LR Question 7 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: When the famous art collector Vidmar died, a public…
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Parallel Reasoning
CONCLUSION: MacNeil can’t afford any piece of art.
REASONING: MacNeil can’t afford to buy the entire collection.
ANALYSIS: What a silly argument. There might be a $5 painting in the collection. Anyone could afford that.
This is a whole-to-part flaw. It takes the property of the whole collection (expensive) and assumes every part of the collection has that property.
Note that a part-to-whole flaw is different. Flawed reasoning question often use part-to-whole and whole-to-part, and you must judge which way the flaw goes. Some answer choices will use the wrong direction.
___________
- This is a part-to-whole flaw. That’s a different flaw.
- This is a good whole-to-part argument. If the council voted unanimously, then every councillor did vote for the plan.
- CORRECT. This is a whole-to-part flaw. You can have a long paragraph made up of short sentences.
- This is a part-to-whole flaw. That’s a different flaw.
- This is a part-to-whole flaw. That’s a different flaw.
Recap: The question begins with “When the famous art collector Vidmar died”. It is a Flawed Parallel Reasoning question. To practice more Flawed Parallel Reasoning questions, have a look at the LSAT Questions by Type page.
More Resources for Flawed Parallel Reasoning Questions
- Conditional Reasoning Article: Learn about conditional statements.
- LR Diagrams Guide: Learn how to draw LR diagrams.
- Flaw drills: Practice identifying flaws.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Flawed Parallel Reasoning questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers flawed parallel reasoning questions.
Hi! Isn’t A a valid argument?
If we look beyond the specific scenario described in (A) and just at it’s general structure as an argument (“each part of something is X, therefore the whole of that thing is X”), it’s clear that (A) is making a classic part-to-whole error in reasoning. This is why it’s the incorrect answer choice.
Looking more closely at the specific scenario in (A), it’s possible to imagine that a book exists which contains an entirely random assortment of words in French, e.g. a book generated by a computer that simply draws from a database of French vocabulary. Is that book really “in French”? French consists of vocabulary and grammatical rules.
The question is a bit more of a philosophical one, and the answer is debatable, but ultimately the structure of the answer choice still commits a general error in reasoning.
Thanks Lucas! But I still have some doubts. Can we say that if the argument structure is part-to-whole, then it commits a logic error? I think the statement “every part of the table is made of metal, then the table is made of metal” is a valid statement.
In other words, should we be aware on LSAT of the validity of part-to-whole structured argument?
Thanks in advance!
Thanks for delving into this further. I’d actually like to backtrack a little on my previous comment. A “classic part-to-whole flaw” is actually when an argument concludes that something that is true of one part of something is true of the whole. For instance, the argument “a leg of this table is made of wood, therefore this table is made of wood” is making a classic part-to-whole flaw, (it’s also called a “fallacy of composition” if you’d like to do a bit more research into the topic.)
For the most part, saying that if every part of X is made of Y, then X is made of Y is true, however, there are some debatable/edge cases, like the one I pointed out in my comment. I’d argue that it’s important to be weary of these kinds of arguments, but not to automatically assume that they are flawed.
Thanks, Lucas! It’s crystal clear now.
No problem, happy to help!