LSAT 157 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q12

LR Question 12 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Art student: Great works of art evoke passionate responses …

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning

CONCLUSION: Ezekiel Reilly’s art is great.

REASONING: Great works of art produce passionate responses, and Reilly’s art produces intense emotional responses.

ANALYSIS: This is a classic case of necessary and sufficient conditions. All great works of art produce passionate responses. This means that production of passionate responses is necessary for a great work of art. However, it is not sufficient – not everything that produces such a response is a great work of art. The death of a family pet might produce a passionate response, but that does not make it a great work of art.

If you’re still a bit confused by the difference, my go-to illustration of this concept is applicable here. If I said “all cats have tails”, it means that having a tail is necessary for something to be a cat. It does not mean that anything that has a tail is a cat. Similarly here, not everything that produces a passionate response is a great work of art.

___________

1. None of the premises here assume that Reilly’s art is great.
2. CORRECT. The author has taken a necessary condition (producing a passionate response) and treated it as sufficient. This is a common error on the LSAT.
3. This is not what’s happening here – the author is not misapplying a general claim about any class. An example of this error would be something like saying “Most of my family members are women, so my brother must be a woman”.
4. The argument does not make this error. We have no evidence to suggest that the author’s statement about great art is based on an insufficient sample.
5. This is not what’s happening here at all. The author is making a statement of value about art, but it’s based on criteria that the author has specifically linked to the value of art.

Recap: The question begins with “Art student: Great works of art evoke passionate responses “. It is a Flawed Reasoning question. Learn more about LSAT Flaw questions in our guide to LSAT Logical Reasoning question types.