LR Question 17 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Educator: Traditional classroom education is ineffective because…
QUESTION TYPE: Sufficient Assumption
CONCLUSION: Traditional classroom teaching is ineffective because it is not a social process.
REASONING: Only social processes can develop students’ insights.
ANALYSIS: The last sentence is just fluff. It’s important to figure out which parts of the stimulus are directly involved in the reasoning and which parts are just fluff. This lets you quickly eliminate answers B, C and E.
You can draw the premises, and the conclusion the argument is aiming at. This lets you spot the gap:
Traditional ➞ not social ➞ not insight not effective
There is a gap between insight and effectiveness. We need to say either [effective ➞ insight] or [not insight ➞ not effective]. Answer choice D makes this link. If students don’t have insights then teaching is ineffective.
Answer choice A is close, but it’s backwards. The correct answer needs to let us conclude “education ineffective.” A only lets us say “if education is ineffective, then…” It’s a necessary condition, but we need a sufficient condition.
___________
- This gets it backwards. We need to show insight is a necessary condition for effectiveness. Answer choice D puts these in the right order.
- This doesn’t help us conclude that education is ineffective.
- Traditional classroom are rigid and artificial. So this answer shows that traditional classrooms are not social process.
Great, but….the argument already told us that! It’s in the first sentence. This is a trap answer. - CORRECT. Classroom education doesn’t lead to the development of insight. So according to this answer choice it must be ineffective.
- Who cares? The conclusion isn’t about whether non-traditional classrooms would work.
More Resources for Sufficient Assumption Questions
- Conditional Reasoning Article: Learn about conditional statements.
- LR Diagrams Guide: Learn how to draw LR diagrams.
- Intro to Conditional Reasoning: Learn conditional reasoning basics.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Sufficient Assumption questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers sufficient assumption questions.
Dear Graeme,
for answer choice A, its more than just backwards. It introduces the term ‘genuine education’ which comes up nowhere in the question text.
Eh, I wouldn’t split hairs, particularly not on sufficient assumption questions, where you’re trying to help the argument. It’s reasonable to think that effective education = genuine education, or at least that effective is one of the attributes genuine education has.
Increasingly, the LSAT is testing your ability to see when term shifts are not concept shifts.
Wait so How would you diagram D?
D would be diagrammed as effective education -> develops insight. The contrapositive would be not insight -> not effective. This addresses the gap in the stimulus, as Graeme discussed in the analysis.