LR Question 18 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Psychologist: Phonemic awareness, or the knowledge…
QUESTION TYPE: Must be True
FACTS:
- Learn language ➞ phonemic awareness (sounds) AND symbolic letters
- Whole language method SOME learn language
ANALYSIS: The first statement above shows there are two necessary conditions for learning a language. The second statement shows that some people using the whole language method did learn a language.
There, we can make a deduction by combining the statements. The whole language method has met both necessary conditions for some people:
Whole language method SOME Learn language ➞ phonemic awareness (sounds) AND symbolic letters
(With “some” statements, we can combine the leftmost statement with the two necessary conditions as a new “some” statement.)
___________
- This goes too far. We only know the whole language method has worked for “many” students. So we can’t say it “invariably” works. Invariably means “all”.
- Too specific. I said the whole language method meets both necessary conditions. But that doesn’t mean that meeting the first condition immediately causes someone to meet the second.
- This doesn’t follow. Someone who knows a language can read (the second condition). But it’s possible for someone to know a language’s sounds but not read. (It’s called “illiteracy”.)
Negating one necessary condition doesn’t necessary negate the other necessary condition. - CORRECT. By combining the statements, we can see the whole language method meets both necessary conditions. One of the necessary conditions was learning how sounds are represented (phonemic awareness), so this answer must be true.
- This doesn’t follow. We know the children must know letters; otherwise they couldn’t read. But that doesn’t mean the whole language method taught them. They could have learned the alphabet separately. D, by saying “does not prevent”, is a better answer.
More Resources for Must Be True Questions
- Conditional Reasoning Article: Learn about conditional statements on the LSAT.
- LR Diagrams Guide: Learn how to draw LR diagrams.
- Intro to Conditional Reasoning: This intro course lesson covers conditional reasoning basics.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Must Be True questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers must be true questions.
If E says that the “whole language method succeeds in teaching” then why is it unclear whether they were taught that skill using the whole language method? Thank you!
What I meant is that the kids could have previously learned how to represent sounds with letters. And then subsequently used the whole language method to learn to read.
Like you might learn sounds at age 4, and then the whole language method comes in at ages 5-6. The fact that this is a possibility means we can’t infer E. For an inference you need 100% certainty the answer has to be true.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.
Hi, Graeme,
I wonder whether the sentence starting with otherwise wouldn’t need to be diagramed at all. Wouldn’t it need to be factored in at all?
Thank you for everything, your lecture and explanations have been greatly informative and helpful!
This is a most strongly supported question, so we’re just looking for the answer choice that is best supported by the information in the stimulus. Two statements in the stimulus indicate that (D) must be the correct answer choice, because (D) logically follows from these statements. Here are the statements:
(1) Learning to read an alphabetic language –> Phonemic awareness (the knowledge that words can be broken into component sounds) + learning how sounds are represented by means of letters
(2) Some children taught by whole language method –> learn to read alphabetic languages
If we chain (1) and (2), we get:
(3) Some children taught by whole language method –> Phonemic awareness + learn how sounds are represented by means of letters.
The “otherwise” part of the statement is basically just saying that there are no other conditions in which phonemic awareness can help learn an alphabetic language. Phonemic awareness AND learning how sounds are represented by means of letters are essential components of learning to read an alphabetic language. You can’t, for example, develop phonemic awareness and some other kind of skill or talent (besides learning how sounds are represented by means of letters), and learn how to read an alphabetic language. The second factor NEEDS to be present.
It’s important to at least consider the “otherwise” part of the statement — it’s good practice to make sure that even if an answer choice logically follows from one part of the stimulus (e.g. the chain above), it doesn’t in some way contradict some other part. However, as one gets better at conditional reasoning, they lose the need to diagram every statement.
Hi, Graeme,
I figured that e is wrong because children learning to ‘represent sounds symbolically by means of letter’ is not the same as learning ‘how sounds are symbolically represented by means of letter’. Am I wrong?
Thanks for your work, it really is a great help!
You’re not wrong, I think that’s also true and a good observation — the former seems more like active learning, where the latter is passive learning.
That being said, I think the explanation describes a bit more of a substantive reason for why this answer choice is incorrect. I can imagine that a difference like the one you’ve described might actually not be significant enough to rule out an answer choice if this were a different question.