Exam LSAT Section 1 Logical Reasoning topic 1 question 289 discussion

Actual exam question from Test Prep's LSAT Section 1 Logical Reasoning

Question #: 289
Topic #: 1

[All LSAT Section 1 Logical Reasoning Questions]

Native speakers perceive sentences of their own language as sequences of separate words. But this perception is an illusion. This is shown by the fact that travelers who do not know a local language hear an unintelligible, uninterrupted stream of sound, not sentences with distinct words.
Which one of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A. It is impossible to understand sentences if they are in fact uninterrupted streams of sound.
B. Those who do not know a language cannot hear the way speech in that language actually sounds.
C. People pay less close attention to the way their own language sounds than they do to the way an unfamiliar language sounds.
D. Accomplished non-native speakers of a language do not perceive sentences as streams of sound.
E. Native speakers' perceptions of their own language are not more accurate than are the perceptions of persons who do not know that language.

Show Suggested Answer

Suggested Answer: E 🗳️
One last Assumption question to round out the section, and the stimulus is fairly short. "This is shown by the fact that" is a long winded way of saying "here comes evidence for the conclusion in the previous sentence." The author concludes that native speakers’ perception of sentences as a string of individual words is an illusion, based on evidence that traveling non-speakers dont hear it that way. But whos to say that the travelers have it right? Maybe this perception is not illusory, and those who dont speak the local language are simplyunable to perceive sentences as sequences of separate words. The author takes for granted, without providing any justification, that the travelers perception in this area is somehow more valid than that of the native speakers. E. captures the gist of this assumption. If we deny E., and say that the native speakers take on the situation is the more accurate one, then the conclusion that their perception is illusory would not be supported at all by the evidence given.

by [deleted] at March 9, 2025, 1:40 p.m.

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