Is is possible LSAC is wrong???

[gzl]

I am a science/math major and I like to visualize things. lets plot a simple graph based on the premise given. Lets us A to represent the artist population and W for Well-educated non-artist persons. Then suppose the degree of insightfulness is on a increasing scale from the left to the right.

So most artist are less insightful -> some of the A's (5) are NOT LESS THAN W's -> it overlaps the lower fence of the W's
Then the rest of the W's are greater than all the A's.
Now look at the graph: the 5 A's are NOT LESS THAN at least 5 of the W's -> "Some A's are NOT LESS THAN some W's.

This graph fits all the conditions spelled out. The LSAC answer is correct no matter what the  numerical definition of "Most" or some is. The overlap can be 1% or 49%. Remember they inferred that at least some are NO LESS THAN, they didnt say "MORE THAN". You cannot prove that the overlap A's are LESS THAN, so they must be NOT LESS THAN.

Artists: AAAAAAAAAAAAAA
WENonAs:                      WWWWWWWWWWWWWWW 

But if you don't interpret the "rarely" of the last line to mean that there are some members in the set described, a graph showing NO overlap would also fit the conditions.  The overlap can be 0%, too.  "Most people are mortal" is a true statement, even if the statement "all people are mortal" is also true.

[Ninja1]

LSAC is right for the reasons already covered. Most does not equal all, and so some artists, even if only a very small number, will be at least as well spoken on politics as the book learned, even if artists as a whole suck.

Thank god the LSAT has nothing to do with law school, I'd have quit by now.

[belushi018]

The bottom line is that what Powerscore says and what the question says the answer is are not compatible.  They're just not.  Most does not necessarily include all, so correct, we cannot deduce that there are NOT some artists who know more about politics than well-educated non-artists.  That said, because MOST is a subset of all, it is POSSIBLE that aALL artists know less than well-educated artists--we simply can't know from the stimulus.  Because we can't know, we can't assume that SOME artists are no less politically insightful.  It could be that all of them are less politically insightful!  If all of them are less politically insightful, we could still say that MOST of them are less politically insightful--as the stimulus does.
In response to those of you who suggested that the final sentence effectively suggests they're talking about "most but not all" instead of just "most," I think that is clearly not the case.  Let's look at the sentence, Contrarian.  You wrote:
"artistic talent and political insight are rarely found together.  Therefore some people with artistic talent have political insight.  Therefore, it would indicate that most is in fact not all."  But the sentence "artistic talent and political insight are rarely found together," even if it does suggest that they are, in fact, sometimes found together, says nothing about the LEVEL of political insight relative to well-educated non-artists.  So while some artists may have political insight, we cannot assume that they have "no less political insight" than well educated non-artists.

For those of you who continue to suggest that most is 51%-99%, although I think this is the case in conventional use, according to Powerscore, it is clearly NOT the case in LSAT usage.  They are very explicit about it.  Therefore, either Powerscore is wrong, the answer is wrong, or the test has evolved.  Eyeoftheligrr is the only one who seems to have caught my drift here.

[LSAT All Star]

What makes you think Powerscore is a definitive source?  They are wrong a lot.  In fact, they do not try to be 100% correct.  That is not their goal.  Their goal is to provide tricks and gimmicks (such as the ladder) to help most students most of the time.  They know it is not 100% accurate.  They do not care.  They are trying to create something simple that will work most of the time.  Their perspective is that their students are not smart enough to understand the actual logic behind the exam so they have to find a way for them to game their way through the exam. 

Another good example is a fight we have on these boards all the time about "most strongly supported" questions.  Powerscore puts them in the "must be true" category.  Yet, the correct response (as credited by LSAC) is always a response option that does not have to be true.  I remember a big fight with a poster about a year ago(?) in which she insisted LSAC got a question wrong because their credited response for a "strongly supported" question did not have to be true.  She insisted the credited response must be wrong because Powerscore said that correct responses to these questions must be true. 

In the end, if it comes down to a difference between what Powerscore says and what LSAC says, you are better off going with LSAC.  Powerscore is not the definitive source and they do have many things in their books that are not completely true just because they are trying to simplify things for the dolts.  LSAC is the only definitive source. 

[belushi018]

Now, we're talking.  That makes sense.  Powerscore is wrong.  All I was saying was that what Powerscore said was incompatible with LSAC's credited response.  Now I know that I can't trust them 100%.  This particular case does make me wonder, however, what their purpose in provide "The Logic Ladder" is.  Does it normally shed some valuable insight, despite the fact that, in this particular situation, it was more harmful than helpful?  All I know is that I got this questions wrong 100% because of what Powerscore had written.

[just some guy]

If you're familiar with your full length Powerscore materials, this question is covered in Lesson 12. It's in the "flawed collection" (outlier questions that contradict logic used in all other LSAT Qs.) It's the LSAT, dooder, every few years you're going to get a question that doesn't make much sense. And, of course, one or two questions wrong won't keep you from a 180, just ask Robin.

