Logical Reasoning

PT134 · S1 · Q15 The French novelist Colette

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

The French novelist Colette (1873-1954) has been widely praised for the vividness of her language.

Conclusion

Colette's novels are not indifferent to important moral questions.

Evidence

Each of her novels poetically captures a major emotional crisis in the life of an ordinary person of her time, and these emotional crises almost invariably raise important moral questions.

Evaluation

Given what we heard about C's novels, how would we argue that her novels are indifferent to important moral questions?

- we could say, "emotional crises almost invariably raise important moral questions", but who says that C's novels are in that big majority? What if her novels happen to be in the 1% of cases where the emotional crisis doesn't raise an important moral question. The author is assuming that .

- we could say, We're assuming that .

- we could also say,

Goal

Look for an answer that joins the language of "raises important moral questions" from the premise to "is not indifferent to important moral questions" from the conclusion, or look for an answer that, if negated, gives us a way to argue that Colette's novels were indifferent to important moral questions.

15.

Which one of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

Critics who suggest that Colette's
Out Of Scope: literary achievements
We're only debating whether or not her novels cared about important moral questions. We're not otherwise assessing whether she did or didn't have literary achievements.
2% picked this
Correct
A novel that poetically condenses
Why this is right
We couldn't have predicted this wording. This is where the negation test comes in handy (answers that rule out something using the word "not"). If we negate this, it is a huge objection: "novels that condense a major emotional crisis do have to be indifferent its important moral questions". Since we know that all of Colette's novels poetically condense a major emotional crisis, negating this answer would mean that all of Colette's novels were indifferent to the moral questions raised by that novel. This basically proves the author wrong -- it shows that Colette's novels were indifferent moral questions.
Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
67% picked this
To deserve the level of
Out Of Scope: deserve praise
This argument is only assessing whether or not her novels are indifferent to moral questions. The author doesn't try to make the case for that by saying that "Well, her novels received praise, so that proves that her novels are concerned with important moral questions". He makes the case based on the fact that each of her novels raises important moral questions. He is assuming "To raise important moral questions, a novelist's work must concern itself with important moral questions".
3% picked this
The vividness of Colette's language
Out Of Scope
The vivid language she's been praised for is tangential to the author's argument. He's not addressing what she's praised for; he's addressing what she's criticized for. If we negate this and say that her vivid language was the result of poetic condensation ... so what? How would that hurt the author's argument?
2% picked this
Colette's purpose in poetically condensing
Out of Scope: "of her time"
This answer is very tempting, because we may have thought "Sure the novels raise important questions, but did Colette actually care about that, or was it just incidental". If we check the language of the conclusion, though, it's about whether or not the novels are concerned with important questions, not about whether the novelist was. So even if Colette's purpose wasn't to concern herself with important moral questions, it may still be true that her novels nonetheless do that. Perhaps an easier way to get ourselves out of picking this answer is to notice the needlessly specific "moral questions of her time". She doesn't need to be concerned with contemporary moral questions to be concerned with moral questions. An author can be concerned with timeless moral questions: "what is a life for?" / "how should we treat other people". A moral question "of our time" would be more like "Is it ethical to use the stem cells from an unborn embryo for scientific research purposes?"
26% 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