pt 8, s1, q22, help my break down my reasoning pls! Forum

[flash21]

So, I looked up the manhattan explanation after mulling this question over for a while in review, but I just want to know, how can I know for next time that "Social class" does not equal nobels? I recognized the shift change, but I remained unsure whether it was okay or not, so I guess what I'm asking is - when is it okay to refer to one group in another general term and its okay?

I wrote out these explanations before I looked at the answer choices so you could see my thought process. Let me know what you guys think.


Stuck between (A) and (C). .

A.. I was really stuck on this one because the “distorts history” part - which I am taking to mean that it would be incorrect, because feudalism as we learned in the stimulus, does NOT require nobility – but does this make distorting history? I think the stimulus alludes to the fact that there could be a nobel status, but that it wouldn’t be “technically” correct – so this , if my thinking is true, would make this answer incorrect

B. We don’t know this at all, very unsupported

C. This whole “Social class” thing is really messing me up. For me picking this answer, I’ll assume this refers to “Nobels” – and it would be true that them having this status is not enough , they must also have the inheretence of such a title allowed by law, making this the correct answer

D. THE ONLY cause? We have no idea, could be many others

E. Nope, shows in the stimulus feudalism without nobility

[Clyde Frog]

So, I looked up the manhattan explanation after mulling this question over for a while in review, but I just want to know, how can I know for next time that "Social class" does not equal nobels? I recognized the shift change, but I remained unsure whether it was okay or not, so I guess what I'm asking is - when is it okay to refer to one group in another general term and its okay?

I wrote out these explanations before I looked at the answer choices so you could see my thought process. Let me know what you guys think.


Stuck between (A) and (C). .

A.. I was really stuck on this one because the “distorts history” part - which I am taking to mean that it would be incorrect, because feudalism as we learned in the stimulus, does NOT require nobility – but does this make distorting history? I think the stimulus alludes to the fact that there could be a nobel status, but that it wouldn’t be “technically” correct – so this , if my thinking is true, would make this answer incorrect

B. We don’t know this at all, very unsupported

C. This whole “Social class” thing is really messing me up. For me picking this answer, I’ll assume this refers to “Nobels” – and it would be true that them having this status is not enough , they must also have the inheretence of such a title allowed by law, making this the correct answer

D. THE ONLY cause? We have no idea, could be many others

E. Nope, shows in the stimulus feudalism without nobility

Think about answer choice (A) in this view. If you were to say that feudalism requires nobility you're saying that you cannot have feudalism without nobility. But we know that this is not true because feudalism existed back in the 8th century and nobility, aka noble class, did not exist until the twelfth century, as this was the first time it was sanctioned as law, which is required for a noble class/nobility to exist.


With (C) we have no idea if it is sufficient or not to have a social class, which would include noble class, since the only requirements for a noble class we are given are for it to be considered that is for it to be legally sanctioned. It very well could be sufficient.

[Christine (MLSAT)]

So, I looked up the manhattan explanation after mulling this question over for a while in review, but I just want to know, how can I know for next time that "Social class" does not equal nobels? I recognized the shift change, but I remained unsure whether it was okay or not, so I guess what I'm asking is - when is it okay to refer to one group in another general term and its okay?

I wrote out these explanations before I looked at the answer choices so you could see my thought process. Let me know what you guys think.


Stuck between (A) and (C). .

A.. I was really stuck on this one because the “distorts history” part - which I am taking to mean that it would be incorrect, because feudalism as we learned in the stimulus, does NOT require nobility – but does this make distorting history? I think the stimulus alludes to the fact that there could be a nobel status, but that it wouldn’t be “technically” correct – so this , if my thinking is true, would make this answer incorrect

B. We don’t know this at all, very unsupported

C. This whole “Social class” thing is really messing me up. For me picking this answer, I’ll assume this refers to “Nobels” – and it would be true that them having this status is not enough , they must also have the inheretence of such a title allowed by law, making this the correct answer

D. THE ONLY cause? We have no idea, could be many others

E. Nope, shows in the stimulus feudalism without nobility

Great question, flash21. You are absolutely correct to realize that there are times we're allowed to move from narrow to broad, and times that we aren't. I'm going to repost something I wrote a little while ago on the subject:

Two different examples of narrow->broad:

• PREMISE: Arsenic killed him
  CONCLUSION: Therefore poison killed him

• PREMISE: Arsenic smells like almonds
  CONCLUSION: Therefore poison smells like almonds

The first is totally legit. We know that a specific poison killed him, so we can more generally conclude that 'a poison' killed him. But the second scenario takes a characteristic we only know to be true about one specific poison and concludes, inappropriately, that it's true for ALL poisons. The primary difference here is that the first one is simply genericizing (totally a word) a fact we know, while the second is generalizing to a broader category.

Similarly, if we flip both of these around to broad->narrow, the legitimacy flips too:

• PREMISE: Poison killed him
  CONCLUSION: Therefore arsenic killed him

• PREMISE: Poison smells like almonds
  CONCLUSION: Therefore arsenic smells like almonds

Now the first argument is bad: we only know a general category to be responsible for his death - placing blame into a sub-part of that category is unsupported. But the second argument becomes legit - we know the entire category has a characteristic of smelling like almonds, so it's safe to say that a particular sub-part of that category has the same characteristic. We might have phrased the first arguments premise as "A poison killed him", and the second argument's premise is understood to be "ALL poison smells like almonds". And that's the fundamental difference in whether we're allowed to move from narrow->broad or broad->narrow.

While the above was written to show when a Premise-Conclusion pair made an illegal move, it applies identically to Stimulus-Inference pairs on Inference questions.

The change from "noble class" to "societal class" here is the same structure as:

• STIMULUS: Arsenic smells like almonds
  INFERENCE: Therefore poison smells like almonds

We know what the NOBLE class requires, but that doesn't inform us of what would be necessary or sufficient for *every* social class - and that's what answer (C) requires us to know.

Thoughts?

[flash21]

Christine ,

thank you so much for the great response. This is a common mistake on the LSAT that I get confused about so it's great I can add this to my understanding. So, a societal class is the larger category, and noble class is the more narrow category in this case - you've done a really good job illustrating this through the example, and I now understand how this flaw works in the same manner.

appreciate it a lot, you've given me a ton of great replies on these questions I post. thank you.