LSAT 151 | Section 3 | Logical Reasoning: Q15

LR Question 15 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Some food historians conclude that recipes compiled by …

QUESTION TYPE: Method of Reasoning

CONCLUSION: The conclusion (that Apicius’ recipes indicate how wealthy Romans ate) is hasty.

REASONING: Many notable modern chefs have abnormal recipes. Apicius’ recipes may also have been abnormal. We don’t know because few other recipes from ancient Rome survived.

ANALYSIS: The author does two things:

1. Challenges some historians’ claim that Apicius’s recipes reliably represent wealthy Romans generally

1. Supports that challenge by using a modern analogy: many famous modern chefs have atypical recipes, so Apicius may have been atypical too.

So they’re using an analogy to modern chefs to undermine a view.

___________

1. Not quite. The argument does mention limited evidence (“few other recipes survive”), but it does more than complain of insufficient evidence. It uses an analogy about atypical chefs to undermine the inference.
2. Opposite of what happens. The analogy is used against the historians’ view.
3. CORRECT. The modern chef analogy is used to show Apicius may be unrepresentative.
4. Backward. The modern analogy is used to assess the historians’ conclusion, not vice versa.
5. The argument isn’t trying to prove ancient and modern times are similar. It’s just using the modern example as an analogy to challenge a claim.