Critical Reasoning

Here is an LSAT example that is a little different - it might present you with a challenge.

Source: Official LSAT from October 2000, question 18 of section 2. Question found in "The Next 10 Actual , Official PrepTests" copyright Law School Admissions Council, 2004, page 134.

"18. The tendency toward overspecialization in the study of artifacts is unfortunate. Scholars can enhance their
understanding of a certain artistic period by studying art from earlier periods that had a significant influence on it.
For instance, because of its influence on Spanish artisans, a proper understanding of Arabic porcelain is indispensable for a proper understanding of Spanish porcelain.

Of the following, which one most closely conforms to the principle that the passage as a whole illustrates?

(A) To understand completely the major trends in research on aging, one must understand the influences these trends exert on society's view of aging.

(B) To understand fully the historical events of this century, a historian must have an understanding of similar events in earlier centuries.

(C) To appreciate fully the French language, one must understand the other languages that share its linguistic ancestry.

(D) To understand properly any academic discipline, one must have at least a superficial acquaintance with the practices of the wider academic community.

(E) To understand completely Aristotle's philosophy, one must be well acquainted with the philosophy of his intellectual mentor, Plato."


OA after some discussion.

David@VeritasPrep wrote:Here is an LSAT example that is a little different - it might present you with a challenge.

Source: Official LSAT from October 2000, question 18 of section 2. Question found in "The Next 10 Actual , Official PrepTests" copyright Law School Admissions Council, 2004, page 134.

"18. The tendency toward overspecialization in the study of artifacts is unfortunate. Scholars can enhance their
understanding of a certain artistic period by studying art from earlier periods that had a significant influence on it.
For instance, because of its influence on Spanish artisans, a proper understanding of Arabic porcelain is indispensable for a proper understanding of Spanish porcelain.

Of the following, which one most closely conforms to the principle that the passage as a whole illustrates?

(A) To understand completely the major trends in research on aging, one must understand the influences these trends exert on society's view of aging.

(B) To understand fully the historical events of this century, a historian must have an understanding of similar events in earlier centuries.

(C) To appreciate fully the French language, one must understand the other languages that share its linguistic ancestry.

(D) To understand properly any academic discipline, one must have at least a superficial acquaintance with the practices of the wider academic community.

(E) To understand completely Aristotle's philosophy, one must be well acquainted with the philosophy of his intellectual mentor, Plato."


OA after some discussion.

Looks to be kind of parallel the reasoning question.
[spoiler]Between B & E. I selected E[/spoiler]
[spoiler]If my understanding of que type is correct i will post how i reached there. [/spoiler]

tough one, i went for choice (C), i thought C matched closely with the passage but who knows!

IMO E .

Principle of passage - "Scholars can enhance their understanding of a certain artistic period by studying art from earlier periods that had a significant influence on it" .

PERIOD + INFLUENCE

A] It says scociety's view is imp to understand major trends. Not in syn with our argument .

B] Its states that study of similar earlier event will be beneficial . But we want the earlier event which had significant influence . Significant influence and similar event is very diffrent.

C] The other language that share the linguistic ancestory will add to understanding of French , but it doesnt necesarily say the earlier ones , these languages can be current existing languages, no mention abt that .

D] It mentions about the wider academic community . Not even near the argument.

E] It covers the earlier period + influence ="mentor"[hence obviously before Aristotle] +" philosophy of plato"[As he was mentor he definately influenced Aristotle]

IMO it should be D.

Reason --- The question asks us to trace the "principle". the principle is: can "enhance" their understanding of a certain artistic period by studying art from earlier periods that had a significant influence on it. Spanish-Arabic etc is a specific example of the general principle. Note the example refers to a "proper understanding" and NOT a "complete" or "full" understanding.


D.
1. refers to 'understand properly'
2. "atleast a superficial acquaintance with practices of the wider acad community" - this seems to fit the pattern as "at least..." indicates a min level... One can't really say what one needs to "fully" or completely learn things.... Just studying a prior source may simply not be enough to know something "fully"
3. practices of acad community can be something that can influence an acad discipline... so it is something that can be studied in line with the argument.

I think C is the correct answer .The only other contenders seem to be B and E.
B) A century is a very long time for two evens set apart by such a long time period to exert influence on each other.
E)Its not necessari that the student should share his tutor's philosophy
A student also cultivate his own philosophy
Whereas in C
For example Sanskrit is the language of the aryans and several other languages such as Gurmukhi have originated from the same script that sanskrit originated from .
For example there are lots of English words like volte-face , accoutrement ,femme-fatale,sangfroid,ab-initio ,and others that owe their presence to French.German,Latin

Munda Singh, I dont think its a good idea to take such a specific real life example to justify C.

there is no evidence that these other lang. with a "shared" ancestry have influenced French at all.

I voted for D but I won't be surprised if its E as it does broadly fit the required parameters. But the "understand completely" part I find a little off-putting in E. In any event lets wait for David to reveal the answer and the reasoning behind it.

gmat1011 wrote:Munda Singh, I dont think its a good idea to take such a specific real life example to justify C.

there is no evidence that these other lang. with a "shared" ancestry have influenced French at all.

I voted for D but I won't be surprised if its E as it does broadly fit the required parameters. But the "understand completely" part I find a little off-putting in E. In any event lets wait for David to reveal the answer and the reasoning behind it.

hmm
On a second thought E seems credible. But a Pupil can always develop a different line of Philosophy.I guess by the time i reached option E , i forgot the Method of Reasoning in the CR

IMO : E

OA is E.

AIM GMAT has the explanation of the day! Nice job! And a special mention to GMAT1011 for quite correctly reminding us not to look to outside factual knowledge that is beyond the scope of the argument.

This is a mimic the reasoning problem. It states that you are selecting the answer choice that most closely conforms to the principle that the passage as a whole illustrates. What this means is that you are going to try to mimic the reasoning in the stimulus.

AIM GMAT has shown what we are trying to do here by bringing the stimulus down to one principle. I like to state the principle without using any subject specific words (if possible). In this case I would state the principle as "in order to understand a phenomenon (which just means a thing) you have to understand the influences on that thing." In the stimulus this is in order to understand the Spanish porcelain you have to understand what has influenced that - namely the Arabic porcelain.

Choice E fits this in that when seeking to understand a phenomenon (Aristotle) you need to understand his influences (one of which is Plato). While it is true that the pupil can stray from the teacher (and of course Aristotle did) but so I am sure Spanish porcelain is not exactly the same as Arabic Porcelain. So we are not looking for a 100% match but an influence.

Some of you noted the difference between "a proper understanding" in the stimulus versus "To understand completely" in Answer Choice E. On this type of question you have to know which difference to really focus on. In this case I think that the above phrases are meant to have a similar meaning so that "a proper understanding" means a fairly complete understanding.

Any questions still lingering?

David what level Cud this quest be ?Whats wrong with C ?

This is a difficult problem and it is of an unusual type so I would say that it is fairly difficult. More difficult than 3 quarters of all the GMAT questions I have seen - but not as difficult as some others.

C is incorrect for this reason. The stimulus is like saying if you want to know the son (Spanish porcelain) you need to know the father (Arabic porcelain). This is also what E is saying with Aristotle and Plato. Choice C is more saying if you want to know the man (the French Language) look at his brothers (Spanish, Portuguese, etc.) So that is a different relationship.