Logical Reasoning

PT111 · S3 · Q6 The student body at this university

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Logical Reasoning question.

  • Save & drill this skill — build targeted practice sets from questions like this one

  • Video walkthroughs — watch every question solved step by step

  • 81 official LSATs — as questions, timed sections & full-length tests

Start practicing free

The student body at this university takes courses in a wide range of disciplines.

Conclusion (so)

Miriam takes courses in a wide range of disciplines.

Evidence

Miriam is a student at this university.

The student body at this university takes courses in a wide range of disciplines.

Evaluate

If you are a student that goes to a university where the student body takes courses in a wide range of disciplines, does that guarantee that YOU take courses in a wide range of disciplines?

Of course not. Maybe you are purely there for the Political Science classes. You might have some criminal justice, psychology, and sociology peppered in there, but you're mainly PolySci 24/7.

How would we describe this flaw in more generic terms? We could say, .

However, if we realize that Parallel Flaw questions love to test the big Famous Flaws (especially Necessary vs. Sufficient and Part vs. Whole), we might recognize this as a whole to part flaw.

The whole (the student body) has a certain quality (diverse courses). So, the author concludes that some part of that whole (Miriam, a student) also has that quality (diverse course load).

Goal

Let's look for an answer replicating the Whole to Part flaw of the original.

6.

Which one of the following arguments exhibits flawed reasoning most similar to that exhibited by the argument above?

  1. The students at this school

    Weak Match

    This is somewhat similar, but there's no collective group that would match up to the Whole like in the original. Saying that "the students at this school" take math sounds more like "each individual student at this school" takes math. That's different from saying "the student body takes a wide range of courses", which is saying, collectively, the students take a wide range of classes. This argument essentially sounds valid. The first sentence is a bit ambiguous. It's not clear whether it's saying "some students / all students" but to the extent that there's a flaw in that ambiguity, it wouldn't be the same flaw as the original argument. When we're dealing with Whole vs. Part, they often throw us trap answers that refers to "a bunch of individuals" (i.e. the students / all the cheerleaders on the squad) when what we're looking for is "a group, a collective" (i.e. the student body / the cheerleading squad).

    16% picked this

  2. Correct

    The editorial board of this

    Why this is right

    This replicates the original Whole to Part flaw. We have a fact about a Whole (the editorial board). The whole possesses a certain quality (written on many legal issues). Collectively, this editorial board has written on many legal issues. But that doesn't mean that each Part of the editorial board (for instance, Louise) has written on many legal issues. She might be the writer that just handles intellectual property cases. Miriam might be a student that just takes political science classes. But they can still be part of an editorial board or student body that has a more diverse sphere of interest.

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

    80% picked this

  3. The component parts of bulldozers

    Part to Whole (reversed)

    This moves from evidence about Parts to a conclusion about a collective whole. We're trying to match an argument that went from evidence about the Whole to a conclusion about one of the Parts. So this is reversed from what it should be. We refer to the Famous Flaw as Part vs. Whole, but it's really a name for two different flawed moves: - Part to Whole (assuming that a trait belonging to each part therefore belongs to the collective as well) - Whole to Part (assuming that a trait belonging to the collective therefore belongs to each part) Also, this argument is pretty reasonable. When you deal with physical traits like "heavy", then it would be hard to argue that if each part is heavy that the collective could somehow fail to be heavy. Heavy + Heavy = Heavy

    2% picked this

  4. All older automobiles need frequent

    Different Flaw

    This has nothing to do with evidence about some collective Whole and then a conclusion about some Part of that whole. The evidence is about a bunch of individual things: all older cars. This argument is committing an Illegal Negation (i.e. Nec vs. Suff). It's giving us a premise that says: older car ? needs frequent OC's And then it's illegally negating that to think, if not old car, then not need frequent OC.

    0% picked this

  5. The individual cells of the

    Part to Whole (reversed)

    This moves from evidence about Parts to a conclusion about a collective whole. We're trying to match an argument that went from evidence about the Whole to a conclusion about one of the Parts. So this is reversed from what it should be. Like (C), this is doing a Part to Whole move, rather than a Whole to Part move. Unlike (C), which was reasonable, this does present a flawed Part to Whole move, but that's still not as good a match as (B), which provides a flawed Whole to Part move just as the original argument did.

    2% picked this

Continue the review in LSAT Lab

Save this question, watch the video walkthrough, and drill similar questions in your LSAT Lab account.

Save and practice this skill
LSAT Lab

Turn this review into a targeted study plan.

Save this question, drill more like it, watch the video walkthrough, and track your progress in your LSAT Lab account.

Start practicing free