Logical Reasoning

PT129 · S2 · Q8 A psychiatrist argued

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A psychiatrist argued that there is no such thing as a multiple personality disorder on the grounds that in all her years of clinical practice, she had never encountered one case of this type.

Conclusion

There is no such thing as multiple personality disorder

Evidence

In all my years of clinical practice, I've never seen one case of it.

Evaluation

This is a little bit circular, in that maybe the psychiatrist has never seen a case of multiple personality disorder simply because she assumes it doesn't exist. But the safer angle on this is probably just that she's relying on her own personal sample, arguing that

Goal

Look for something that has the feel of,

8.

Which one of the following most closely parallels the questionable reasoning cited above?

  1. Anton concluded that colds are

    Weak Conclusion Match

    We were looking for "it don't exist", not "it seldom occurs". The evidence is similar, but the conclusion allows for the idea that "even though I've never seen it, it may sometimes still occur". Be wary of answers that seem to quote verbatim phrasing from the argument (unless they all do). The whole "In all his years of clinical practice" is too on-the-nose for LSAT to offer as a correct answer.

    20% picked this

  2. Lyla said that no one

    Bad Conclusion Match / Reasonable

    The original conclusion is "there is no such thing as X". This one is "there are probably no X's in the area". That's not strong enough to replicate the same flaw. It's a pretty reasonable conclusion to draw from the fact that no one in the area has seen a groundhog.

    1% picked this

  3. Sauda argued that because therapy

    Bad Conclusion Match

    The original conclusion was "there is no such thing as X". This conclusion is "there's no good reason to do X". That's a hopeless mismatch. Also, be wary of answers on Parallel that mimic the topic of the original closely: the correct answer would be very unlikely to ALSO be talking about therapy or mental disorders.

    1% picked this

  4. Thomas argued that because Natasha

    Bad Conclusion Match / Bad Premise Match

    The original conclusion was "there is no such thing as X". This concludes, "Person A will probably keep doing X". That's not even close. The evidence also is not a good match for the original's, "If I've never seen it ....

    0% picked this

  5. Correct

    Jerod had never spotted a

    Why this is right

    Correct: If I ain't seen it, it don't exist This one is slightly different from the original because this conclusion is at least moderately restricted to "there aren't any X's in this area", whereas the original argument was "there aren't any X's anywhere". But this is still the closest match we've got.

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

    78% picked this

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