PT12 S1 Q6 Forum

[TunnelVision]

I ended up eliminating everything except for A and D, but I picked D. For D, I was suspicious of "citing a theory of rights" and "prohibits" but the theory of rights is the author's rights to their own words, and Millie uses strong language like fundamentally and violates.

For A, I couldn't eliminate it because they both seemed right, which obviously cannot be the case on the LSAT. I think I understand how her analysis undermines Oscar's position, but this seemed like a generic response, so could you guys maybe explain it a little further for me please? And why is D wrong?

[suspicious android]

First off on A, you are right in that it is pretty generic. But that is not bad at all for this kind of question. You are asked essentially to describe how Millie attacks Oscar's argument. She basically says "This is what plagiarism is, and what you did definitely counts as plagiarism, don't try to get out of it because she gave you permission."

On D, the issue is almost entirely the opposite. D is very specific. That's not why it's wrong, being specific is not bad here. But it does make this answer choice easy to analyze. If you're going to entertain D, you have to be able to point to each of its constituent parts. What's the theory of rights that she cites? There is none, that means D is wrong. She does mention an author's "rights to their own words", but that's a right, not a theory of rights. Secondly, there is no suggestion that Oscar is committed to any position, just that Oscar is guilty. For D to be right, you'd need to find something in the stimulus like "You know moral theory XYZ? Well that prohibits plagiarism, and because you said PQR you're definitely committed to XYZ."

[TunnelVision]

Thank you for the helpful response.