LSAT 148 | Section 2 | Reading Comprehension: Q22

RC Question 22 Explanation

DISCUSSION: One thing you should have got from the passage is that the author thinks that the subtractive method is misleading. Subtractive images only show the difference in activity in a brain region.

To use an analogy, it’s as if you put on a hat, and that hat makes you slightly taller. And then I take a picture, and show only the hat floating in the air, and say “It’s the hat that’s responsible for the overall height”. That’s not true – you are most of the height in this scenario, and the fact that I photoshopped you out doesn’t change that. The subtractive method does something similar by removing baseline brain activity.

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1. The passage doesn’t say this. Anyone trained to understand what subtractive images truly represent could presumably use them in their work. Subtractive images aren’t wrong per se, they’re merely misleading at first glance.
2. The opposite of this is true. Subtractive images seem to show that certain parts of the brain work in isolation.
3. The author does believe that emotions are not merely seated in the amygdala, but they don’t believe this because of brain scans. Instead, they give their argument in lines lines 21-26. Other parts of the brain are also involved, such as the prefrontal cortex. But this is merely the author’s abstract reasoning, it isn’t based on a diagram.
4. CORRECT. The word “seems” is very important here. The author believes that the modular theory of mind is likely false. But they think that subtractive method diagrams seem to support it. See lines 54-56 for direct confirmation in the passage.
5. This contradicts the passage. The author thinks that subtractive method diagrams do show differences in oxygen use. See lines 37-38.