inkriminator

i got a few questions on the LSAT practice exam I was taken wrong and I can't figure out why, let me know if you can figure it out.

questtion 1.
the higher the altitude, the thinner the air. since mexico city's altitude is higher than that of panama city, the air must be thinner in mexico city than in panama city.

which one o fhte following arguments is most similar in its reasoning to the argument above.

I narrowed it down to two choices

A) As one gets older one gets wiser. Since Henrietta is older than her daughter, Henrietta must be wiser than her daughter.
B)The older a tree, the more rings it has. The tree in Lou's yard is older than the tree in Theresa's yard. Therefore, the tree in Lou's yard must have more rings than doe sthe tree in Theresa's yard.

Scroll Down for the answer



















The answer is A.

The only plausible reasoning i can think of is that it assumes a tree may have more rings as its birth than another tree, thus the reasoning wouldn't necessarily hold for B. But this doesn't make sense to me because by the same token one could be smarter at birth than another. Or the air could be thinner due to some geographic reasons in one place than another. This is the one question that has me really stumped and there are a few others that I'm doubtful about.

Ch'i

Answer "A" has a more direct comparison than answer "B." Similar, but A's the one.

roachboy

you may be getting a bit of instruction in what passes for correct logic in a standardized test via the practice question. parallel sentence structure=,more important than actual logic.

the comparison itself is the same in a and b logically--neither seems to me more or less direct.

but (a) mimics the sentence form of the original.
it is hard to say if this would mean that the comparison was "more direct"--only that the terms involved are shorter word-wise so breaking the sentence in two (which b does to present the third step of the syllogism) makes sense for style reasons (not logically)

but if you think about it, b would appear more correct because it works in the same register as the example.
(a) refers to what we might politely call "conventional wisdom" which is of an entirely different order than (b), which refers to observable correlations within natural processes (change in altitude, thinness of air, age of a tree number of rings.)

but you are not really dealing with a logical question: you are dealing with a practice question for the LSATs, which are not logic tests--they aren't even very good tests--but to get where you want to go, you have to learn the peculiar rules of the test.

i would see if other practice questions also point you to style symmetry as determinate of correctness. if they do, then learn that little rule.

break a leg, btw.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

inkriminator

It seems pretty obvious now. This is the seventh practice LSAT i've taken and the first that parallel reasoning also included this little twist. To be honest this is really aggravating me, but like so many things, I'll learn their system, but keep my opinions.

thanks for explicitly stating the reasoning roachboy...If I have trouble with any more I'll post them in here.

BadNick

Another point that struck me, right or not:

human age is human age so directly comparable; but the problem never stated that the tree in Lou's yard is the same kind of tree as in Theresa's yard. How do you know Lou's tree isn't a spruce and Theresa's tree isn't an oak?

rsl12

I'd like to point out that, when I was studying for LSAT, I noticed that practice LSAT books often had *terrible* questions. The actual test is much more reasonable in its application of logic. Don't sweat it. I agree with you--the question stinks, and I don't think you can expect such a lousy question on the real test.

__________________
oh baby oh baby, i like gravy.

inkriminator

This seems like a good objection. However you can say that the variability among humans is just as great as the variability among different species of trees.

I agree with you, the practice questions are pretty shoddy. But this question came from a previously administered LSAT. :-( . I feel pretty good about my chances however, I'm shooting for the 170-180 range based on my practice results.

BadNick

You're right. As I thought about it more my good thought made less and less sense.

shakran

The real trouble with answer A is that it does not give the initial wisdom variables.

If Henrietta started at say, 30 wisdom points (we'll be nice and assume you can quantify wisdom here) and her daughter started at 50 wisdom points, and then they each gained 1 wisdom point per year, then Henrietta will not be wiser than her daughter.

So LOGICALLY, B is the correct answer.

However, the others are right. To the idiots who write tests like this, A has the same sentence structure and apparently these idiots think sentence structure = logic

inkriminator

But by the same token, it does not give the initial ring variables for the trees either.

After reading the question again, if sentence structure is not the reasoning behind the answer you could have another, slightly better reason for choosing A.

I believe the reasoning behind the answer is that all the variables in the example and in example A can be considered intrinsic properties of a certain object.
ie. In the example, altitude and thinness of air are intrinsic properties of a city
In choice A, age and wisdom are intrinsic properties of a person.

