LR Question 25 Explanation, by LSATHacks
QUESTION TEXT: Helena: Extroversion, or sociability, is not biologically…
QUESTION TYPE: Misinterpretation
CONCLUSION: Jay thinks Helena is wrong. He seems to think that she said that all introverted children adopted by extroverts will become social.
REASONING: Jay points out that some adopted introverts will remain introverts.
ANALYSIS: Helena said that introverts tend to become less introverted if they are adopted by extroverts. She didn’t claim that all introverts will become more social and she didn’t claim that they will become so social that they switch to being extroverts.
Jay interprets her claim as being much more extreme. He thinks she said that all adopted introverts will fully switch and become extroverts.
The right answer must be what Jay misunderstood Helena to have said.
___________
- This is pretty much what Helena actually said. But Jay misunderstood.
- This is close to what Helena said. Jay misunderstood her as saying “all” instead of most.
- Jay definitely didn’t think she said this. This sentence means that introverts don’t become any more social when adopted.
- CORRECT. Jay thought Helena meant that introversion was entirely social and any child adopted by extroverts would become an extrovert.
- This is close to Helena’s actual meaning. Jay instead thought she said that environmental factors are always more important.
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Please elaborate on why D is the better answer –I chose B and did not see how Helena had a “all vs most” argument. Thanks!
Helena concludes that, on average, children whose parents are biologically introverted and then are adopted by extroverted parents are more sociable than those who are not adopted. So, she’s not necessarily saying that all the children who are adopted are more sociable. Importantly, her argument does not exclude the possibility that there are some students who do not become more extroverted when adopted by extroverted parents–some can be less extroverted than those who aren’t adopted, and the average can still hold true.
Jay’s conclusion is based on a misunderstanding of Helena’s argument. He thinks she’s saying that some of these adopted children can’t be more introverted than those who aren’t adopted, and so that extroversion is not at all biologically determined. In other words, he believes that Helena is saying that all children can become extroverted by just being adopted by extroverted parents. So, (D) summarizes his misunderstanding quite well.
(B) is tempting, but isn’t exactly Jay’s misunderstanding. He think she’s saying all children can become extroverted–not just “most”.
I guess I don’t know how to determine whether Jay saw an all or nothing argument here. I thought that he was pointing out that her supporting example was only a trend and not good enough to come to a conclusion that extroversion is not at all biologically determined. I saw Jay’s response as a pointing-out-faulty-logic response rather than a misunderstanding. Am I wrong in thinking that?
If extroversion was biologically determined, that means it is 100% biologically determined. That’s what Helena’s English phrasing means. We would expect adoption to have no effect.
So, she merely needs to show a trend. There is no “only a trend” in this situation: a trend is sufficient! Parents only need to make their children more extraverted some of the time.
That’s where Jay’s interpretation goes wrong. Showing that some children are unaffected does not negate the idea that other children are affected. So, for his counterexample to make sense, he must hav thought Helena meant biology plays no role. Whereas Helena’s claim was that biology does not play the entire role.