. The flaw here is in the shifting definition of “religious.” The first usage of the word is in reference to source materials (“religious texts”), while the second, which the author uses to make his/her conclusion, is about religious/“divine” inspirations (listener’s emotional response). This is known as an uncertain use of a term.

Answer choice (A): The author never claims that all religious music is inspiring, but rather that Vierne’s music is religious because it seems to be divinely inspired (whereas previously “religious” meant taken from religious texts).

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. As discussed above, the author uses the notion of “religious” in two different ways in the stimulus.

Answer choice (C): Whether or not other organ music is divinely inspired is not a part of the author’s argument.

Answer choice (D): This tricky answer choice also represents an uncertain use of a term, but the term “symphonies” does not change meaning in the argument (although it is used twice, it means “musical compositions” both times).

Answer choice (E): We cannot know that the author believes all organ music to be religious. All we know is that the author believes Vierne’s works are religious.
 est15
  • Posts: 94
  • Joined: Aug 28, 2013
|
#15624
Hi, I don't really understand why B is the correct answer. I didn't realize that there were two different meanings of the term "religious" in the passage.
 Robert Carroll
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
  • Posts: 1783
  • Joined: Dec 06, 2013
|
#15640
est,

I think it will be clearer if I rephrase the music critic's argument:

"Some people argue that the organ symphonies of Louis Vierne are not religious music. Those people are wrong; the organ symphonies are religious music, because hearing them gives you the impression that they were divinely inspired."

The "some people" that the critic thinks are wrong mean "religious music" to mean something like "music having as subject matter an aspect of religious practice or belief." The music critic instead means "religious music" to mean something like "music that is divinely inspired." You can tell this is so because the "some people" deny that Vierne's organ symphonies are "religious music" because they're unlike the works of Handel, which did have religious themes. The music critic's view is that, if music seems divinely inspired, it's "religious music." But this is confusing two different meanings of "religious," and the music critic's argument doesn't address what those "some people" were saying by denying that Vierne's work was religious. So it's not a good argument, and the flaw is what answer choice (B) says.

Robert Carroll
 adlindsey
  • Posts: 90
  • Joined: Oct 02, 2016
|
#31369
I also didn't realize there were two different meanings either due to the incoherent clause, "which set to music familiar religious texts." I don't know how we're suppose to get a meaning out of something so awkward as that.
 Adam Tyson
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
  • Posts: 5153
  • Joined: Apr 14, 2011
|
#31381
Lindsay, this test is FILLED with awkward and confusing sentences! :-D It's just like the law in that regard, and like legal opinions too. That's part of what they are testing you on - your ability to sift through the confusion and get to the underlying meaning. Paraphrase anything that you find confusing, visualize anything that might be hard to understand solely by the words, play around with the stimulus to see if you can make sense of it another way. The only way to get there is practice, practice, practice. Try this as an untimed homework drill - go through 50 LR questions, and paraphrase every single one of them. Don't worry about the answers, just focus on the stimuli, and see if you can find a simpler, easier way to say what they said. This will be a great help for any Parallel Reasoning questions you might encounter later, because you will be focusing on the logical relationships and, in many cases, the abstract structures of the arguments.

Give that a shot, starting with this stimulus, and see if it doesn't alter your approach to the whole test for the better.

Good luck!
 adlindsey
  • Posts: 90
  • Joined: Oct 02, 2016
|
#31499
I realize it's just like the law and legal opinions. But in those, I'm not being rushed with time. I thought they were talking about religious music the whole time. Ill give that a try. I'm actually enjoying and having a lot of success on the parallel questions. These questions are really helping me with a lot of the other ones. Great lesson with the elements of attack and the specific wording to look for.
 Adam Tyson
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
  • Posts: 5153
  • Joined: Apr 14, 2011
|
#31513
They certainly were talking about religious music throughout the stimulus, but what exactly do they mean by "religious" music? In the case of Handel, they mean "religious tests set to music", but when they talk about Vierne it's no longer about the source material but about how you feel (divinely inspired) when you listen to it. See the difference in the use of that key term?
 adlindsey
  • Posts: 90
  • Joined: Oct 02, 2016
|
#31531
Ok, I think I finally get it. It's tangible (religious text) versus intangible (divine emotions)?
 David Boyle
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
  • Posts: 836
  • Joined: Jun 07, 2013
|
#31535
adlindsey wrote:Ok, I think I finally get it. It's tangible (religious text) versus intangible (divine emotions)?

Hello adlindsey,

More or less, so good job there! Religious texts, being on paper (or these days, maybe on a computer screen), are somewhat more tangible than emotions, divine or otherwise, which are basically just in our heads.

Hope this helps,
David
 sodomojo
  • Posts: 24
  • Joined: Aug 01, 2017
|
#40497
I found this question quite troubling.

I noticed the gap in the stimulus immediately, but figured an answer regarding that gap would be phrased something like, "takes for granted that anything divinely inspired is itself religious." I still have a hard time seeing how that necessarily translates to the "religious" equivocation flaw presented in correct answer choice (B). We're supposed to assume that "divinely" can be a synonym for "religious"?

I have not seen a flaw question such as this one before where the equivocation appears so subtly. Anyone have examples of similar questions?

Get the most out of your LSAT Prep Plus subscription.

Analyze and track your performance with our Testing and Analytics Package.