#8 - Eva: A "smart highway" system should be installed, one

[Claire Horan]

Hi Franny,

The conclusion is basically that "smart highways" would result in improved traffic flow in and around cities. If you negate answer choice (A), you get: On "smart highways" there would [still] be the breakdowns of vehicles that currently cause traffic congestion. But that doesn't weaken the conclusion because the reason Eva thinks "smart highways" will improve traffic flow is that drivers will get more information about traffic congestion as it occurs, not that traffic congestion will no longer happen.

Answer B is wrong for a similar reason. We negate it to: Traffic lights, if coordinated by the system, would not assure a free flow of traffic. So what? That doesn't mean the situation won't improve. Eva's argument does not require that "smart highways" solve every traffic problem completely, just that "smart highways" would improve traffic flow.

Your mistake was likely one of not identifying the conclusion in specific enough terms. Try bracketing the conclusion and rereading it each time you check to see if a negated assumption attacks it.

[jeehaeng]

Hello,

Answer (C) is still confusing. To me, without negation, (C) is “weakening” Eva’s argument since (C) itself is basically saying that significant improvement is IMPOSSIBLE now. Then, “smart highway” should be waste of money.

In addition, I have trouble with the negation of (C). To me, (C) can be rewritten like “Significant improvement is IMPOSSIBLE because traffic flow in and around cities is not now so congested.”
So… if I negate (C) based on that, I would do like “Significant improvement is NOT IMPOSSIBLE even though traffic flow in and around cities is not now so congested.” Then, actually the negation is strengthening Eva’s argument.

Ok. if you think I negate it in a wrong way, still I have a point. The negation in the earlier post was on "congestion" part, so "Traffic flow in and around cities is now so congested that significant improvement is IMPOSSIBLE." I agree that it is weakening Eva's, but as I mentioned earlier, it is weakening even without negation. Then, significant improvement is ALWAYS IMPOSSIBLE regardless of traffic congestion. So, I think (C) cannot be the assumption of the Eva's argument.

[Adam Tyson]

I think you are overlooking one key word in answer choice C, jeehaeng, and that word is "not" - "traffic flow in and around cities is NOT now so congested." That means that improvement is not impossible, and if we remove that double negative, that means improvement IS possible. The negation would be that improvement isn't possible, which ruins the conclusion that things would improve.

[BMM2021]

Hi,

Although C was the clearest choice, I hesitated with it because of the use of "significant" as well. I know universal rules regarding language use on the LSAT aren't fair to request, but should "significant" generally be understood as "not negligible" (e.g. statistically significant), or are there contexts in which understanding "significant" to mean plentiful/impressive/above-average is relevant too?

Thanks

Hi Pb,

Eva states that a smart highway system would result in the following:

1. improved traffic flow
2. improvement in drivers' tempers
3. a decrease in the considerable loss of money and productivity

I completely understand your point that the author only needs to assume the possibility of some amount of improvement in traffic flow. However, the author is assuming that whatever improvement in traffic would result in points #2 and #3 above.

If even a small improvement in traffic would result in these two things, then that traffic improvement is significant because of the other effects that it has.

Put more succinctly: even a small change would be significant.

[Beth Hayden]

Hi BMM,

Well, the word "significant" is entirely dependent on context, so there's really not a lot you can say about the word universally. It could mean either of your two definitions depending on the context.

Here, the word "significant" is not being used to modify the amount of improvement in the traffic flow, it's referring to improvement generally. What does it mean for there to be "significant improvement?" Well if drivers' tempers are improved and there is less of a loss of money and productivity, that's a significant change--not negligible or trivial. If I said it's significantly hotter today than it was yesterday, I probably mean it's a lot warmer, not just one or two degrees different.

I hope that helps!
Beth