#4 - Must Be True

[alee]

Thanks Adam + Steve for the fantastic help.

This is a question about question 4. Again, I narrowed it down to two option. The incorrect (A):

(A) Injunction should be imposed by teh courts only when there is strong reason to believe taht an employee will reveal proprietary information.

And the correct option (B):

(B) There is apparently no reliable way to protect both the rights of companies to protect trade secrets adn rights of employees to seek new employment.

1. It seems that the reason why B is correct is apparent in the assertion in lines 4-9 that 'two basic principles apprear irreconcilable...' which identifies rights of companies and rights of employees as inherently in tension. Furthermore, lines 19-20 characterise the legal remedy as 'doubtful' in its effectiveness. Is this correct?

2. What I am truly struggling with is why (A) is wrong. Is it simply too strong a statement in attributing to the author that injunctions should 'only' by imposed in the situation (A) describes?

Thanks!

[Steve Stein]

Hi Alee,

You got it--the use of the term "only" makes that a pretty strong restriction: If injunctions should be only when proprietary information is at risk, that basically says that nothing else in the world would justify an injunction without this risk of proprietary information.

I hope that's helpful--let me know--thanks!

~Steve

[alee]

Thanks Steve, yes that clears things up. As usual attention to detail was the key!

Is it just me or are the RC sections from Preptests 52 (introduction of Comparative Passages) onwards noticeably more difficult?

[Steve Stein]

Hey Alee,

We were discussing this issue around the office. It can be tough to measure the level of difficulty of these passages, since the test makers have many opportunities to make the section hard. The passages themselves can be difficult, but a simpler passage is sometimes followed by more difficult questions, and some of the incorrect answer choices they come up with are extremely clever.

With all that said, there have been some pretty high-end passages in recent years--but remember, even the hard passages are not insurmountable, as long as you aren't daunted by the somewhat sophisticated language that the test makers seem to love. And, when you run into a passage that seems like it's going to be tough to get through, skip it! There's no reason not to avail yourself of the easier passages that might happen to have been placed later in the section.

I hope that's helpful!

~Steve

[LAM]

I did not choose B because of the presence of 'no' - there is 'no reliable way'. I thought that language was too strong, just as the only in Answer A was too strong. I ended up choosing A but only as a guess between A & B. Can you help me understand why the presence of 'no' in A doesn't preclude it from being the right answer choice??

[Robert Carroll]

LAM,

It's good to be suspicious about strong language in an answer choice for a Must Be True question - the strong language must be supported by the passage. In this case, answer choice (B) is supported by lines 4-9, specifically where it says that those rights "appear irreconcilable." If they appear to be unable to be reconciled, that's a strong statement in the passage, and that strong statement is strong enough to support the "apparently no reliable way" language in the answer choice. There is in fact a match in this case!

Answer choice (A) is strong language, which means it would also have to be supported by language at least as strong in the passage, but it's also out of scope. The passage deals with the problems with injunctions but does not suggest the specific limitation in answer choice (A).

Please let me know if that helps. Thank you!

[LAM]

Thanks for the clarification. If the answer choice said simply 'there is no reliable way' rather than 'apparently there is no reliable way' that would be incorrect I am assuming. The presence of 'apparently' is what is matching the degree of certainty to 'appear irreconcilable'. Correct me if I am wrong on this thinking.

[Robert Carroll]

LAM,

That sounds right to me. "There is no reliable way" is stronger than "apparently there is no reliable way" and would be too strong to be supported by the passage. Good job!

[Dave Killoran]

Hi LAM,

Robert is spot-on with his comments here, and I'd like to add a thought to what you are reading. Note how LSAC creates the illusion of force and certainty in language, but then walks back from the precipice by modifying those statements. This is a common trick they use, which is why I'm pointing it out. So let's look at it more closely and try to pull some broader lessons out of this.

In this case, in the passage the author states that "such cases appear irreconcilable" (line 5). That use of "irreconcilable" jumps out at the reader because it's not a word you see every day and it's also a strong, absolute word. Plus, there's a subconscious association occurring here with the phrase "irreconcilable differences," which we know is typically used in divorce cases to justify ending a marriage. So, it's easy to focus on "irreconcilable" and get into the mindset that absolute force is the standard here. But, leading up to the use of "irreconcilable" in the passage is the word "appear," and that takes down the force of the statement considerably. Now it's just the appearance of irreconcilability, and not necessarily the absolute truth of it. This language modification forces the reader to process additional meaning while reading, and to also correctly arrive at the new meaning. It's exactly the sort of thing the LSAT wants to test, and it does so while making the reader do additional work to properly identify what is being said. It's about as LSAT-y as the LSAT can be

When you hit answer choice (B), which features the phrase "apparently no reliable way," they are testing whether you picked up on and properly analyzed the statement from the passage. The force of "no reliable" mirrors that of "irreconcilable," but it states the idea not in the exact terms but synonymous ones, which is another classic LSAT trick. And then "apparently" matches "appear," and so the statement is supported (although, I'm slightly surprised they used "apparently" and "appear" since they are so close; I'd have expected that they changed the answer choice wording to something like "seemingly" or "ostensibly" (especially the latter if they wanted to increase the difficulty even more)).

In this case, this manipulation of the language is relatively minor and what I'd call fairly typical of the test makers, but it's reflective of something that occurs all over the LSAT, and thus worth thinking about while you prepare for the exam. If you have any followup questions or thoughts, please let me know. Thanks!

[LAM]

Dave and Robert, Thank you so much for the lesson here; I appreciate your time in responding so thoroughly. This is definitely learning to think in a different manner. I've spent most of the evening doing 'double negative' translations so I can quickly understand the wordy mumbo-jumbo the lsat writers often include. Just as you point out, correctly translating the passages is key. Thanks again! I do appreciate it!