Science teacher: In any nation, a flourishing national scientific comm

First thing I do is read the question:

The science teacher's statements provide the most support for which one of the following?

Okay so we're going to be DRAWING AN INFERENCE from what is stated in the paragraph.

Science teacher: In any nation, a flourishing national scientific community is essential to a successful economy. For such a community to flourish requires that many young people become excited enough about science that they resolve to become professional scientists. Good communication between scientists and the public is necessary to spark that excitement.

Okay so this paragraph is laying out a causal chain, in somewhat reverse order:

Good communication between scientists and public -----> excitement about science in young'uns so that they become scientists ------> flourishing national scientific community -------> successful economy

So the inference I can make must be something about this chain.


(A) If scientists communicate with the public, many young people will become excited enough about science to resolve to become professional scientists.

The passage specifies we need good communication (whatever 'good' means), not just communication in general.

(B) The extent to which a national scientific community flourishes depends principally on the number of young people who become excited enough about science to resolve to become professional scientists.

It doesn't indicate that this is the principal thing that a scientific community depends on.

(C) No nation can have a successful economy unless at some point scientists have communicated well with the public.

This seems really good. If we take what the passage states as truth, you can't have a successful economy without flourishing science, and you can't have a flourishing science without scientists having communicating well with the public.

(D) It is essential to any nation 's economy that most of the young people in that nation who are excited about science become professional scientists.

Nahhhhhh. Never says most young people who are excited become scientists. Just that some young people get excited about science to become scientists.

(E) An essential component of success in any scientific endeavor is good communication between the scientists involved in that endeavor and the public.

way out of scope.

Has to be C.

BIG TAKEAWAYS: Cause and effect is a big thing on the test. When you notice a sequence of causality, write it out!
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The Answer is C

(A) If scientists communicate with the public, many young people will become excited enough about science to resolve to become professional scientists. It makes an error in reverse deduction. Good Communication is a necessary condition to spark excitement. It may not be sufficient in itself.

(B) The extent to which a national scientific community flourishes depends principally on the number of young people who become excited enough about science to resolve to become professional scientists.The passage doesn't state that the success is proportional to the "number of people" who become excited.

(C) No nation can have a successful economy unless at some point scientists have communicated well with the public. Correct Answer. Good Comm. between the scientists & public is a necessary condition to spark that excitement. So, it must have occurred at some point.

(D) It is essential to any nation 's economy that most of the young people in that nation who are excited about science become professional scientists. I fell for it. The keyword here is "most". The passage says "many".

(E) An essential component of success in any scientific endeavor is good communication between the scientists. involved in that endeavor and the public.Out of scope - It says "any scientific endeavor. The passage talks about a successful economy. "

It's a good question. So this is getting into formal logic, which I don't recommend people do unless they've already mastered the basics and are trying to understand this stuff at the very deepest level (it's typically not needed--the GMAT isn't the LSAT).

"Good communication between scientists and the public is necessary to spark excitement about science," in formal logic, means

"If there is excitement about science, then there is good communication between scientists and the public."

Which is the same logic as what you said:

"There is excitement about science only if there is good communication between scientists and the public."

Which is also the same logic as saying:

"If there's NOT good communication between scientists and the public, there's not excitement about science."

(For anyone reading this, the relationship between "If A...then B," "If not B then not A" and "A only if B" was one of the most frustrating things to grasp in formal logic for me, because 'if' and 'only if' feel similar, but they aren't. An LSAT instructor friend of mine summarized this succinctly by saying "'If' means if. 'Only if' means then.")

So these points:



Are correct.

What you can't infer from "If there is excitement about science, then there is good communication" is "If there's good communication, there will be excitement about science." So that is also why A cannot be inferred.

In pure logic language, 'good communication' is a necessary but not sufficient condition for there to be 'excitement about science.'

This is fundamentally similar to 'square/rectangle' logic. A square is a rectangle, but a rectangle isn't a square = excitement implies good communication but good communication doesn't imply excitement.
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IMO answer is C.

Science teacher opens the statement telling us " A flourishing national scientific community is essential to a successful economy"-Conclusion

Ends the argument by saying
"Good communication between scientists and the public is necessary to spark that excitement"

So we need to find a answer which combines both of these statements as the assumption of teacher will be dependent on it and 'C' exactly does that.
Keep in mind that our end goal is to support the conclusion. All other options are traps such as A,B

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This is a chain of logical sequence. From my perspective, to deal with these chain, we should translate and combine separate single conditions into ONE big conditional chain.
Let's translate one by one:
- Flourish is essential to success (essential = necessary indicator => which mean you can say: Flourish is necessary for a successful economy)
Success -> Flourish (1)
- Flourish requires young people excite (requires = necessary indicator)
Flourish-> Excite (2)
- Good communication is necessary to these excitement, aka young people's excitement ( another necessary indicator)
Excite ->good com (3)

Combining three conditions (1), (2), and (3), we have a big chain condition as following:
Success -> Flourish -> Excite -> Good Com

you can play with any two of these element in their contrapositive form. "
For example, from "Success -> Good Com", we can have "Not good Com -> Not Success", which is exactly what option C say .
Or another example, "Success -> Excite", we can infer that "Not Excite -> Not success


One tip to translate these chain is that you should actively ask "What is essential? What is required?"
(necessary element)
Then put them in this sequence [If SUFFICIENT -> Then NECESSARY]
This translation requires some dedication to master. For further reference, I highly recommend that you purchase 7Sage LSAT course and a subscription of LSAT Practice Test Bundle from LSAC in case you need extra practice.

I'm not an expert and this is just my personal view. Please do your own research

(A) If scientists communicate with the public, many young people will become excited enough about science to resolve to become professional scientists.
Communication alone is not enough effectice communication is required

(B) The extent to which a national scientific community flourishes depends principally on the number of young people who become excited enough about science to resolve to become professional scientists.
it's not principle but just one among many may be

(C) No nation can have a successful economy unless at some point scientists have communicated well with the public.
Yes definitely the answer we have looking for they have to at least communicate once

(D) It is essential to any nation 's economy that most of the young people in that nation who are excited about science become professional scientists.
They don't have to become they just have to resolve

(E) An essential component of success in any scientific endeavor is good communication between the scientists. involved in that endeavor and the public
Not between scientists but among young public and exciting them

Hi ReedArnoldMPREP,

For the explanation of answer A, while the absence of "good" works well for elimination, let's say that this option included that word for the sake of solving the question at a deeper level.
The argument says "Good communication between scientists and the public is necessary to spark that excitement" which means that ONLY IF good communication between scientists and public exists, then excitement gets sparked.
This, in turn, means that excitement getting sparked IMPLIES good communcation existed.

Therefore, we can draw the following extended inferences:
1. No good commmunication existed implies that no excitement was sparked
2. Good communication existed does not imply that excitement was sparked

With the second inference in mind, we can eliminate A.

Would you please comment on my thinking here?
Thanks in advance!