Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Medium

PT146 S1 Q20 Explanation

Lyle: Admittedly, modernizing

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Logical Reasoning question.

TopicsAgree/Disagree

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Stimulus

Lyle: Admittedly, modernizing the language of premodern plays lessens their aesthetic quality, but such modernizing remains valuable for teaching history, since it makes the plays otherwise never enjoy them.

Carl: But such modernizing prevents students from understanding fully what the plays said to premodern audiences. Thus, modernizing plays is of no use for teaching history, because students the past from modernized plays.

What this question is testing

Agree/Disagree

Your task

Break the argument into its conclusion and evidence, then do exactly what the question stem asks with that structure.

Common trap

Answers that sound relevant to the topic but don't connect to the argument's actual reasoning.

Winning move

Predict what a right answer must do, then test each choice against the conclusion-evidence gap.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
20.

Which one of the following most accurately expresses a point of disagreement between

Answer choices

  1. Neither Would Disagree7% picked this

    whether modernizing the language of premodern plays results in plays that have different pedagogical value

    Could we infer from either of these paragraphs a Disagreement? Is either person going to say that the modernized and the un-modernized plays have identical pedagogical value? No. Lyle might think it's a change for the better and Carl a change for the worse, but they both would seemingly agree that the pedagogical value can change when you modernize the language.

  2. Out of Scope16% picked this

    whether the loss in aesthetic quality that results from modernizing the language of premodern plays lessens the plays’

    Out of Scope: causal effect of aesthetic Carl doesn't even discuss the aesthetic impact of modernizing, and Lyle never draws a causal link between a loss of aesthetic quality and a loss/gain in usefulness. Lyle says, "yes, there is an aesthetic loss, but the usefulness remains". Carl has no position on this issue.

  3. Out of Scope: highest form2% picked this

    whether the highest form of aesthetic enjoyment of premodern plays comes from seeing them as

    Neither person deals with this extreme idea of "the highest form of aesthetic enjoyment". Lyle would say that "premodern plays whose language has been modernized do not provide the highest form of aesthetic enjoyment", since he sad that modernizing language lessens aesthetic quality. But we have no idea what conditions he or Carl think bring out the highest form.

  4. Correct75% picked this

    whether increasing the accessibility of premodern plays through modernizing their language is valuable

    Why this is right

    This sounds like Lyle's 2nd claim. He said modernized plays "remain valuable for teaching history", while Carl said that "modernizing plays is of no use for teaching history".

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

  5. Out of Scope for Carl1% picked this

    whether using plays with modernized language to teach history requires that there be some loss in the aesthetic

    Carl never discusses anything about whether aesthetic quality is lessened (we know that Lyle thinks it is).

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