Logical Reasoning

PT152 · S2 · Q10 Godinez: In the past

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Godinez: In the past, land was sometimes measured by the amount of time required to plow it.

Conclusion

It became necessary to adopt new measures of land (beyond "plow time") when land uses diversified.

Evidence

The initial convention for measuring land was "plow time". But knowing how long it takes to plow a piece of land doesn't tell you how many apartment complexes could be built on that parcel.

Evaluate

For years and years, LSAC avoided putting the conclusion in the final sentence on Main Conclusion questions (too obvious a place to look for it). But recently it's become more common, mostly as a way of trolling test prep advice.

There are three keywords we might lean on here: thus, however, therefore.

The first "Thus" is an implication being drawn of the "plow time" method. We used standard X. Thus, according to standard X, this thing would be different from that thing.

Although "thus" is usually indicating a conclusion the author is drawing, it can also be used to designate cause/effect relationships, or in this case, rule/implication relationships.

"However" usually means that we are leaving background ideas and entering the Author's argument, but we still have to figure out whether the author's argument will go Support, then Conclusion or go Conclusion, then Support.

The "Therefore" tells us that this argument is going Support, then Conclusion.

We can always test whether we've found the right claim as the conclusion by asking, "Why should I believe that?" and making sure that there's a supporting idea provided.

Why should we believe that as land uses diversified, we needed to adopt new measure of land?

Because, the old measure (plow time) wouldn't tell someone how many acres a given plot of land was, if they wanted to build apartment complexes on it.

Goal

Just pick the answer that is closest in meaning to the final sentence, which was the Conclusion.

10.

Which one of the following most accurately expresses the main conclusion drawn in Godinez's argument?

  1. It is now easier to

    Never Stated: easier to measure

    We don't want to pick an answer on Main Conclusion that wasn't actually said (unless it's a weird question stem like Main Point or Implied Conclusion). This doesn't match the last sentence at all, since the last sentence doesn't discuss whether new measures were easier or harder than the old one.

    1% picked this

  2. For modern purposes, newer methods

    Unstated Inference

    The last sentence does not say anything about more accurate, so we can eliminate this. This type of trap answer tries to appeal to a different part of an LSAT student's brain. This idea sounds true, because it seems like we could infer this, but we're not trying to do anything deep or insightful. The conclusion is the last sentence and we just want an answer that repeats what was said in the last sentence.

    7% picked this

  3. Some plots of land that

    Intermediate Conclusion

    This isn't really an intermediate conclusion, in the sense that the author's eventual conclusion isn't using this idea at all. But this answer is trying to mimic what was said in the second sentence which was a conclusion / implication derived from the logic of the old measurement method. We could say this claim is supported/implied by the first sentence, but we can't say this is the main conclusion, since the paragraph goes on to Pivot with "however" and then end with a main conclusion, signaled by "Therefore".

    1% picked this

  4. Modern measures of land were

    Weak Match

    This seems pretty close to regurgitating the last sentence. However, the last sentence doesn't mention modern measures. And the last sentence says that new measurements were adopted when land uses diversified. This answer says new measurements were adopted when people realized plow time was inadequate for some land uses. Those are pretty close, but (D) doesn't convey the same idea the conclusion does, that people were actually beginning to use land in different ways. Instead, we could read (D) as saying, people looked around at the ways they were already using land and decided that "plow time" was inadequate for some of them. Ultimately, we'd probably be okay picking this answer and living with its slight differences if we didn't have a tighter lock for the last sentence available.

    19% picked this

  5. Correct

    The advent of diversified land

    Why this is right

    This matches the meaning of the last sentence. "The advent" = "the beginning / the start" When land uses diversified (the advent of diversified land) it became necessary to adopt new measure of land (new measures of land were necessary)

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

    72% picked this

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