[LSAT All Star]

You have to understand what is really going on here.  In the end, LSAT prep is not one-size-fits-all.  Yet, that is what the well-known sources offer.  Those programs (and it does not matter if it is PS, TM, BP, Kaplan, Princeton, etc. because they are all far more similar than different) are trying to help the most students possible.  The most students fall into the 145 - 155 range in the end (and certainly lower on their diagnostic).  Those students are the targets of those courses.  Those courses would like to help them gain a few (5 - 10) points.  That makes them happy, gets them into a law school, and gets them to refer those products to their friends and classmates.  That is what those courses are designed to accomplish.

Sometimes that involves making generalizations that are easy to understand but are not always true.  They figure if something helps students get seven out of ten of a certain type of question correct, they have done their job, even if it means those students will get three of them wrong.  Many students are very happy with this.  On the other hand, for those students who are hoping to do better, those methodologies will not do the trick.

Games provide a good example.  Rather than teaching students how to think their way through the games, those sources try to create templates for students to memorize.  Then, when they see a similar game, they can just apply what they memorized to the current situation.  This is very effective for students who cannot learn to think their way through an analytical game (which they think applies to far more students than I think it applies to). 

However, it has two drawbacks.  First, those methods are very time-consuming.  As far as those sources are concerned, that is okay.  If they can help you get through three of the four games flawlessly (and skip the fourth game), they feel as though they have done their job.  And, in fact, they have.  Getting through three games flawlessly is a situation that helps a 147 scorer get to a 157.  But, that is not a good approach for a student who wants to score 165+. 

The other drawback is the twists.  When LSAC adds a new twist to a game, the people who learned to memorize games types and then plug-and-chug are at a complete loss as to what to do.  The Dino game on the most recent exam was a good example.  I suspect many of you have read the horror stories in the post-mortems on the boards.  This actually happens far more often than you think.  You just do not know it because, by the time you get new material, it has been updated to include the previous twists.  So, you do not know those games had twists that gave those students fits.  I think it was PT 53 that was a good example.  Every game had twists that had not been seen before.  The plug-and-chuggers were irate. 

The point is this - LSAC knows about the tricks, gimmicks and techniques that are being taught to help students get through the exam without having to understand the logical knowledge LSAC is trying test for.  Every exam has a certain number of questions in it that are specifically designed not to work for those techniques.  LSAC does not care if the gamers get better scores that those who do not prepare at all.  LSAC does care that the gamers do not score in the top 5%.  That is the purpose for including questions (and game types) that do not work with the tricks, gimmicks, techniques and plug-and-chug methods being taught.

So, in the end, if a student is going to be satisfied with a score in the mid 150s to low 160s, perfecting the well-known commercial methods will be very effective.  However, if a student wants more, they have to learn the logic behind the exam.   

[gzl]

Now, we're talking.  That makes sense.  Powerscore is wrong.  All I was saying was that what Powerscore said was incompatible with LSAC's credited response.  Now I know that I can't trust them 100%.  This particular case does make me wonder, however, what their purpose in provide "The Logic Ladder" is.  Does it normally shed some valuable insight, despite the fact that, in this particular situation, it was more harmful than helpful?  All I know is that I got this questions wrong 100% because of what Powerscore had written.

Actually, no matter what people are trying to say with as much authority as they can muster in their voice, Powerscore isn't wrong in this case.  "Most" can include conditions that entail "all."  Like I said above "Most people are Mortal" is true even in a world where "All people are Mortal." The last sentence in this particular question limits it so as not to include the possibility of "all," however.

[Ninja1]

Now, we're talking.  That makes sense.  Powerscore is wrong.  All I was saying was that what Powerscore said was incompatible with LSAC's credited response.  Now I know that I can't trust them 100%.  This particular case does make me wonder, however, what their purpose in provide "The Logic Ladder" is.  Does it normally shed some valuable insight, despite the fact that, in this particular situation, it was more harmful than helpful?  All I know is that I got this questions wrong 100% because of what Powerscore had written.

Actually, no matter what people are trying to say with as much authority as they can muster in their voice, Powerscore isn't wrong in this case.  "Most" can include conditions that entail "all."  Like I said above "Most people are Mortal" is true even in a world where "All people are Mortal." The last sentence in this particular question limits it so as not to include the possibility of "all," however.

Doesn't the concept of "most" imply that there's something on the "least" side, since if there wasn't then "most" would just be "all" and there would be nothing left on the "least" side?

But whatever, this is the one part where law school has a lot in common with the LSAT. Much like a law professor, LSAC says most = something like 51-99%, and that's a viable enough claim, so that's what it is and that's all you need to know for the LSAT, even if you don't necessarily agree with it. For that matter, OP never told us the other choices. This might be one of those "pick the best of the worst" sort of questions.

[visualverificationfailure]

Like any other test, the LSAT throws some questions out if the top test takers got them wrong too. If its in the practice tests, its been vetted and they think it is "right". The tests given back to students sometimes have a "W" for the ones they decided were not fair.

ALL prep places decide on the justification for an answer after they ALREADY know the correct response. That's not the same as figuring it out from scratch. Sometimes they are wrong, but the LSAC's answer is all that matters.

After taking the LSAT, going to law school. passing some Bars and teaching LSAT to new people, I finally DO see how it applies to legal thinking:> Your score may not predict how hard you work in law school and how ell you do, but there is actually some relationship between LSAT tests and the practice of law after all