Logical Reasoning

PT126 · S3 · Q23 Essayist: Computers have the capacity

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

Essayist: Computers have the capacity to represent and to perform logical transformations on pieces of information.

Conclusion

The human mind is a type of computer.

Evidence

Computers have the capacity to represent info and do logical transformations on it. So does the human mind.

Evaluation

Hmm, not sure what to call this flaw. We could say, That would sound pretty dumb. Just because Thing X has the capacity to do Action A, that doesn’t mean that everything that is capable of doing Action A is type of Thing X.

Goal

It’s hard to say whether the overlapping sameness will still be “capacity to do something”. So we could start out looking for a more general sense of Thing X has trait A. Thing Y also has trait A. Thus, Thing Y is a type of Thing X.

23.

The flawed pattern of reasoning in which one of the following most closely resembles the flawed pattern of reasoning in the essayist's argument?

  1. Often individual animals sacrifice their

    Bad Premise Match / Bad Conclusion Match

    This only has one premise, so it’s not very tempting to analyze. The one premise here is an “often” statement, whereas the premise about computers was an “all computers” type statement. The conclusion is saying that something is “probable”, whereas the original conclusion was certain of itself: the human mind is a computer.

    4% picked this

  2. In the plastic arts, such

    Bad Conclusion Match

    There is a comparison made between two different things (plastic arts and poetry), but to match the original it would have to conclude that “Poetry is a type of plastic art” or vice versa. This conclusion rules out a characteristic as a criterion for judging something. That’s not even close to the type of claim the original conclusion was. **Why am I convinced that if we scoured the Internet, we could find John Lennon at some point being quoted as saying, ‘Poetry is a type of plastic art, man’**

    7% picked this

  3. Correct

    In any organism, the proper

    Why this is right

    This says that both organisms and communities share the trait of needing all their various parts to work properly in order to function properly. And it concludes that one thing is a type of the other, by saying “communities are a type of organism”.

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

    82% picked this

  4. Some vitamins require the presence

    Bad Premise Match / Bad Conclusion Match

    I would stop reading after “Some vitamins”, since the original premise generalized about all computers. The two premises also fail to provide a similarity between two things, and the conclusion fails to say that one thing is a type of another thing.

    2% picked this

  5. Friendship often involves obligations whose

    Weak Premise Match / Bad Conclusion Match

    I would be suspicious and potentially bail upon seeing “often”, since the original premise generalized about all computers. However, the two premises do give us an underlying similarity between two things (both friendship and other types of cooperation can involve painful obligations). But the conclusion does not say that one of those things is a type of the other.

    5% 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