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I had no idea what I was doing here. Can anyone help me diagram this and show how I can get the answer?

JJim1919 wrote:I had no idea what I was doing here. Can anyone help me diagram this and show how I can get the answer?

I try to avoid over-diagramming, and I'd say this doesn't particularly require it...

Conclusion is that there's a difference between beauty and truth. Why? Because if they were the same, then the most realistic would be the best. But they're not.

But there's a jump in language here - the author is jumping from "beauty" to "best", and from "truth" to "realistic". Now, the 2nd jump, the argument justifies - he explicitly states that the most realistic pieces are the most truthful. But, he still fails to substantiate the link between beauty and best.

(A) does this. You have to assume that the most beautiful artworks are the best as well, because if they weren't, then this severely puts into question the link between "beauty" and what is "best".

The other main contender to this one is (D), and it's actually a very tough call here. The issue with (D) is that it goes too far. You don't have to assume that *only* the *best* artworks are 'beautiful'. For example, if the 2nd best artwork was 'beautiful' too, just less so, the argument could still work.

Can someone help me with this please? even reading the above explanation I don't get it...

Many of the most truthful pieces are not the best, but they would be if there was no dif. between beauty and truth.

So I don't get where the assumption comes in.

Which answer did you choose?

The argument is saying that beauty and truth are different and does so by talking about realistic artwork, which is a derivative of truth. Among the category of BEST artwork, the argument says that the most realistic is not among those. However, this is missing some information, namely what the beautiful artwork's (the derivative of beauty) relationship is to the best artwork. If the most beautiful artwork IS among the best artwork, then clearly there is a difference between beautiful art and realistic art and thus beauty and truth, because obviously beauty is now being favored over truth within the standards for best artwork.

I found this to be difficult as well. I missed it even untimed.

Is the main reason D is wrong is because it goes too far? I don't understand this.

I should be clear: I can easily eliminate (b), (c), and (e).

Expert help?

I finally got it. Literally I have spent hours thinking about this question. I had a discussion with my friend today and here's how I eventually was able to wrap my head around this problem (pardon the poor English, this is copied from a Gchat):

Let A = most original
B = best
C = most beautiful


the argument says:
if no difference, then all of A = B. But not all of A = B, so not all of A = all of C
the leap is that B = C
but saying that ONLY B = C goes too far
and that's totally good enough of an explanation for me
because at the end of the day, it could be that SOME A = C, but just that not ALL A = ALL C, and therefore that there is a difference in A and C.

also, D is not DEFINITELY wrong/incorrect
it just goes too far
we don't know that there is ANY A that = C; this is a semantic issue, but "many" = "some" = "at least one but possibly all"
so it's not necessarily true that there is at least 1 realistic that is the best, just that there is at least 1 that must not be the best. It's possible that ALL are not the best.
fuck YEAH

I hope this helps someone. This problem was the bane of my last week of studying; I kept thinking "well, there will inevitably be problems like this that I won't be able to get, so there's no way I can get a perfect score." I still won't get a perfect score , but at least I am able to understand and learn from my mistakes.

BTW, the last point is the some train:

Some A are not B.
Means "at least one A is not B"; "not all A are B." Some can include all. (pg 306 LR Bible FTW)
But it's not true that any A are B, necessarily. It could be that "all A are not B"

The question says (paraphrased) "many (aka some) of the most realistic are not the best" means that "at least one but possibly all of the most realistic are not the best." It could be that no realistic is the best, but not necessarily.

If you have any questions on this please PM or reply, with all the work I put into understanding this, I would love to help someone else arrive at comprehension (faster!).

Congrats theZeigs -- I know the feeling!

Here's what my colleague wrote up on this question -- a tough one! http://www.atlaslsat.com/forums/pt49-s4 ... -t440.html

Atlas LSAT Teacher wrote:Congrats theZeigs -- I know the feeling!

Here's what my colleague wrote up on this question -- a tough one! http://www.atlaslsat.com/forums/pt49-s4 ... -t440.html

Thanks for that; I should start using that resource some more. He ended up with the same reason to get rid of D as I did ...it goes too far.

For what it's worth, I also had my highest ever LSAT PT score today. Victory Monday.

theZeigs wrote:

Atlas LSAT Teacher wrote:Congrats theZeigs -- I know the feeling!

Here's what my colleague wrote up on this question -- a tough one! http://www.atlaslsat.com/forums/pt49-s4 ... -t440.html

Thanks for that; I should start using that resource some more. He ended up with the same reason to get rid of D as I did ...it goes too far.

For what it's worth, I also had my highest ever LSAT PT score today. Victory Monday.

Awesome! One word of warning: I've noticed that sometimes as people get better, they get lazy and stop looking at the other answers because they start to think they're LSAT-proof.

Atlas LSAT Teacher wrote:

theZeigs wrote:

Atlas LSAT Teacher wrote:Congrats theZeigs -- I know the feeling!

Here's what my colleague wrote up on this question -- a tough one! http://www.atlaslsat.com/forums/pt49-s4 ... -t440.html

Thanks for that; I should start using that resource some more. He ended up with the same reason to get rid of D as I did ...it goes too far.

For what it's worth, I also had my highest ever LSAT PT score today. Victory Monday.

Awesome! One word of warning: I've noticed that sometimes as people get better, they get lazy and stop looking at the other answers because they start to think they're LSAT-proof.

Good advice. I've noticed that recently, on especially the early problems, I can spot the right answer right away so I don't read the (probably) wrong answers. I am still forcing myself to read all of the answers, though. I wonder, though, as a strategy if it would be wise to save time by skipping those wrong answers, noting it, then coming back if there is time to ensure that they are wrong.

Another thing: I think that speed/skill in LSAT comes not from being able to say why something is wrong, but being able to very quickly categorize it as wrong. I would say that, it seems so far, about 90% of wrong answers are wrong for the same reason that other previous wrong answers are wrong. For that other 10%, it might be problem specific, but if you can save time on the 90%, you get some nice gains in speed and accuracy.