Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Hard

PT114 S4 Q26 Explanation

Tony: A short story is little

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

TopicsAgree/Disagree

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Stimulus

Tony: A short story is little more than a novelist’s sketch pad. Only novels have narrative structures that allow writers to depict human lives accurately by develop through life experience.

Raoul: Life consists not of a linear process of personality development, but rather of a series of completely disjointed vignettes, from many of which the discerning observer may catch glimpses of character. Thus, more faithfully than does the novel.

What this question is testing

Agree/Disagree

Your task

Break the argument into its conclusion and evidence, then do exactly what the question stem asks with that structure.

Common trap

Answers that sound relevant to the topic but don't connect to the argument's actual reasoning.

Winning move

Predict what a right answer must do, then test each choice against the conclusion-evidence gap.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
26.

The dialogue most supports the claim that Tony and Raoul disagree

Answer choices

  1. Correct69% picked this

    human lives are best understood as series of completely

    Why this is right

    This tests the underlying difference that explains the explicit difference (Disagree questions tend to do this, if there is too obvious of a difference between the two positions). We knew they disagreed about whether novels or short stories were better at depicting human life, and the implicit assumption of each person was this: Tony -- "if you're not portraying characters whose personalities gradually develop through life experience, then you're not depicting human lives accurately". Raoul -- "it is not accurate to say that life is a linear process. It's a series of completely disjointed vignettes." So Raoul would agree with this answer choice and Tony would disagree.

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

  2. Both Would Disagree14% picked this

    novels and short stories employ the same strategies to depict

    Neither person would support this idea. They both seem to acknowledge that novels use "linear process of personality development" to depict human lives and that short stories don't.

  3. Too Specific: usually7% picked this

    novels usually depict gradual changes in

    We can't derive from either person's statements that more than 50% of novels depict gradual changes in characters' personalities.

  4. Too Strong: only2% picked this

    only short stories are used as novelists’

    We can't derive from either person's statements that only short stories are used as sketch pads.

  5. No Support Person 18% picked this

    short stories provide glimpses of facets of character that are usually

    We have no idea from Tony's comments how he would feel about this claim. He doesn't think short stories accurately depict human lives, but he still has plenty of room to agree that "short stories provide glimpses of usually-hidden facets of character".

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