PrepTest 120, Section 1, Question 23
Columnist: Neuroscientists have found that states of profound(50 more words not shown)
The columnist's reasoning is most(8 more words not shown)
- Atakes for granted(17 more words not shown)
- Bfails to consider(15 more words not shown)
- Cdoes not rule(18 more words not shown)
- Dignores the possibility(17 more words not shown)
- Eprovides insufficient reasons(19 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
When someone is deeply creative, these brain waves increase. That doesn't mean every increase in the waves comes with creativity. Maybe the waves also increase when someone is frightened or excited. Those are possibilities to keep open, not facts we've been given about the brain.
Now the columnist tells us that music increases the waves and concludes that listening to music will make us deeply creative. Wait. What if being creative produces the waves? Making the waves appear in some other way wouldn't necessarily recreate the creativity that accompanied them before.
What we’re looking for
That's the objection I'd want the flaw answer to capture. The argument needs the increase in brain waves to deliver creativity. The evidence only associates the increase with creativity and shows another way to produce the increase. We can accept both findings while still questioning the promised result from listening to music.
Working the answers
- A
The hippocampus is one of several places where the waves occur. The argument doesn't single out that part of the brain as the cause of creativity. This answer uses the language of causation, but attaches it to the wrong relationship. The questionable step is from increased theta waves to a creative state.
- B
The columnist offers music as a way to become creative, not as the only way. There could be many other ways to reach the same state without challenging this claim. We need to question whether listening to music works, not whether it is required.
- C
A live performance might increase theta waves too. That would provide another way to produce the waves, but our question would remain: does producing those waves produce creativity? Allowing other forms of music doesn't fix or expose that missing connection.
- DCorrect
The waves might increase without a state of profound creativity. If that happens when we listen to music, the two research findings could both be true while the columnist's conclusion fails.
This captures the objection without having to establish exactly what causes what. Perhaps creativity causes the waves; perhaps music produces the same waves without producing creativity. Either possibility shows why finding a way to increase the waves isn't enough to guarantee the creative state.
- E
Low levels are not the same as an absence of an increase. The argument doesn't need to establish that everyone who isn't deeply creative has low theta-wave levels. Someone might have a fairly high baseline level without being creative. The claim we're evaluating concerns what happens when music increases the waves, and D directly addresses whether that increase must bring creativity with it.
More Flaw questions
Learn the LSAT our way
Our platform drills Flaw questions at your level and adjusts as you improve.