Q11 - Researchers have discovered that caffeine

[GRAMMOHAN.BUSINESS]

I am having difficult time eliminating option A (there is no psychoactive...) and C (Not all substances..).

Please help me,

Thanks,

[noah]

The stimulus -- as is the norm for an inference question -- is a series of statements. We learn that:
1) caffeine is as addictive as other psychoactive substances,
2) that people get grumpy if they don't have their usual dose of caffeine (I agree), and
3) that a lot of people consume caffeine -- as much as any of the other psychoactive substances.

It's typical that the LSAT will depend on "the numbers" (more/less/some) to create the correct answer choice. Here, the correct answer depends mostly on the third fact. If we have a psychoactive substance -- say alcohol -- we know that while there may be a lot of people consuming that, there are MORE people consuming caffeine (because it says so in the third statement!).

All the other answer choices are possible, but not something that MUST be true.

(A) is very tempting. IF we knew that every single person who consumes caffeine becomes addicted, (A) would be a valid inference. However, we only know that more people consume caffeine, not that more people are addicted to it. Perhaps most people who consume caffeine do not develop an addiction.
(B) is out of scope.
(C) is unsupported. We do not learn about non-psychoactive substances. Apparently it's not interesting to us if it's not psychoactive.
(D) is tempting, since people who don't get their caffeine fix do indeed become grumpy. But perhaps that is specific to coffee. Maybe the withdrawal symptoms associated with all other psychoactive substances are different.

Tell me if that clears it up. And don't drink coffee.

[kpopstar123]

Hello...
I thought this question was a crafty one...
English is not my first language so I actually have a question about the grammar portion of the stimulus.

More specifically, the usage of "as many as."

This question is all about the last sentence, where I believe, seems to say "there are as many people who consume caffeine as those who takes other psychoactive substances."

This post as well as other posts seem to suggest the following:
when a statement says "there are as many pizzas as tacos," in terms of quantity wise, (for example) there could be 50 pizzas and 50 tacos or 52 pizzas and 50 tacos, but there is no way that there could be 52 tacos and 50 pizzas...
Therefore the last statement is claiming that "there is no way that there are more of those who take psychoactive substances than those who take caffeine."

Am I on the right track???

Please help! I am pretty sure that LSAC has produced other questions that resemble this type of question that plays with quantity...

[noah]

Hello...
I thought this question was a crafty one...
English is not my first language so I actually have a question about the grammar portion of the stimulus.

More specifically, the usage of "as many as."

This question is all about the last sentence, where I believe, seems to say "there are as many people who consume caffeine as those who takes other psychoactive substances."

This post as well as other posts seem to suggest the following:
when a statement says "there are as many pizzas as tacos," in terms of quantity wise, (for example) there could be 50 pizzas and 50 tacos or 52 pizzas and 50 tacos, but there is no way that there could be 52 tacos and 50 pizzas...
Therefore the last statement is claiming that "there is no way that there are more of those who take psychoactive substances than those who take caffeine."

Am I on the right track???

You got it. Tough stuff for a non-native English speaker, so bravo!

[tzyc]

Hello,

I'd like to double check my understanding with (E)...
So as above poster says,"as many A as B" means A has at least something as B (so A≧B), " as many people consume caffein"=A, "as consume any one of the other...substances"=B, this means those who consume caffein has at least the same number of people as those consume other addictive psychoactive substances, but B cannot have more than A. So (E) is true because even though alcohol is not talked in the stimulus, it is said to be "a physically addictive psychoactive" (the "if" statement in (E)), it cannot have more people than caffein...because it is "the other...substances"=B.
Is this correct?
My dictionary only says "as many as" means "A is the same number as B" so I think that's that point made me confused...but if "as many as" means same, or more than the same, it makes sense.

Thank you

[noah]

Hello,

I'd like to double check my understanding with (E)...
So as above poster says,"as many A as B" means A has at least something as B (so A≧B), " as many people consume caffein"=A, "as consume any one of the other...substances"=B, this means those who consume caffein has at least the same number of people as those consume other addictive psychoactive substances, but B cannot have more than A. So (E) is true because even though alcohol is not talked in the stimulus, it is said to be "a physically addictive psychoactive" (the "if" statement in (E)), it cannot have more people than caffein...because it is "the other...substances"=B.
Is this correct?

