LSAT 133 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q5

LR Question 5 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Gardener: The design of Japanese gardens should…

QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption

CONCLUSION: Rocks in a Japanese garden should look different from each other.

REASONING: Japanese gardens should be in harmony with nature. Rocks found in nature look different from each other.

ANALYSIS: The argument is assuming that only something that imitates nature can be in harmony with nature.

___________

1. It isn’t necessary that the selection of rocks obeys every key value. It’s only necessary that the selection obeys the key value of harmony with nature.
2. CORRECT. If imitation of nature doesn’t improve harmony with nature then we have no reason to imitate nature in our Japanese gardens.
3. There could be other criteria. It’s only necessary that harmony with nature is a criterion for selecting rocks.
4. This doesn’t matter. Presumably making a garden is not “natural.” But we can still try to keep our garden in harmony with nature.
5. It isn’t necessary that each component is varied. There might be some aspects of nature that don’t vary: in that case we should do the same in our gardens.