The enthusiastic acceptance of ascetic lifestyles evidenced in the sur

EXPLANATION FROM Fox LSAT

This argument is bullshit because it uses the writings of monks, who purposely live ascetic lifestyles, to make a broad generalization that all people who lived in medieval societies were “less concerned with monetary gain” than people living in contemporary Western cultures. This is silly. The analysis needed to either compare the common man of then to the common man of now, or compare the monks of then to the monks of now, in order to be able to make any sort of valid comparison. So the problem is with the validity of the sample. There is good reason to believe (they are monks, for Chrissakes) that the sample is biased. That’s my prediction.

A) The term ascetic is anything but imprecise. This isn’t the answer.

B) Yes! The sample is unrepresentative. This is the answer.

C) This is close, but no cigar. The author has inappropriately compared two standards, not applied one standard to another time. The author has compared modern standards to medieval monks, not to medieval societies. Answer B is much better.

D) This would be the correct answer if the argument had gone something like, “Glee is objectively the finest show on TV because it’s my favorite.” That’s not what happened here.

E) I can’t identify two premises that work against each other here, so this isn’t the answer.

Our answer is B, because it used the writings of monks to make a conclusion about normal folks.