the nineteenth century was to make a child who

misbehaved sit alone outside. Anyone passing by

would conclude that the child had misbehaved.

Nowadays, many child psychologists would

disapprove of this practice because they believe that

such practices damage the child’s self-esteem and that

damage to children’s self-esteem makes them less

confident as adults. However, no one disagrees that

adults raised under that traditional practice were, on

average, as confident as adults not so raised.

Which one of the following can be properly inferred from

the historian’s statements?

(A)

The beliefs of many present-day child psychologists

about the consequences of loss of self-esteem are

incorrect.

(B) Some of the most confident adults, as well as some

of the least confident adults, were raised under the

traditional practice in question.

(C)

With the traditional childrearing practice, passersby

did not always make correct inferences about

children’s behavior by observing them outdoors.

(D) The most confident adults are those who developed

the highest level of self-esteem in childhood.

(E)

If children’s loss of self-esteem makes them less

confident as adults, then the traditional childrearing

practice in question did not tend to cause significant

loss of self-esteem.

SPOILER:

The correct answer starts with the first letter of the name of the world's largest land mammal.

But that answer is NOT properly inferrable from the statements above!

Many child psychologists believe that the childrearing practice leads to lower self-esteem in children, which leads to those children having less confidence as adults. But, "no one disagrees that adults raised under the traditional practice, were, on average, as confident as adults not so raised."

The answer the LSAT calls "properly inferred" from the above is that at least one part of the causal chain asserted by the psychologists is incorrect. But this depends on 2 critical assumptions that are entirely unjustified and could easily have been described as flaws. First, just because "no one disagrees" about a statistic DOES NOT MEAN THAT STATISTIC IS TRUE. Second, EVEN IF THAT STATISTIC WERE TRUE -- that adults raised under the practice are on average as confident as adults not raised under the practice -- the correct answer IGNORES CONFOUNDING VARIABLES! Maybe the kind of child who is subject to the childrearing practice starts off with a higher self esteem than the children not so raised, so even though the practice does decrease self esteem, it doesn't make it lower than the other children on average. We'd need to know that the two compared groups -- those raised under the practice and those not so raised -- started off equal in the relevant areas -- self esteem and confidence level when they become adults.

Can someone please explain to me why the correct answer is considered to be 100% logical, to be "properly inferred" from the above?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3558677&forum_id=2#32872640)

The unstated premise or skill is that you are looking for a way to convert any q into an Aristotlean syllogism. Hence your objections don't "exist" in the world of the test.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3558677&forum_id=2#32872691)

(E) ignores the possibility of confounding variables, though it would take one hell of a confounding variable to counteract the historical practice if it did, in fact, cause a significant decrease in children's self-esteem. If they would have thrown in an "all else equal" caveat, it would have cleared up this issue, but that it would have made it too easy. Regardless, (E) is the best answer.

Initially, I also thought it had a problem from the perspective that the historical practice may have a significant effect on outlier children, but upon reading it again, the psychologists' opinion appear to apply to all children, so that is not an issue.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3558677&forum_id=2#32873083)

IOW these "hard" problems are built on tricking you into thinking you should use probabilistic reasoning, when in fact you are looking to remove it from the answer.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3558677&forum_id=2#32873607)

BTW they never announce that that is what they are doing - this is just meta-knowledge about how the test is constructed.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3558677&forum_id=2#32872681)

If you are serious about doing well on the LSAT, I strongly recommend practicing these sections with a time limit that is 5 minutes less than what you will be afforded on the actual test. If you have to think about them, you will miss them.

Also, when I started studying, I had a book that contained the observation that sections like this were limited to 6 or 7 types of questions and described the different types. After each practice section, I would go back and categorize each question by its type and tabulate how many questions I missed under each type of question. It turned out almost all of the questions I was missing fell under two types of questions. I worked on identifying what I was missing, and after that, I was getting getting 98% of the questions correct.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3558677&forum_id=2#32874528)