LSAT 117 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q18

LR Question 18 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula portrayed …

QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption

CONCLUSION: Turning into bats is not an essential feature of vampire myths.

REASONING: Stoker’s Dracula portrayed vampires as able to turn into bats, but vampire myths existed in Europe before Dracula.

ANALYSIS: Pizza existed before pepperoni pizza. So, pepperoni isn’t an essential part of pizza.

This only works if at least one earlier pizza didn’t have pepperoni. If all pizza before pepperoni pizza already had pepperoni, the argument collapses.

Similarly, the author must assume that some pre-Dracula vampire myth lacked the bat-transformation feature.

Otherwise, the fact that vampire myths existed before Dracula proves nothing.

___________

1. Whether earlier vampire myths portrayed vampires as nocturnal is irrelevant. The argument is specifically about turning into bats.
2. Vampire myths in Central and South America have nothing to do with whether bat transformation is an essential feature of European vampire myths.
3. The argument doesn’t depend on whether vampire myths existed outside Europe.
4. CORRECT. The argument requires that at least one European myth that existed before Dracula didn’t portray vampires as bats. If the opposite were true, then the fact that vampire myths existed before Dracula wouldn’t show that bat transformation is nonessential. The conclusion would fall apart.
   Negation: All pre-Dracula European vampire myths portrayed vampires as able to turn into bats.
5. Stoker’s familiarity with earlier myths is irrelevant. The argument is about the content of earlier vampire myths, not what Stoker knew.