Newsletter for community-center

Answer choices

1. A

   Never a Flaw10% picked this

   the center has a self-interested motive to attract

   LSAT will never sign off on us invalidating someone's argument simply because that person would gain from their argument being true. That's actually one of the ten famous Famous Flaws, known as Ad Hominem. Also, the fact that some of these paragraphs have a speaker identified before a colon at the outset is totally irrelevant. Take any argument -- it doesn't make any difference whether it's prefaced by Lawyer: Professional Golfer: Newsletter for Exiled Mimes: Those identifiers at the beginning have never been relevant to a correct answer. We teachers don't even read them. When I first read this answer choice, I thought, "the center?" because I had never bothered to read who was saying this argument. LSAT doesn't care who the source of an argument is (beautifully, in this day and age). They only care about the substance of that source's ideas.

   10%
2. B

   Not a Flaw11% picked this

   it interprets “well-being” as including the factors of social and economic resources, mental outlook, physical

   You're right, (B), it does interpret things like friends, money, psychology, health, and overall functioning as parts of "well-being". Because they are. :)

   11%
3. C

   Out of Scope4% picked this

   some of those who do not volunteer might be older than some volunteers and so could not

   Out of Scope: considered peers This author is never saying that all volunteers are peers, so we wouldn't be objecting to anything this author said or thought by saying, "Nuh-uh. Some of them aren't peers." When the first sentence compares retired persons who volunteer to their nonvolunteering contemporaries, that means "people who are around the same age, but don't volunteer".

   4%
4. D

   Not an Objection2% picked this

   growing older might not necessarily result in a change in

   Was this author promising that growing older always involved a change in mental outlook? Nope. So we wouldn't be objecting to anything the author said or thought by saying, "Hey, author, there is at least one case in which growing older didn't result in a change in mental outlook". This author was only assuming that for many people volunteering resulted in a change in mental outlook.

   2%
5. E

   Correct73% picked this

   those with better resources, health, outlook, and functioning are more able to

   Why this is right

   When we're doing Flaw or Weaken and the argument involves a causal interpretation of a Curious Comparison, the correct answer will usually involve pointing out an Alternate Explanation for that comparison. This answer is supplying the Reverse Causality objection that volunteering doesn't cause older people to have more money / vigor / happiness / functioning. Instead, having more money / vigor / happiness / functioning enables one to volunteer, so that's why there's more health / money / happiness found among the volunteering crowd than among the nonvolunteering crowd.

   Skill tested: Flaw · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   73%