This does not hold true for choice B. I believe this is another reason why A could be the answer.

However even this is not bullet proof because it assumes that air IS an intrinsic property of a city and that a tree is not, reasonable assumptions to make...but you know what happens when you assume.

Zar

I think some people are missing the point here; the question is asking which of the choices most closely resembles the logical form of the argument of the example, without really considering the content of the propositions. In formal logical notation, answers A and B would be identical. However, as the test does not assume any prior knowledge of formal logical notation, they seem to rely on sentence structure as a backup, and so A is "most similar."

shakran

Then don't call it logic. Call it grammar.

And inkriminator, the initial ring variable for a tree is 0 because a seed/nut does not have rings.

inkriminator

Just as the initial wisdom of a fetus is zero. Or suppose that one species of tree gains two rings for every year while another gains only one.

so how would you respond to my intrinsic argument? And remember, it does not say which is the closest in logic, it says which is the closest in its reasoning. Minutuae, but of such empires are built...or at least answers are had.

shakran

No, we can't say that because 1) we haven't defined how to quantify wisdom and 2) a newborn knows how to cry, how to get his mom to feed him, etc. That can be argued as being wisdom so the kid starts out with a certain quantity of wisdom - - -but we don't know how much.

inkriminator

Notice I said fetus, not newborn baby. A fetus is the equivalent to a human in the same way that an acorn is equivalent to a tree. We know that a tree and a human at some point have zero rings and zero wisdom (at the moment of conception if you prefer). And we also know that during their life as humans/trees, at any year they have more rings/wisdom, than they did at a previous year. However, we do not know, FOR EITHER ONE, the possible speed differences at which these increases occur across different members of the same class.

This sidesteps the point about initial variables because suppose a birch gains 10000 rings per yeare, while an oak gains 10 per year....you would not know...and you could carry this same argument for the child. If the particular baby gains 10000+ points in Wisdom (I feel like this is D&D all of a sudden) while another gains 1 per year. The initial variables wouldn't matter because we wouldn't be able to tell anything from it anyways, due to the different rates of increase. Thus, I believe I have proved conclusively that you cannot look at initial variables, nor rates of increase as a method to answer this problem.

shakran

Logically invalid. We KNOW that a seed does not have rings. However it is still being hotly debated, mainly in abortion arguments, whether the fetus is even a person or not. If the fetus is a person, it may have some quantity of wisdom already. After all I doubt there are billboards in the birth canal teaching the fetus how to suckle and cry and get attention as it's on it's way out


I'll give you that.

No, actually we don't. While it's true that the tree will usually (perhaps always, I'm not a tree-guy) have a new ring at the end of a year, it does not always stand to reason that a human will be any more wise at the end of the year than at the beginning. I have a coworker who is a shining example of this


OK, but then it ceases to be a logic problem and becomes instead a grammar problem. That's my whole issue with the question to begin with. It's not asking for you to apply logic, but instead to apply sentence structure. If a collegiate entrance test doesn't understand the difference between grammar and logic, then we're in a considerable amount of trouble.

inkriminator

Shakran we are bound by the information given in the argument.
The only reason I brought up the fetus point was to say that the Initial Variable problem should not be a consideration. You bring up an acorn having zero rings initially...but an acorn is not a tree. When the tree is formed, who is to say that it has zero rings? At the moment that a tree becomes a tree, just as in the moment that a human becomes a human, you can imagine that they both have either some wisdom, or some rings. If you are assuming that a fetus has wisdom, push the argument back further to the zygote stage or even further to question if a single celled organism has wisdom, and if you believe this is possible then assuming that at the moment a tree becomes classified as a tree it has rings is not far fetched. Please re-read this at least twice before posting on it, not because I doubt your intelligence, but simply because I fear that I did a poor job of explaining my position.

The second point cannot be argued against as it is stated in the problem, you must assume that it is true. I definitely agree though that it does not apply in real-life in all occasions.

If I read your intonations right, it seems as if we both agree on a number of points. 1) the test takers did a poor job. 2) The initial variable problem is not sufficient reason to go for either A or B.

In regards to your last comment, you should read my post about intrinsic variables, but since i'm such a nice guy, here you go.

That would provide some logical basis for this question although i still think its pisspoor.

peace