PrepTest 110, Section 2, Question 1
In his new book on his complex scientific(65 more words not shown)
The author of the book(9 more words not shown)
- Ausing an attack(22 more words not shown)
- Btaking it for(20 more words not shown)
- Cdismissing a scientific(8 more words not shown)
- Dpresenting as facts(22 more words not shown)
- Efailing to distinguish(14 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
R may be unpleasant and still have something scientifically important to say.
I would want to examine R's accusations about other researchers. Does he have evidence that their funding influences what they report, or is he dismissing disagreement by accusing people of bad faith? Those are different possibilities. The review tells us what R believes without showing us whether his accusations are supported.
Then the reviewer adds that R is arrogant, overly ambitious and sometimes nasty. Even if all of that is true, what does it establish about the research in his book? Imagine a scientist who is difficult to work with but has strong evidence for a discovery. The bad behavior wouldn't make the evidence disappear. We still need to examine the scientific work.
What we’re looking for
That's the problem with the reviewer's conclusion that serious professionals should ignore the book. For the flaw question, I'd look for the move from criticizing the author's character to dismissing the substance of the author's work. We don't have to defend R's behavior to challenge that move.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The reviewer uses R's character as a reason to dismiss his scientific contribution. Arrogance or nastiness doesn't show that he lacks scientific competence or that his book has nothing worth examining.
The wording isn't identical to the conclusion: the reviewer says the book doesn't merit professional attention, rather than explicitly saying R is incompetent. But A captures the basis of that dismissal. The reviewer attacks the person instead of establishing a problem with the science. That matches the error we identified.
- B
This resembles R's position about other investigators' funding. The reviewer describes that position as troubling; the reviewer doesn't simply take it for granted. Keep the two speakers' claims separate. We are evaluating the reviewer's reason for dismissing R's book, not treating R's accusation as the reviewer's own premise.
- C
The reviewer doesn't give us an account of a scientific theory and distort that account to dismiss it. We hear about R's accusations and his character, without an explanation of the scientific research itself. C would need a biased presentation of that research, which isn't the method shown here.
- D
Nothing establishes that the reviewer's claims are based only on conviction or impossible to verify. For example, people could examine what R says in the book or describe his behavior. More importantly, we can grant the negative character claims and still identify the problem: they don't establish that his scientific work deserves no attention.
- E
We aren't shown a claim that everything true must be interesting, or that everything interesting must be true. The review's defect concerns the connection between R's character and the value of his work. Distinguishing truth from interestingness doesn't address that connection.
More Flaw questions
Learn the LSAT our way
Our platform drills Flaw questions at your level and adjusts as you improve.