LR Question 26 Explanation, by LSATHacks
QUESTION TEXT: Because our club recruited the best volleyball players…
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning
CONCLUSION: Our team will almost certainly win the city championship.
REASONING: Our team is the most likely to win the championship. It’s the best team, because we recruited the best players.
ANALYSIS: You might think the flaw is the first sentence. Do the best players necessarily work well enough together to make the best team?
Yes, they do. The sentence says ‘Because we recruited….’. This implies that the team actually is the best, and the best players are the reason. You must assume that premises are true in LSAT arguments.
The flaw instead lies in the difference between ‘most likely’ and ‘almost certainly’. Maybe the best team only has a 7 percent chance of winning. This is higher than any other team’s chance, and therefore ‘most likely’. Not very impressive, right? Certainly not ‘almost certain’ victory.
___________
- Rubbish. Read carefully. Why did the argument say the team is the best? Because they have the have the best players. This answer can’t be the flaw if it didn’t happen.
- What features? The argument said that the best team has the best chance of winning. And ‘our club’ is the best team, so that seems entirely relevant.
- Why would this be a flaw? If you want to predict the outcome of a competition, it’s a good idea to compare the two parties! In any case, like answer choice A, the argument didn’t do this. There’s no comparison.
- Again, the argument didn’t do this. Here’s an example of this answer: “Because the team is the best, each player must be the best”. It’s a whole to part flaw, which simply isn’t in the argument.
- CORRECT. ‘Most likely’ could mean an 8% chance, which is not very likely at all. The argument went from ‘most likely’ to ‘almost certainly’. Almost certainly refers to overall likelihood, +80% or so.
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I think it is true that the stimulus does commit a part-to-whole error in the first sentence, contrary to Graeme’s interpretation. The word “Because” is clearly a premise indicator, and the author draws an intermediary/sub conclusion that his team is the best only on the basis of the fact that the best members are recruited. The author commits a second error, though, when he draws the main conclusion that his club will win the championship (Graeme explained this part well when he explained choice E).
If answer choice (D) did not make the reversal error and instead said “if each individual part is best, the entity is best” then this could have been the right answer too, describing the said error in the first sentence. In reality, it reversed this part-to-whole relationship so (D) is out.
In short, I believe that the stimulus made a total of 2 errors but only 1 answer choice, E, pointed out one of these two errors correctly. What do you think?
That is correct. The argument is attributing the qualities of each part of the team to the entire team. It could be that you have the best players, but they can’ get along and as a result, their teamwork is mediocre. Thus, they’re not the best team. This argument made more than one error but only answer choice E pointed out one of them.
Also, just as an FYI, it should be a general tendency to not look for the flaw in premises. You must assume that premises are true in LSAT arguments, even if they are part of an intermediary conclusion. In this case, the sentence says, “Because we recruited,” so it implies that the team is actually the best due to having the best players. It’s not a flaw.
I think this question tripped me up because the common sense assumption this triggered was that a team comprised of the “best” players does not typically result in the best “team.” It’s more often than not the right mix of elite and other role players that make up championship teams. Numerous examples to be found in professional sports! Upon further review, I do recognize that the other four answers really do not make any sense, even if LSAC *had* wanted me to make the not-so-helpful assumption above.
The first sentence says “Because our club recruited the best…”
Just because somebody recruits the best players doesn’t guarantee that the best players actually join the team. That’s why I fell for choice B. The entire argument is based on something irrelevant if the best players didn’t necessarily join the team. Am I crazy?
To expand: I could recruit Michael Jordan to join a recreational basketball league. Does that guarantee, regardless of his response, that I will have the best team? Absolutely not. Recruiting the best players does not necessarily lead to getting the best players.
(1) LSAC does expect you to make common sense assumptions, and I think in this case you could argue that “to recruit” a player is to both scout and sign that player up for the team. Check out the top definitions of “recruit” on Merriam-Webster (1 a, b, and c): https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/recruit. The sense of “recruit” you’re suggesting is “to scout”, which is lower on the list of definitions (1d), and also in everyday usage we generally either use the word “to scout” or specify that we’re recruiting prospects.
(2) Even if we did interpret “recruit” in the way you’re suggesting, (B) still doesn’t make a great choice because it’s a bit of a stretch to say that scouting top prospects (whether they join or not) is irrelevant to the quality of the team. We can’t assume anything about the probability of success of their scouting procedures because that’s going beyond the letter of the stimulus (that’s why the Michael Jordan/recreational basketball league analogy doesn’t quite fit). So, their scouting methods may very well be relevant.
Hi, I’m still wondering why this would not be considered a part to whole flaw?
Thanks!
A part-to-whole flaw is assuming that what is true of one part of something is true of its whole. For the argument to make that type of flaw, it would need to say something like “our team captain is world-class, so our team is world-class.” This argument is saying that just because one circumstance is more likely than a series of other circumstances, then there is a greater than (say, 80%) chance that circumstance will occur.
Got it now, thank you!