Q14 - If citizens do not exercise

[robowarren]

I was convinced the main conclusion was expressed by the sentence "an act or omission by one person is not right if such an act or omission done by large numbers of people would be socially damaging."

I get that A is an illustration of that, tied to the stimulus, but I had immediately crossed that one out because it is not "the main conclusion". Would someone mind explaining?

[timmydoeslsat]

This is a tricky argument. It is tough to decipher what is an opinion that is trying to be supported and what is a "philosophical" type of fact that we are to grant to the author as a premise.

I saw the main conclusion of this argument being "but one must consider the likely effects of large numbers of people failing to vote."

Everything in the argument is used to show the bad consequences of what happens when a large number of people act or do not act in a certain way.

The answer choice does take a step that the argument does not explicitly state, which is take people should not neglect to vote, but it is clearly the best answer choice here.

I would like to know if anyone else saw this one differently.

[ohthatpatrick]

This is a rare, but still recurring, example of a Main Conclusion question in which LSAT is testing the implied conclusion (not an explicitly stated one).

Suppose the argument said:

Should Howie apply to Harvard? He should only if his GPA is over 2.0. However, his GPA is but a 1.5

Were any of these statements the conclusion? No. The first sentence is a question. The second is an unsupported conditional rule. The third is an unsupported statistical fact.

What we mean by "unsupported" is that there's no reason given for believing the 2nd or 3rd sentence.

Howie should apply to Harvard only if his GPA is over 2.0
Why?
[I dunno, the argument never told me. Not a conclusion.]

Howie's GPA is 1.5
Why?
[I dunno, the argument never told me. Not a conclusion.]

What is the reasonable conclusion to extract from the above argument?
Howie should not apply to Harvard.

Why?
He's got a 1.5 GPA and you should only apply to Harvard if you have at least a 2.0 GPA.

This is an implied conclusion.

There is no explicitly stated conclusion in Q14. Let's examine some of the previous contenders for the conclusion and ask ourselves if they were supported or not:

Conc contender 1:
"an act or omission by one person is not right if such an act or omission done by large numbers of people would be socially damaging."
Why? ... well, we could say
Society would be impossible with mass theft, even if a single act of dishonesty would have negligible harm.

I think that this "premise" is more an illustration of the general principle than it is a reason why we should accept the principle. But more importantly, if this were our conclusion/premise, then what the heck was all that discussion of voting good for? Whatever we decide is the main conclusion shouldn't leave other parts out in the cold. It should be the umbrella claim under which all other claims in the argument have some purpose.

Conc contender 2:
"but one must consider the likely effects of large numbers of people failing to vote."
Why?
An act isn't right for individuals if it wouldn't be right for large numbers of people.
+
Illustration of that principle (theft/dishonesty example)

This one seems closer and could probably be considered a subsidiary conclusion. It does tie in the original subject matter of voting, but it leaves the first sentence of the argument out in the cold.

If we revisit the correct answer (A):
"People in a democracy should not neglect to vote:
Why?
If they don't vote, democratic institutions crumble and social cohesion is lost.
+
Even though one person's vote is negligible, you have to consider mass scales of non-voting
why?
Individuals acting a certain way is wrong if lots of people acting that way would be wrong.
+
Illustration (theft/dishonesty)

====
Ultimately, I think people are fine with accepting that (A) expresses the gist of what the paragraph was talking about.

The issue people have with this problem (and others with implied conclusions) is that there is no longer a claim in the argument we can actually bracket off as our conclusion.

Hopefully, now that you know that implied conclusions are fair game, you'll have the flexibility to consider such a thing if there doesn't seem to be any explicit conclusion.

===other answers
(B) has the extreme and unjustified comparison "equally damaging"
(C) leaves voting unmentioned, when it is the launching point and focus of this whole discussion
(D) contradicts the argument, which said that "one person's vote can only make an imperceptible difference"
(E) does not deal with the main topic of voting, puts undue emphasis on dishonesty / neglect of duty, and makes a prediction about democratic and OTHER societies.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

[goriano]

Whatever we decide is the main conclusion shouldn't leave other parts out in the cold.

Doesn't (A) do this?! There is no reference to the part about dishonesty.

I picked (D) and thought that it DIDN'T contradict the stimulus, because it says "can in fact." When I read (D), here's what I'm interpreting in my mind: While a single person's vote or wrongful act may SEEM to only make a negligible difference, it, when done in large numbers, CAN IN FACT make a great deal of difference. I know I'm adding a lot of extra words to this answer that doesn't actually appear, but that is just how I interpret/use the phrase "can in fact" in ordinary discourse.

[monicajamaluddin]

goriano - i picked D for the exact same reason... wondering how to avoid this same mistake also?!

[playtoe1]

I marked the following as the conclusion:
"but one must consider the likely effects of large numbers of people failing to vote"

WHY?

Because "if citizens do not exercise their right to vote, then ... will crumble ... and social cohesion will be lost".

Answer (e) fits this conclusion rather nicely:

"large scale dishonesty" -> "if theft were common"
"neglect of public duty" -> "not voting"
"other societies" -> "organized society"

This answer seems to fit much more convincingly than "people ... should not neglect to vote". Nowhere in the stimulus can I find anything that makes the connection to what someone "should" do.

Any flaws in my reasoning?

[xiaoyu930]

I have the same problem crossing out E...

Can anybody explain?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

The issue with answer choice (E) is that it does not address the argument's point of discussion. The argument is designed to persuade people to vote even though one person failing to vote doesn't have a significant impact.

Here's the structure of the argument:

1. Main Point
2. Possible Opposing Point
3. Reason to Reject the Opposing Point
4. Principle Supporting the Main Point
5. Analogy Conforming to the Principle that Further Supports the Main Point

Answer choice (E) addresses both the issue of dishonesty and the issue of neglecting one's duty. However, the issue of dishonesty is not the argument's main point, but instead addresses the support for the argument's main point.

Hope that helps!

[cwolfington]

This one got me good.

The 1st sentence implies the main point. The 2nd and 3rd sentences state a principle that supports the main point. Try reading the 2nd and 3rd sentences, then the 1st. The logical conclusion would be that expressed in answer choice A.

The last sentence on theft threw me off at first, but it's just an example that illustrates the principle in sentences 2 and 3.

The trick, like ohthatpatrick said, is that this is an implied main point. The question stem tells you that the stimulus is an argument, but no conclusion is given. I see the stimulus as a spear with a blunt tip, and the author is putting as much weight behind that tip as possible, trying to force the main point in. I think the question would be much easier if the question stem read, "The argument leads to the conclusion that"

(B) is unsupported
(C) is unspported
(D) is contradicted by the stimulus
(E) is too vague. The stimulus seems to equivocate "theft" and "dishonesty", and I didn't feel safe making that leap of logic. And the stimulus refers to voting, not "public duty", so again the equivocation is present.

[MensaNumber]

Im afraid I am still confused. The organization of passage presented earlier does look good but we can as well structure the passage as follows:

1. First example (If citizens..failing to vote)
2. Main point (An act ...socially damaging)
3. Second example (Organized society ....effect upon society)

If we follow the above structure E looks pretty good too.

I swung between the two organizations a lot before picking 'A'. The only issue with E I could find was the use of term 'public duty'. I think public duty has a very specific meaning in legal parlance (public duty doctrine??) and can't stand for 'voting right'

Am I thinking right? thanks