There is little point in looking to artists for insights into politica

C or E

for me, E would make sense:

E) Some artists are no less politically insightful than some reasonably well-educated persons who are not artists.

This sentence: Indeed, when taken as a whole, the statements made by artists, including those considered to be great, indicate that artistic talent and political insight are rarely found together. -> rarely means there is a realistic possibility. that means there ARE some artists no less ...

I'm surprised LSAT questions have such flaws in their answers, especially those based on formal reasoning like this one. Not sure if the phrasing of the question - 'Which one of the following can be inferred' makes it ok but basic set theory shows that Option E does not follow logically.

Most can include 'all' too. While some clearly means greater than 0.

Still E is the best of the choices. Don't like that fact that LSAT makes some such lame jumps in logic, I thought only GMAT questions allow for loose logical reasoning.

IMHO,the following is my reasoning.
Please feel free to advise if anything is wrong

It is very hard to understand E is the correct answer. Ans choice E says that "some artists are no less politically insightful" which means some are politically insightful than reasonably educated persons. The stimulus says " Most of them hold political views that are less insightful than those of any reasonably well-educated person who is not an artist"

So, you are missing one point here.

If I am saying MOST of them are less insightful, This would mean atleast 1 is there who is no less insightful.

Say I have total 100 artists. I am saying 99 are less insightful (Take this as MOST are), it means atleast 1 is there who is no less or more insightful. Hence, E makes sense here.

If you notice, this inference question is a little unique because it presents us with an argument. So, I approached this as more of an assumption question; I was on the lookout for a necessary assumption as I went to the answers.

The conclusion is found in the first sentence, while the remainder of the argument is structured to support this first sentence. Notice how qualified the author's statements are and, in particular, I think the key words to pay attention to are "little point" in the conclusion. The words "rarely found together" are very important from the final sentence, which acts as a premise in the argument.

The assumption that jumped out at me almost immediately was that the author must think that there is still "some" point to look to artists for political insights, or else he/she would have said "there's no point" in the conclusion (instead of saying that there's "little point"). Furthermore, the author would have used the word "never" instead of "rarely" in the final sentence, which is a premise of course. But why is this the case, you might ask? The reason for this must be that, as (E) points out, there must some artists that are just as politically insightful as the other group; if there weren't, the argument would fall apart instantaneously!

So, if one approached this question like I did, answers (A), (B), and (D) could be seen to be hopeless from the get-go.

Answer (C) is wrong because it weakens the argument directly and before you even negate it. If this answer were true, then why would there be "little point" or why would they "rarely" be found together?

So, to summarize, (C) is wrong because it weakens before it is negated and tends to strengthen the argument after it is negated. Answer choice (E) does the exact opposite and is thus the correct answer.

Hi nightblade354
Need your help.


Why is D not correct?
My reasoning was this is given in the passage - "...indicate that artistic talent and political insight are rarely found together."

Can we not make the assumption that Politicians have political insight?

The reason (D) is wrong is because we have no information about politicians. We are only told information about artists (remember, the premise is derived strictly from the viewpoint of the data, which is from the artistic group), and we can NEVER assume anything that is not stated unless it is an assumption question. But to add on a little more, who is to say politicians have political insight? Have you seen the US recently? You'd have to assume that politicians have political insight, but even then this is a stretch to make the argument work for the answer choice.