Thank you

gold star!

[janicegyw]

twice as much today as they did in 1991.

can I interpret it as:

today:1991 >= 2:1 ?



Thanks for help!

[sonssi13]

about answer (B),
Does "a particular psychoactive substance" imply caffeine?

my question relates to the sentence ~caffeine can be as physically addictive as "other psychoactive substances", which means that caffeine is "one" of psychoactive substances and compared to "other" psychoactive substances? or caffeine is something not psychoactive but compared to them just in terms of a particular charicteristic, physically addictive?

[Abeckham13]

This one was a bit tricky. Seeing that a detailed explanation is absent, I'll break down the fact set in this question and explain what the run down is for those still a bit confused. (The bolded are what need to be duly noted to attack the question effectively.

(1) Researchers have Discovered that caffeine can be as physically addictive as other psychoactive substances.

(2) Some people find that they become unusually depressed, drowsy, or even irritable if they do not have their customary dose of caffeine.

(3) This is significant because as many people consume caffeine as consume any other of the psychoactive substance.

With 1-3 in mind, lets take a look at the possible answers.

(A) is incorrect. The stimulus only mentions that caffeine CAN be as physically addictive as any psychoactive substance. It does not say that it is more addictive then all other psychoactive substances.

(B) is incorrect. The stimulus explains some of the possible psychological effects from a physical addiction to caffeine. It does not talk about any psychological symptoms that stem from a physical addiction to other psychoactive substances.

(C) Is incorrect. Again, the stimulus only states that Caffeine can be as addictive. It does not say that it is in stone.

(D) is incorrect. The stimulus talks about some of the psychological effects resulting from a physical addiction to caffeine. It does not go into detail about the effects of a physical addiction to psychoactive substances.

(E) is correct. The stimulus tells us that as many people consume caffeine as consume any one of the other addictive psychoactive substances. Therefore, if alcohol is a physically addictive psychoactive substance, there are not more people who consume alcohol than consume caffeine.

I hope this helps. This one took a while.

[bernard.agrest]

So I actually eliminated A for a different reason.

It talks about "psychoactive substance" NOT "addictive psychoactive substances."

Stimulus: Caffeine can be as physically addictive as other psychoactive substances.

Stuff about symptoms.

Significant because as MANY people consume caffeine as consume any ONE of the other ADDICTIVE psychoactive substances.

I'm not sure, maybe I got lucky in my elimination, but the red flag for me was the change in scope.

A) Explained above.

B) We don't know if that has too be true, plus what constitutes diverse?

C) Maybe the definition of psychoactive is something you can be addicted too?

D) There CAN be at LEAST one person who doesn't fit the bill.

E) There you go, Alcohol is the ADDICTIVE substance. We know from the stimulus that caffeine consumption beats out or is the exact same as every single individual such substance. Fits the stimulus perfectly.

If any of the geeks could chime in on my evaluation, I would be very grateful.

[creek1262]

Hi, I know that E is the best answer choice but I have a hard time eliminating C, which is the one I chose.
The stimulus says that caffeine can be as physically addictive as other psychoactive substances.
We know that caffeine is not a psychoactive substance. And yet it can be as physically addictive.
So why is C unsupported? People can become physically addicted to caffeine even though it's explicitly not a psychoactive substance.
I hope I'm making sense.
Please help!

Thank you.

[ohthatpatrick]

sorry for the delayed reply. I've actually already written this reply once before (like a week ago), but it doesn't seem to have shown up in the thread.

Anyway .. caffeine IS a psychoactive substance.

I'm not sure where you thought it said it wasn't.

When you use the syntax of "Caffeine can be as addictive as other psychoactive substances", you're identifying caffeine as a psychoactive substance.

If I said
"Greg is friendlier than other cats",
you would know that Greg is a cat.

Hope this helps.