Any LSAT questions written wrong and thrown out? Forum

[rinkrat19]

From a logical standpoint, technically the word 'strongly' being included or not in the stem does change the burden of proof for the CR.

I completely disagree. It changes nothing. With or without "strongly," you are only asked to evaluate the answer choices relative to each other.

[Jeffort]

From a logical standpoint, technically the word 'strongly' being included or not in the stem does change the burden of proof for the CR.

I completely disagree. It changes nothing. With or without "strongly," you are only asked to evaluate the answer choices relative to each other.

Uhg, please interpret that sentence in the context of my entire post, especially with my second sentence (and perhaps google and read some academic texts/articles about inductive logic to verify the accuracy of my explanation). If you read my entire post or at least my second sentence, you should notice that we actually agree about the most important issue. Whether the word 'strongly' is in the stem or not for non MBT inference questions doesn't really make a difference from a practical test taking standpoint since only one of the five AC's is logically supported by the stimulus.

With or without "strongly," you are only asked to evaluate the answer choices relative to each other.

And No, that's not how the LSAT works since that would entail subjective judgements about the relative degrees of logical support different answer choices get from the stimulus evidence if they offered multiple answer choices that are logically supported by the evidence but by different degrees of support, which would undermine the objective validity of the test.

Only one of the five answer choices is objectively logically supported by the stimulus evidence in LR MSS/MS inference questions. The other four incorrect answers are either unsupported or undermined/contradicted by evidence in the stimulus. On MSS questions, the CR must be a 'strongly supported' inference, but they don't offer incorrect trap answers that are logically supported but to a lessor degree. On the rare MS questions, the CR doesn't need to have 'strong' logical support that leaves very little wiggle room for the possibility that the CR could be false under the evidence, it just has to have adequate logical support like the preponderance of the evidence standard you've learned about in law school.

I think you might be confusing the standards and criteria for MBE bar exam questions with the test construction specifications for LSAT questions that LSAC follows to insure it's a fair standardized test with skill level measurement accuracy and precision, they're different beasts.

Good luck with the bar exam. I feel your pain with bar exam prep work and pressure, it really does make the LSAT look like easy fun times in hindsight. The CA bar exam was the most painful and tortuous tests I've ever taken in my life and I thank god I passed it the first time and survived those three days from hell.

[foggynotion]

From a logical standpoint, technically the word 'strongly' being included or not in the stem does change the burden of proof for the CR.

I completely disagree. It changes nothing. With or without "strongly," you are only asked to evaluate the answer choices relative to each other.

With or without "strongly," you are only asked to evaluate the answer choices relative to each other.

And No, that's not how the LSAT works sincee that would entail subjective judgements about the relative degrees of logical support different answer choices get from the stimulus evidence if they offered multiple answer choices that are logically supported by the evidence but by different degrees of support, which would undermine the objective validity of the test.

Only one of the five answer choices is objectively logically supported by the stimulus evidence in LR MSS/MS inference questions. The other four incorrect answers are either unsupported or undermined/contradicted by evidence in the stimulus. On MSS questions, the CR must be a 'strongly supported' inference, but they don't offer incorrect trap answers that are logically supported but to a lessor degree. On the rare MS questions, the CR doesn't need to have 'strong' logical support that leaves very little wiggle room for the possibility that the CR could be false under the evidence, it just has to have adequate logical support like the preponderance of the evidence standard you've learned about in law school.

No, Rinkrat is correct in this. Jeffort, what you say may be what one usually sees with these questions, but there is nothing about the phrasing of the questions that is logically any different. If the presence of the word "strongly" implied that the answer they wanted is strongly supported, then it would also imply that all the answers are strongly supported, since it asks for the one that is MOST strongly supported. Your take seems to be to read the question to say:

The above, if true, most....strongly supports

When it should be read as:

The above, if true, most strongly.....supports

Also, if, as you say, one of the choices was always supported and the other four were absolutely not supported, then there would be no point in having a question stem reference that one the choices has "strong support". And if the LSAT did not ask you to compare the choices to each other and ask you for the best answer, then all these questions could just as easily be reworded to say "which one of these is supported by the passage". Don't the instructions state that more than one choice could conceivably answer the question but we are to pick the one that best answers it?

[ltowns1]

I did not interpret the word "strongly" as speaking to other answer choices, in terms of each answer choices probvability. On MSS there is always only one answer that is supported. I just believed that the word indicated that the burden of proof on the correct answer was allowed to have more wiggle room than most.So the answer could have had a range from some to all.

[Jeffort]

No, Rinkrat is correct in this. Jeffort, what you say may be what one usually sees with these questions, but there is nothing about the phrasing of the questions that is logically any different. If the presence of the word "strongly" implied that the answer they wanted is strongly supported, then it would also imply that all the answers are strongly supported, since it asks for the one that is MOST strongly supported. Your take seems to be to read the question to say:

The above, if true, most....strongly supports

When it should be read as:

The above, if true, most strongly.....supports

Also, if, as you say, one of the choices was always supported and the other four were absolutely not supported, then there would be no point in having a question stem reference that one the choices has "strong support". And if the LSAT did not ask you to compare the choices to each other and ask you for the best answer, then all these questions could just as easily be reworded to say "which one of these is supported by the passage". Don't the instructions state that more than one choice could conceivably answer the question but we are to pick the one that best answers it?

Nope.

RE: the above bolded reading interpretations of that phrase in MSS question stems.

'most....strongly supports' is the grammatically correct interpretation.

In the context of MSS stems with that phrase, 'most' is a superlative adjective, 'strongly' is an adverb, and 'supported' is an adjective. Consequently, 'strongly' modifies the adjective 'supported' such that 'most' refers to the phrase 'strongly supported'. The way you suggest is the correct way to read the phrase doesn't make grammatical sense since adverbs function to modify either an adjective, another adverb, a verb or a clause and 'strongly' certainly isn't modifying the superlative 'most'.

If you guys really believe that your views about this are correct, then I guess you should notify LSAC and argue with them about it.

From the LSAC test writers in the SuperPrep book:

Some questions ask you to identify a position that is supported by a body of evidence, but not supported conclusively. These questions might be worded as follows:

Which one of the following is most strongly supported by the information above?

...Your task is to evaluate that information and distinguish between the answer choice that receives strong support from that information (the correct answer) and answer choices that receive no significant support (the incorrect answer choices).

RE: The LR section instructions text you mentioned. That portion doesn't necessarily apply to all LR question types. Notice the word 'some' in the opening phrase. It applies mainly to Parallel reasoning and resolve/explain questions (since the CR on some parallel questions doesn't exactly match the reasoning in the stimulus, and on others the trap answer is almost exactly the same method of reasoning but just slightly different in one way, and since some resolve/explain questions have trap answers that get pretty close to working and others have CR's that you have to stretch with an assumption for it to resolve/explain), but it doesn't apply to MBT, MSS or MS inference/what can be concluded from the evidence in the stimulus questions.

For some questions, more than one of the choices could conceivably answer the question.

If the test writers wanted to, they could choose not to include the word 'most' in many question stems for many of the LR question types since the test is designed so that there is only one answer choice that logically satisfies the question stem task at all (except with parallel, resolve/explain and some of the funky principle, other weird 'conforms to', 'illustrates', and some other strangely phrased matching or whatever question type variations that have been popping up more frequently in recent years), but they choose to include it anyway for various reasons, mainly for CYA purposes in case people contest the validity of a question.