LSAT 147 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q19

LR Question 19 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Any literary translation is a compromise between two…

QUESTION TYPE: Principle – Justify

CONCLUSION: Even the best translation will be a flawed approximation of the original.

REASONING: Translations always must compromise between meaning and faithfulness to style.

ANALYSIS: Principle/Justify questions are easy. If a question says “Dogs are pink, because they wag their tail”, then the answer will be “Anything that wags its tail is pink”

You just have to look for the term in the evidence, and connect it to the term in the conclusion. It’s that simple! Here, the terms are “Compromise ➞ Flawed”.

___________

1. This doesn’t mention what makes a work flawed. And it weakens the argument, by suggesting that the compromise was misguided: it says we shouldn’t strive either for accurate meaning or style.
2. We’re trying to conclude a work is flawed. This tells us what happens if a work is flawed. (Watch out for this kind of trap. In the answer on a principle-justify question, the conclusion should be a necessary condition, not a sufficient condition.)
3. This tells us what makes a translation skilled. But we’re looking for something that tells us what makes a translation “a flawed approximation of the original work”.
4. CORRECT. This matches. We know that no translation can be fully faithful to both meaning and style. This answer tells us therefore that such translations are flawed approximations.
5. This agrees with the premise in the stimulus, but it doesn’t prove the conclusion right. We’re trying to prove that translations are flawed approximations. You shouldn’t just look for something true in the stimulus.