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Course: LSAT > Unit 1
Lesson 7: Logical Reasoning – Video lessons- Identify the conclusion | Video lesson
- Identify an entailment | Video lesson
- Strongly supported inferences | Video lesson
- Disputes | Video lesson
- Identify the technique | Video lesson
- Identify the role | Video lesson
- Identify the principle | Video lesson
- Match the structure | Video lesson
- Match principles | Video lesson
- Identify a flaw | Video lesson
- Match flaws | Video lesson
- Necessary assumptions | Video lesson
- Sufficient assumptions | Video lesson
- Strengthen | Video lesson
- Weaken | Video lesson
- Helpful to know | Video lesson
- Explain | Video lesson
- Resolve a conflict | Video lesson
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Identify a flaw | Video lesson
Watch an explanation of how to approach identify the flaw questions on the Logical Reasoning section of the LSAT.
Want to join the conversation?
- I felt like C was just as good as an answer as E. Can anyone explain to me why it does not work?(13 votes)
- E is correct because C ends with "it must not be a good idea". C is pretty vague in its description of the flaw. The arguer isn't just saying that unionizing is not a good idea the arguer firmly decides that students should not unionize, why? Because majority of students obviously disapprove. E describes the flaw accurately, that the arguer blurs the distinction between active disapproval (most of aware students not approving) and lack of approval (majority of students being unaware so they cannot approve or disapprove)(9 votes)
- I would have never guessed the answer was E. "Active disapproval" and "lack of approval" is not what I equated to unaware and against unionizing. Please explain more in depth why C does not sufficiently count as a flaw. Even D seems like more of a likely answer.(1 vote)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] This question starts out The reasoning in the argument
is the most vulnerable to criticism on the
grounds that the argument. We can really finish the
question with the words does what or commits what flaw. So, we're looking at a task
of identifying the flaw. The great thing about a flaw question is that you already know
that the argument is bad. Once you identify the
question as a flaw question, you're armed with that knowledge up front. So, you can read with a really
skeptical eye and know that, even though the arguer
thinks the argument is good, you know that it's not. In flaw questions, the answer will describe why the argument isn't sound. The four wrong choices will usually be a description of a flaw, but just not the flaw that's
happening in this passage. Pause your video now if you'd like to try this question on your own. Otherwise, we'll move
on to the explanation. Okay, let's read the stimulus together, and for flaw questions
it's a really good idea to break the argument down into it's conclusion and support and really separate the conclusion from its support. Because we're looking for the gap between the two pieces and that gap is gonna be too big in flawed arguments. The passage reads: Despite the
efforts of a small minority of graduate students at
one university to unionize, the majority of graduate students there remain unaware of the attempt. Most of those who are aware believe that a union would not
represent their interests, or that, if it did, it would
not effectively pursue them. Thus, the graduate
students at the university should not unionize,
since the majority of them obviously disapprove of the attempt. Alright, where is our main conclusion? It's gonna be here, starting with thus, but ending right here. We can't include the last part, because we see the evidence word since. So, very simply, the main conclusion is that the graduate
students at the university should not unionize. Everything else in the passage serves to support that recommendation. Now, let's look at that
claim starting with since. That should be our main evidence, right? The arguer thinks the grad
students shouldn't unionize because the majority of them obviously disapprove of the attempt. Well, wait a minute. That sounds like it needs
to be supported as well. How do we know that the majority of the grad students obviously
disapprove of the attempt? Because, earlier in the passage, we're told that the
majority of grad students are unaware of the attempt to unionize, and most of those who are aware don't agree with unionizing. It's picture time. Here is a representation of all of the grad students at this university. Here is the majority of
them, who are unaware of the attempt to unionize. Now, of the other side, who are aware, most of them are against unionizing. Can we say, then, that the
majority of grad students obviously disapprove of the attempt? No, this arguer is mistaking the majority who don't know about
the attempt to unionize as a majority who disapproves
of the attempt to unionize. And that's not okay. What if these students
who don't know about it found out about it and
then approved of it? We just don't know, so
this argument doesn't work. It's generally easier and
faster for flaw questions if you have a strong prediction in mind before going into the choices. That way you can just
play the matching game. Here, we're saying that the flaw is that the arguer is
mixing up the majority of students who don't know about something as the majority who
disapproves of that something. That's such a good prediction that, on test day, you could just scan to find the match for that prediction. But let's go through each
choice one at a time, for completeness' sake. A reads tries to establish a conclusion simply on the premise that the conclusion agrees with a long-standing practice. So, this isn't relevant. We were never told anything
about a long-standing practice. So we can quickly eliminate this choice. B tells us that the
argument fails to exclude alternative explanations for why some graduate students
disapprove of unionizing. This doesn't match our prediction. Plus, it doesn't describe
a flaw in the argument. Because what if the argument did exclude alternative explanations for why some grad students
disapprove of unionizing? That makes no difference to the argument. It certainly doesn't fix the argument. Because we don't care why anyone disapproves or approves of unionizing. We're only interested
in whether the majority of these students actually do disapprove. C, presumes that simply because a majority of a population is unaware of something, it must not be a good idea. This might have been tempting
without a prediction, but let's break it down. The arguer isn't saying that unawareness means something isn't a good idea. Even though unawareness is mentioned early on in the passage,
what the arguer is saying is that obvious
disapproval from a majority means that something isn't a good idea. So this choice isn't accurately
describing what's happening. D, ignores the possibility
that although a union might not effectively pursue
graduate student interests, there are other reasons for unionizing. What if the arguer didn't
ignore this possibility? That still wouldn't help the argument and make it more sound. We don't care about the
specific reasons for unionizing. We need to know whether a majority of the grad students
actually do disapprove. And we're suspicious, considering
that a majority of them don't even know about
the attempt to unionize. Finally, E, blurs the distinction between active disapproval
and mere lack of approval. That is a match for what we identified as a problem in this argument. The arguer confuses people
actually disapproving of something with people not
even knowing about that thing. If you don't know about something, then, sure, you have a
lack of approval for it. But that doesn't mean
that you disapprove of it. And this is our answer. To recap, for flaw
questions, prepare yourself for an unsound argument from the start. Identify the arguer's main point and phrase the support for it
in a simple but accurate way. There will be a problem with the journey from evidence to conclusion, or in the gap between evidence and conclusion. And it's a good idea to
understand what that problem is before you evaluate the choices. That's because the wrong
choices for flaw questions can sound really fancy and distracting, and it's time consuming to think about each choice carefully, instead of finding the one
that matches your prediction. Finally, there are some common
flaws that you can look for, which we cover elsewhere
in your practice materials, and those can also help you hone in on a familiar pattern when you see one.