Logical Reasoning

PT131 · S3 · Q8 The more modern archaeologists

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The more modern archaeologists learn about Mayan civilization, the better they understand its intellectual achievements.

Conclusion

The Mayan people in general seem to have had a strong grasp of advanced math.

Evidence

The writings of Mayan religious scribes exhibit a high degree of math competence.

Evaluation

Can we trust that what was true of the religious scribes (strong grasp of math) was true of the Mayan people in general? This seems like a potential Sampling issue. What if the scribes tended to be educated elites, and the mathematical training / prowess that they had was not at all common among the regular Mayan people?

Goal

Look for an answer calling out this potentially unrepresentative sample, or an objection about whether the scribes knew way more about math than Mayan people in general.

8.

The argument's reasoning is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument

  1. fails to provide an adequate

    Not a Flaw

    We never really need precise definitions on LSAT, as long as words / concepts are being used consistently. Also, this is addressing wording that wasn't even in the argument core, just in a background idea.

    5% picked this

  2. Correct

    bases a generalization on a

    Why this is right

    The conclusion is a generalization: "The people in general seemed to have a strong grasp of math". The evidence is a sample, religious scribes, who are likely to be unrepresentative since they are presumably a small group of elites. (notice that we're allowed to use our common sense here)

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

    78% picked this

  3. overlooks the impressive achievements of

    Out Of Scope: "other civilizations"

    Again, "impressive achievements" isn't even part of the argument core. It's an accepted fact that the Mayan civilization had impressive achievements. We don't care whether other civilizations did / didn't also. The reasoning is "The people in general knew math. We know this from the fact that scribes knew math."

    1% picked this

  4. relies on two different senses

    Not Accurate

    The term 'scientific' is only used once, so this answer can't even get off the ground. Furthermore, 'scientific' is used in a throwaway background sentence. It doesn't appear in the argument core at all.

    1% picked this

  5. takes a mere correlation to

    Bad Conclusion Match

    The conclusion isn't stating or assuming any causal relationship. It's a big stretch to even call the evidence a correlation, but you could technically say that "being a scribe was correlated with having a high degree of math skills". In that case, the conclusion described by this answer choice would have been something like "Thus, being a scribe must have involved undergoing math training".

    15% picked this

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