Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Medium

PT126 S3 Q18 Explanation

Many parents rigorously

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

TopicsFlaw

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Stimulus

Many parents rigorously organize their children's activities during playtime, thinking that doing so will enhance their children's cognitive development. But this belief is incorrect. To thoroughly structure a child's playtime and expect this to produce a creative and resourceful child would be like expecting a good told exactly what the plot and characters must be.

What this question is testing

Flaw

Your task

Describe the reasoning error the argument actually commits.

Common trap

Answers that name a real logical flaw the argument doesn't actually make.

Winning move

Articulate the gap in the reasoning yourself, then match it to the choice that describes that 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
18.

The argument is most vulnerable to criticism on which one of the

Answer choices

  1. Bad Premise Match / Negation8% picked this

    It takes for granted that if something is conducive to a certain goal it cannot also be conducive

    This answer accuses the author of saying, “Since X is conducive to goal Y, it will also be conducive to goal Z.” Instead, the author is arguing, “Since X is not conducive to goal Y, it will also not be conducive to goal Z”. This answer is a negation of what the author argued.

  2. Out of Scope: "enjoy"1% picked this

    It overlooks the possibility that many children enjoy rigorously

    It’s irrelevant to the argument whether children enjoy their rigorous playtime. It’s only relevant whether it enhances their cognitive development.

  3. Wrong Flaw: Necessary vs. Sufficient5% picked this

    It takes a necessary condition for somethings enhancing a child's creativity and resourcefulness to be a sufficient condition

    Does this author commit a flaw of conditional logic? (that’s what we mean when we talk about the famous Necessary vs. Sufficient flaw) No, there’s no conditional logic, so this answer can’t match the argument.

  4. Out of Scope: “good novel requires”5% picked this

    It fails to consider the possibility that being able to write a good novel requires something more

    The author isn’t ever identifying something that good novels require (other than maybe the freedom to choose one’s own plot and characters). The conclusion is about kids / playtime / cognitive development, so we’re not here to object to what it takes to write a good novel. We want to object that “whatever you said about writing novels doesn’t invalidate the idea that rigorous structure helps a child’s cognitive development”.

  5. Correct81% picked this

    It fails to consider the possibility that something could enhance a child's overall cognitive development without enhancing the

    Why this is right

    This weakens by attacking the author’s language shift. The conclusion is about whether or not something would enhance a child’s cognitive development. The evidence is about whether something would produce a creative and resourceful child. This answer speaks to that mismatch: maybe imposing structure wouldn’t help to produce a creative/resourceful child, but it could still help their cognitive development in other ways.

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

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