Past LSAT Explained/PrepTest 25

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Section IV Logical Reasoning
Question 08 Common sense tells you that the argument is not entirely true since they still teach Latin and Greek in high school and college. People still learns hieroglyphics to read Egyptian inscriptions. The task here is to find a choice that best describes the weakness in the argument. Here is a rephrase of the paragraph.

Knowing ancient Greek is essential for reading original Greek texts. “Most” (but not necessarily all!) Greek are translated into English so we can just read English translations of Homer and Plato. So ancient historian wannabes don’t need to learn Greek anymore.

The weakness of the argument is that there maybe a small number of the texts that have not been translated. The argument did not preclude this possibility since it did not say all ancient historical documents have been translated.

(A) Correct. Knowing ancient Greek is not always necessary since we have an English translation of Iliad and Odyssey. But there may be a few works that were not translated. It is too strong to say it is no longer necessary to learn the languages. Watch out for extreme words like “never” (B) Incorrect. The passage does not treats the fact as an opinion. False. (C) Incorrect. The conclusion is NOT a restatement of the evidence. The evidence is “most are translated into English” and “we can read them in English”. The conclusion is “therefore, we don’t need to learn the original languages.” (D) Incorrect. There is no expert judgement here. (E) Incorrect. all the evidences are consistent. No problem here.

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