LR Question 21 Explanation, by LSATHacks
QUESTION TEXT: All too many weaklings are also cowards, and few…
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning
CONCLUSION: There must be at least one person who is both a weakling and a fool.
REASONING: Many weaklings are cowards and all but a few (most) cowards are fools.
ANALYSIS: “Many” statements are basically just some statements. You can’t combine those with anything except a sufficient-necessary condition. It’s possible that people who are both cowards and weaklings are never fools.
A parallel argument would be: Many iguanas are pets and most pets have fur (dogs and cats.) Therefore at least some iguanas have fur.
___________
- This is a good argument though it could actually have said all weasels. Weasel ➞ carnivores ➞ non-herbivores
- This is a bad argument but only because it assumes that you have to be a saint or a moralist to live like saints or moralists.
- CORRECT. This incorrectly tries to combine “some” statements. Painters and dancers might have no overlap, even if both groups overlap with musicians.
- Virtuous ➞ Free ➞ Autonomous. This is a good argument.
- This is a good argument though they could have correctly concluded that “most voters are not opposed to stricter tariffs.”
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I got really tripped up on this question because of the conclusion “There is at least one” qualifier in the stimulus vs “many are” qualifer in C. Should we not consider those to be qualitatively (if not quantitatively) different ?
In other words, can I consider arguments components phrased like “many A are B” or “some A are B” to be legitimately parallel to an argument component phrased like “there must be at least one A that is B”? These feel like they should be non-parallel/unequal to one another.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean exactly, but let me know if I answer your question or not. So for “at least one” that basically also means some/many/few. The funny thing about quantifiers is that a lot of them really mean the same thing. Some/many/few all mean somewhere between 1-49%. (0 = none; 50 = half; 51-99 = most; 100 = all).
So for your examples, “many A are B” and “some A are B” are parallel to each other, but “there must be at least one A that is B” does not follow from that since you can’t make conclusions from two “some” statements.
Hey Graeme.
I got this question right, but I thought the argument said “all too many” (some), “and few fail to be” (some, again) and “at least one person” (some, again). After reading your analysis I see that “and few fail to be” means “most.” I’m curious about the difference this may make, since the correct answer used three “some” statements and no “most” statements.
Good question. In practice it needn’t make a difference. Parallel questions don’t need to exactly parallel every element. So I’ve seen correct answers switch some for most or vice versa.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.