Logical Reasoning

PT144 · S4 · Q21 At a large elementary school researchers

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At a large elementary school researchers studied a small group of children who successfully completed an experimental program in which they learned to play chess.

Conclusion (Thus)

It's likely that the reasoning power and spatial intuition exercised in chess-playing also contribute to achievement in many other areas of intellectual activity.

Evidence

In the study of elementary school children who completed an experimental program in which they learn to play chess,

most of the children who completed the program soon showed a significant increase in achievement levels in all their schoolwork.

Evaluate

Like so many other causal arguments, this argument establishes a correlation in the evidence and then introduces a causal verb (or implicit causal structure) in the conclusion.

The evidence provides a before/after correlation: most of the students who completed the chess program soon showed a big uptick in achievement levels in all their schoolwork.

The conclusion introduces a causal verb: The reasoning/spatial sense of chess contributes to achievement in other intellectual areas.

Since the author is looking at the results of a study / looking at something that changed over time, and then concluding a potential explanation for that data, we can use our Explain Curious Fact mindset:

Curious Fact ... Why did most of the kids who went through the chess program have an uptick in schoolwork afterwards?

Author's Explanation ... Chess improved their reasoning power / spatial intuition, and those improved faculties allowed them to do better on their schoolwork.

Goal

Since this is Weaken, we look for two different types of correct answers (with a strong bias towards the first type):

1. Could there be some Alternate Explanation for the curious fact? What could be a different reason why the students who went through the chess program generally had an increase in school achievement afterwards?

2. Could we undermine the plausibility of the Author's Explanation? What could make it seem like chess didn't really improve the kids' reasoning or spatial intuition, or make it seem like even if it did, those improved faculties wouldn't be likely to cause a boost in school achievement.

21.

Which one of the following, if true, most tends to undermine the argument?

Some students who did not
No Impact
Students who didn't participate in the program are almost completely irrelevant to this argument. The only way to make them relevant would be in some Effect w/o Cause way, where we impugn the idea that "chess caused these chess students to improve at school" by saying, "even the kids who weren't in the chess program improved at school to a similar degree".
2% picked this
Those children who began the
No Impact
The kids who didn't complete the program are irrelevant. We wouldn't even be able to use them in the Effect w/o Cause style alluded to for choice (A). After all, if a child began but didn't complete the chess program, then should we count them as a child who did receive the putative boost in reasoning power and spatial intuition, count them as someone who didn't? 50% boost? It would be completely unclear how to judge them, because "began but did not complete" doesn't tell us whether the student made it through only 1% of the program or through 90% of it before bailing. Also, comparing preprogram levels of achievement between students is irrelevant. This argument is only interested in what caused their achievement to rise. We don't care whether their starting point was low / medium / high. We would only care about what percentage of achievement increase the chess players had vs. the non-chess players. Regardless of preprogram levels, if chess players raised their GPA by 40% while non-chess players raised their GPA by 15%, that still presents the same curious fact of why the chess players are improving more than the non-chess players are improving.
21% picked this
Correct
Many of the children who
Why this is right
As we implicitly expect on Weaken questions for an Explain Curious Fact argument, this correct answer provides an Alternate Explanation for the curious fact. This allows us to argue, "hey, author --- the reason their schoolwork improved after going through the chess program isn't because chess improved their brain's ability to do schoolwork. It's because they got into chess, heard about this rad school chess team, thought to themselves 'I gotta be on that team!', found out that this team has a high minimum GPA, and started busting their butts academically to brings their grades up in order to be eligible to be part of this team." Pretty insane, right? Yes, that's exactly how LSAT thinks this question weakens. As a defense attorney, you create doubt about the causal storyline the prosecution is selling by planting other causal storylines in the jury's head. Those create the seeds of doubt, which weakens the prosecution's case. It's ever-so-crucial when we're doing Explain Curious Fact arguments that a) we recognized them as such b) that caused our brain to focus primarily on Alternate Storylines that could explain the curious fact Because it's hard to hear what this answer is offering if you're not desperate for an alternative causal story.
Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
55% picked this
Some students who did not
No Impact
Students who didn't participate in the program are almost completely irrelevant to this argument. The only way to make them relevant would be in some Effect w/o Cause way, where we impugn the idea that "chess caused these chess students to improve at school" by saying, "even the kids who weren't in the chess program improved at school to a similar degree". This is not saying that. It's saying, "there's at least one student who wasn't in the chess program, who got some after-school help and improved at school in the year that followed". This author was never claiming that "chess is the only thing that helps students" or that "chess is the best thing that helps students", so the fact that other students would be achieving improvement without using the chess program doesn't trouble this author at all. This sort of data point doesn't count as Effect w/o Cause, because it's really more like Effect Due to Different Cause (that's not a thing, I just put it in italics so it matched the formatting). If students were "naturally" increasing their achievement levels significantly, without being in the chess program (or without having any other assist mechanism like after-school tutoring) then that would suggest that the achievement boost in the students who played chess was probably just this "natural" improvement, not chess-assisted improvement.
15% picked this
At least some of the
No Impact
Students who didn't participate in the program are almost completely irrelevant to this argument. The only way to make them relevant would be in some Effect w/o Cause way, where we impugn the idea that "chess caused these chess students to improve at school" by saying, "even the kids who weren't in the chess program improved at school to a similar degree". This answer is talking about the chess talent of the non-participants, which is not relevant unless we also connect their chess talent to a boost / non-boost in scholastic achievement. But we have no idea whether non-participants had any increase in their schoolwork achievement levels.
7% picked this

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