Logical Reasoning

PT138 · S3 · Q12 Dried parsley should never

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Dried parsley should never be used in cooking, for it is far less tasty and healthful than fresh parsley is.

Conclusion

Dried parsley should never be used in cooking.

Evidence (for)

It is far less tasty and healthful than fresh parsley is.

Evaluate

Our default mode of prephrasing on Strengthen-Principle is to just write a "IF premise, THEN, conclusion" rule.

We're trying to prove "should never be used in cooking" about dried parsley and what we know about dried parsley is that it's less tasty and less healthful than fresh parsley.

Goal

So let's look for an answer like any of these: if it's less tasty → then should never be than fresh parsley used in cooking

if it's less healthful → then should never be than fresh parsley used in cooking

if it's less tasty and and less healthful → then should never be than fresh parsley used in cooking

12.

Which one of the following principles, if valid, most clearly helps to justify the argument above?

  1. Fresh ingredients should be used

    Bad Conclusion Match

    This rule helps us prove that we should use something in cooking, but we're looking for a rule that allows us to prove that we should never use something in cooking. If fresh ingredients → then they should are possible be used This rule does nothing to prove that we should never use dried parsley. After all, if no fresh ingredients are available, this rule is perfectly fine with us using dried parsley.

    7% picked this

  2. Correct

    Only the tastiest ingredients should

    Why this is right

    This is a rule that would allow us to prove we should not use something in cooking. Like so many correct answers on Sufficient Assumption and Strengthen + Principle, it's written in contrapositive form of how we need it. The word "only" or "only if" always signifies a necessary condition (right side of the arrow). How it's written: Should ever be used → Tastiest ingredients Contrapositive: Not tastiest ingredient → Should never be used Do we know whether or not dried parsley is the "tastiest ingredient"? Yes! We know it's not the #1 tastiest ingredient, because it's less tasty than fresh parsley. So even within its own division (the Parsley division), it's not #1 tastiest. This rule applies to dried parsley and outputs the idea that "dried parsley should never be used in cooking", so it actually proves the conclusion true.

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

    49% picked this

  3. Ingredients that should never be

    Bad Conclusion Match

    This is putting the conclusion on the Left side of the arrow, but we always have to have the right side of the arrow match the conclusion. This rule says: Ingredient should never → probably not tasty be used in cooking and not healthful That's a total dealbreaker. But even if the conclusion were on the right, if we reversed this rule, we couldn't trigger the other idea. The evidence never said that dried parsley was "not tasty" or "not healthful". It said it was "less tasty" and "less healthful". That distinction between Absolute and Relative language is crucial throughout LSAT.

    10% picked this

  4. Parsley that is not both

    Weak Evidence Match Relative vs. Absolute

    This is a super tempting answer, because it has our conclusion on the right side of the arrow and the trigger attempts to use both of the facts we were told about dried parsley. Not Tasty Should never and → be used in Not Healthful cooking But do we know that dried parsley is "not tasty" and "not healthful"? No. We only know that it's far less tasty and less healthful than fresh parsley is. Frozen broccoli is far less healthful than fresh broccoli, but would we call frozen broccoli "not healthful"? Peanuts are far less tasty than ice cream, but would we call peanuts "not tasty"? LSAT constantly measures us on our ability to distinguish between Relative expressions "less healthful / less tasty" and Absolute expressions "not healthful / not tasty".

    24% picked this

  5. In cooking, dried ingredients are

    Bad Conclusion Match

    This rule allows us to prove that dried parsley is inferior to fresh parsley, but does that mean we should "never use it in cooking"? It supports that idea somewhat, but the correct answer full-on proves that we should never use dried parsley in cooking, so there's no way that we can say that this answer is the one that most justifies the argument.

    10% picked this

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