#7 - A truly visual art form—for example, painting—is one in which time plays no essential role.

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Must Be True. The correct answer choice is (A).

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[Aspiring-Logicl-Rsnr]

Hi PowerScore!

I got this question right because all the wrong answers are obviously wrong. But I had a hard time 100% confirming A.

Here's what I see the argument saying:

Truly visual art form = time plays no essential role.
"In contrast," most art forms are essentially temporal.
Essentially temporal: "that is, they require performance."

So. In order to say that truly visual art forms don't require performance, we have to—I think—do two things.

First, we must let the "that is" function as a full equation between "essentially temporal" and "require performance." By full equation, I mean: "that is" must make each term refer only to the same exact thing. If all essentially temporal art requires performance but only some art that requires performance is essentially temporal, the conclusion in A collapses—there could be other art (including visual art!) that requires performance. Reading "that is" in this way brings us here:

Truly visual art form = time plays no essential role.
"In contrast," most art forms require performance.

Second, we must read "in contrast" as asserting that the things that are contrasted are direct opposites regarding the quality that is contrasted. That brings us here:

Truly visual art form = does not require performance.

Am I thinking about this correctly? Is this a pretty standard way to read "that is" and "in contrast" on the LSAT? Thank you!!

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Aspiring,

It looks like you've got the general idea, although your analysis may be missing a few parts.

The stimulus begins by basically saying that "time plays no essential role" in truly visual art forms.

The second sentence in the stimulus explains what is meant by "time plays no essential role." This means that "there is no fixed order" to viewing the art and "no fixed amount of time" required.

The stimulus then contrasts these truly visual art forms with most other art forms, which are "essentially temporal" and "require performance, which means they must be experienced in a fixed order and over a roughly fixed amount of time."

This last statement equates "performance" to "experienced in a fixed order and over a roughly fixed amount of time," which would basically be the opposite of "time plays no essential role."

Putting everything together allows the inference that appears in Answer A.

[LSAC'sBiggestFan]

I think this question is quite an example of how LSAC weighting the answer choices incosiderately. The four anwers choices (B), (C), (D), and (E) could all easily be eliminated at first glance; however, justifying (A) is somewhat arduous, as the framing of the stimulus is quite confusing. Since the last sentence is evidently a support for the preceding sentence, one could reasonably reframe it as follow:

poetry is not a truly visual art form because it must be performed, or

essentially involve performance (must be perfromed) not a truly visual art form, as the two have a premise-conclusion relationship. The contrapositive would be:

a truly visual art form not essentially involve performance, the idea of answer choice (A).

My problem with this question is that it takes too much time for a question at the beginning of the section (the first 10 questions should not be too challenging to solve), and it leans toward an extreme case of justifying the answer choice; a good design question would be one that balances the process of eliminating and the process of justifying the answer choices. LSAC should have replaced the other 4 answer choices with better distractors and placed this question at the end of the section, eliminating this outliner from the less demanding ones.

That said, I would like to know more about examples like this in other LR sections if anyone has information. Thank you.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Fan,

You wrote,

"My problem with this question is that it takes too much time for a question at the beginning of the section (the first 10 questions should not be too challenging to solve)."

While it is true that there has generally been a pattern in Logical Reasoning in which roughly the first 10 questions are easier on average than the last 10 questions in the section, this is not something that LSAC is obligated to do, and they often do include 1 or even 2 relatively more difficult questions in those first 10 questions in order to keep test takers "on their toes" and not get too complacent. In fact, this trend has been occurring even more on recent LSATs, as we discussed in our recent Crystal Ball Webinars.

One example of an LR section with a few tricky questions found in the first 10 questions is LR1 of PT118 (formerly PT 45). I won't mention exactly which questions because the best way to experience these questions is while taking the section under timed conditions just like you might encounter similar questions on the real LSAT.

Getting stuck/spending too much time on any one question is something that can happen to many test takers, so being aware of your time/pacing is critical to doing your best. For some questions, after a certain amount of time, you may have to "cut yourself off" and just pick your best guess and flag the question to return to later if time allows.

In terms of this question, if you're able to easily eliminate the other four wrong answers, it is completely reasonable to pick the remaining answer and move on, even if you aren't 100% sure that you can prove this answer is correct.