QUESTION TEXT: Lucinda will soon be attending National University…
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Parallel Reasoning
CONCLUSION: Lucinda will probably live in Western Hall.
REASONING:
- Western Hall (most) –> engineering major
- Lucinda will be an engineering major
ANALYSIS: This argument ignores that there might be dozens of residences at National University. And maybe Western Hall is a really tiny one with only 20 people. If so, it’s far more likely that Lucinda will be in a larger residence.
Basically, you can’t go backwards on a “most” statement. You can only read them left to right. To parallel this, look for an argument with one most statement, and a conclusion that reads it backwards.
You can waste a lot of time trying to analyze the answers on this type of question. Your first pass on the answer should be a skim, you should be looking for two things:
- Is there a most statement?
- Is the conclusion the thing on the left hand side of the argument? (I.e. reading the most statement right to left)
Then, it looks like a match, and you can analyze that answer more closely. You must narrow things down first before testing answers, or this type of question will take forever.
___________
- This reads the most statement left to right, so it doesn’t match.
It’s not technically a good argument, mind you – it would be more accurate to say “our city will join a group that is mostly economic hubs”
Diagrams:
Shopping mall (most)–> economic hub
Our city is building a shopping mall.
Therefore, our city will probably become a hub. - This is a fairly good argument that reads the “most” statement left to right.
Diagrams:
Regional hub (most)–> tremendous economic growth sometime
Our city is a hub, which hasn’t experienced growth.
Therefore, we will probably have growth in the future. - This doesn’t even have a “most” statement! It definitely isn’t parallel. It’s a waste of time to analyze this answer further – when under timed conditions you should be looking specifically for answers with “most”. But, I’ll draw the diagrams below.
Diagrams:
Economic hub –> excellent transport
We have bad transport. We’ll never become a hub.
(This is wrong because a city might build better transport in the process of becoming a hub.) - This is a totally different structure. It takes facts, and concludes a “most” statement. The original took a “most” statement and concluded facts.
Diagrams:
We had a mall ten years ago.
We had a growth spurt since then.
Therefore: city build mall (most)–> growth - CORRECT. This answer proves the right hand side of the “most” statement and concludes the left hand side. Just like the stimulus, this reads the “most” statement backwards. Which doesn’t work: building a mall in a town of 50 people wouldn’t give it good odds of becoming a hub.
Diagrams:
Economic hub (most)–> shopping mall
Our city built a mall.
Therefore it will become a hub.
Recap: The question begins with “Lucinda will soon be attending National University”. It is a Flawed Parallel Reasoning question. To practice more Flawed Parallel Reasoning questions, have a look at the LSAT Questions by Type page.
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Mili says
Is right to left conclusion always the case in most statements ?
FounderGraeme Blake says
So, properly interpreted, “most” statements go from left to right. So, if I say: most birds can fly
You draw that as: Birds (most) –> fly
However, this argument makes an error and goes from right to left. It’s like saying: “This airplane is flying, so it is probably a bird.”. To parallel the error, you need to also look for a most statement going from right to left. Hope that helps!
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.