Logical Reasoning

PT127 · S3 · Q21 George: Throughout the 1980s

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George: Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, hardly anyone learned ballroom dancing.

George

Given that ballroom dancing was super unpopular in the 80's and early 90s, why is it exploding now?

Boris

It's because people started learning ballroom dances like the merengue and a few similar ones in 1995. Those dances are super popular, so other ballroom dances are also gaining popularity.

Evaluation

Boris is trying to answer George's question of What's wrong with Boris's explanation? He might be wrong, of course. Like most LSAT authors conjecturing some hypothesis, he sounds overly confident. Maybe he's failing to account for some other factor that is more responsible. Do we think George would be satisfied by Boris's answer? What could George possibly say in response to Boris to shoot down that explanation?

He might ask, From that language, you can't quite tell if merengue is a ballroom dance, but the several related ballroom dances certainly are ballroom dances. Why did people start learning those in 1995?

Goal

Stay flexible. Look for something that sounds like a reasonable way George could push back against Boris's explanation.

21.

Boris's response to George is most vulnerable to criticism because it fails to

  1. show that the people who

    Irrelevant Comparison

    Boris's explanation doesn't hinge on the idea that the original merengue people are part of the current ballroom dance craze. He's only identifying them as the initial spark. If we said, "Why is Justin so into ultimate fighting?" and the answer was "Justin's dad was into boxing. That got Justin's older brother into wrestling, which then got Justin into ultimate fighting", this story wouldn't necessitate that Justin's dad is now interested in ultimate fighting.

    20% picked this

  2. explain why ballroom dancing was

    Out of Scope: "before 1995"

    Boris's job was to answer the question of "Why is ballroom dancing popular now?" He wasn't trying to answer the question "Why wasn't ballroom dancing popular in the 80's / early 90s?"

    11% picked this

  3. relate the merengue to the

    Out of Scope: "before 1995"

    Since Boris is only trying to explain why ballroom started getting popular again in the mid 90s, there's no reason why he needs to relate merengue to the styles before 1995. Granted, that can be a legitimate way to explain a musical trend. The dirty, self-loathing, grunge rock music of the early 90s is often thought to have become popular precisely because of its relationship to the glamorous, self-glorifying, hair band rock music of the 80s. But Boris doesn't need to relate merengue to previous dance forms. A dance style might get popular in 2020, because of an influential YouTube / TikTok celebrity. That could be a legitimate explanation. We don't have to explain this dance style's popularity by referring to dance styles of the 2010s.

    6% picked this

  4. Correct

    account for the beginning of

    Why this is right

    At first this might feel contradicted: didn't Boris account for the beginning by saying, "In 1995, people started learning the merengue and some related ballroom dances"? Yes, but why did they start learning ballroom dancing in 1995? That's essentially still George's question. Why did ballroom wake up from hibernation in the mid 90s? Boris has essentially answered, "Ballroom started getting popular again in the mid 90s because in the mid 90s, some ballroom dances started getting popular again."

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

    61% picked this

  5. demonstrate that all types of

    Too Strong: "all types"

    The author doesn't need to demonstrate that 100% of ballroom dancing styles are currently popular. 99% would still be convincingly popular.

    3% picked this

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