#13 - Must Be True

[jgabalski]

Can someone please direct me to the portion of the passage that justifies choice E being the correct answer? When I took this question under timed conditions I chose choice C, which I chose because of description on lines 30-32

[Kristina Moen]

Hi jga,

You identified the correct section to read in order to answer the question. That is a skill that will help you when doing RC questions. However, I'm going to ask you to read lines 30 - 35 again:

"In order to solve this (30) problem, Emeagwali designed a massively parallel computer by using the Internet to connect to more than 65,000 smaller computers. One of the great difficulties of parallel computing is dividing up the tasks among the separate smaller computers so that (35) they do not interfere with each other, and it was here that Emeagwali turned to natural processes for ideas..."

There is nothing in here about the general public. Computer interference is stated as one of the "great difficulties" of parallel computing, so we can infer that it is one reason why massively parallel computers had not been used to model oil fields. Emeagwali used the internet to solve this problem, but we can't infer that the general public was not aware of the "existence or vast capabilities" of the internet. The internet aided Emeagwali's solution, but the question is asking for one of the reasons why parallel computing was not used in the first place. Why do we even need the internet for this problem?

Hope this helps.

[ragia.rageh]

Hi,

I have read your explanation of why E is right, but I don't understand how E is not as much of an assumption as B.

A difficulty is mentioned concerning computer interference, but that could be a difficulty that only Emeagwali was aware of, it does not prove that one of the reasons that massively parallel computers were not used earlier was due to that difficulty in particular.

I chose B because of lines 4-6 where it says that Emeagwali's success was "fueled by his willingness to reach beyond established paradigms" I took that to mean that the established paradigms was using supercomputers to predict the flow of oil.

I guess my question here is why some assumptions are more appropriate than others and how do I make sure i have the 'correct' assumption?

[KelseyWoods]

Hi Ragia!

Answer choice (B) is too strong for us to support with the passage. Based on the information we have, we don't know that using a network of smaller computers to solve computationally difficult problems had not ever even been considered. Yes, Emeagwali was "fueled by his willingness to reach beyond established paradigms" but the passage never says that he was the first person to even consider parallel computing. What sets him apart is his designs. He was "fueled by his willingness to reach beyond established paradigms AND draw inspiration for his designs from nature." His contribution was solving the problem of smaller computers interfering with each other by designing a network based on the mathematical principle that underlies the branching structures of trees. Throughout, the passage emphasizes Emeagwali's nature-inspired designs as his main contribution. It never specifies that he was the first person to think of parallel computing. Rather, he was someone who overcame design challenges to make parallel computing a reality.

In a Must Be True question, we're always looking for the answer choice that we have the most support for. In this case, we have support for the idea that smaller computers interfering with one another was a challenge that prevented parallel computers from being used to model oil field flow prior to 1989 (that's the challenge Emeagwali overcame!) but we don't have anything to support that no one had considered parallel computing prior to 1989.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[Vasilia]

Hi,

I am wondering what is the general searching approach for inference questions like this. For this particular question, because question steam mentioned 1989, so I always use keywords like this to locate to specific part of the passage to find answer. However, this approach always worked besides this one, which made me only look back to the first paragraph where mentioned 1989. I think using key words to quick look back is important for the speed sake, but how can I quickly tell when keywords is not appropriate to use for certain questions? Is that this question stem has some clue to indicate that?

Thanks

[KelseyWoods]

Hi Vasilia!

Being able to go back to look at specific key words can absolutely be useful and efficient. But, as you've noted, the LSAT can be a tricky beast and the correct answer is not always found exactly where the key term is found. In this case, the question stem mentioned 1989 but there's a lot more going on in this question stem besides just that date! Specifically, the question stem asks us to find "one of the reasons that massively parallel computers had not been used to model oil field flow prior to 1989." Instead of looking back at 1989, we want to look at any place in the passage that tells us why parallel computing wasn't used for oil flow earlier. This isn't really about the specific date. It's about the challenges/obstacles that prevented the technique from being used sooner. Always look more broadly at the big picture of what's being asked about or referenced rather than focusing on one specific term. You have to consider specific terms in the larger context of their individual paragraph and of the passage as a whole. Even when key terms are useful, you'll often find that key terms introduced in the first paragraph are also referred to in subsequent paragraphs, so you'll need to be prepared for that and stay flexible in your approach!

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey