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: 8917
  • Joined: Feb 02, 2011
|
#33979
Please post your questions below!
 ymf10
  • Posts: 1
  • Joined: Jul 09, 2019
|
#66319
I am confused by the word "clearly" in the stimulus. Isn't it a conclusion indicator and therefore the conclusion would be without the eagles sympathy the needs of obscure species would go unmet?
I got the answer right, mostly by eliminating the wrong answers but am confused about the use of the word. Thanks
 James Finch
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
  • Posts: 943
  • Joined: Sep 06, 2017
|
#66329
Hi YMF,

You're correct that "clearly" or "clearly then" are conclusory indicators. However, in a Main Point Logical Reasoning stimulus, you have to be careful not to trip up on the indicator words, which are often attached to an intermediate conclusion, and instead focus on the logical flow as a whole. So to break this stimulus down, we have:

Sentence 1: Premise telling us that bald eagles inspire sympathy for other species.

Sentence 2: Conditional statement that diagrams out to:

Bald Eagle Sympathy :arrow: Political Will :arrow: Needs of Obscure Species

The tricky part here is the word "clearly;" my guess is that this sentence is meant to be an intermediate conclusion, although there is a clear logical gap between this sentence and the preceding one, so it isn't a valid inference. The big takeaway should be that it is then used as a premise for the final sentence, which is merely a statement of the contrapositive of this logical chain.

Sentence 3: A conclusory statement that is merely a restatement of the contrapositive of the second sentence's A :arrow: C conditional chain.

Needs of Obscure Species :arrow: Bald Eagle Sympathy

This is a valid inference, and does logically flow from the second sentence, making it the main conclusion of the stimulus. Answer choice (B) paraphrases it, making it the correct answer.

Hope this clears things up!

Get the most out of your LSAT Prep Plus subscription.

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