LSAT 16 – Section 3 – Question 08

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PT16 S3 Q08
+LR
Must be true +MBT
A
1%
154
B
86%
168
C
8%
158
D
4%
156
E
1%
151
141
149
158
+Medium 147.952 +SubsectionMedium

This is a must be true, indicated by: If all of the statements in the above are true, which one of the following statements must also be true?

In the stimulus we are given three sentences that can be converted into conditionals. Reasonable → adapt to the world. Unreasonable → try to adapt world to self. Progress → unreasonable people. The correct answer is going to be something which is guaranteed by these conditionals, their contrapositives, or their combinations. Let’s find it:

Answer Choice (A) Even if the information in the stimulus could guarantee that unreasonable and reasonable people are incompatible in a particular way, such as maybe in how they adapt to the world, it still could not guarantee that they are just flat out incompatible in general.

Correct Answer Choice (B) This answer depends on properly recognizing the contrapositive of “All progress depends on unreasonable people”. Depends means requires, and therefore we can think of this as saying unreasonable people are a requirement of progress. If there are only reasonable people, there are no unreasonable people, and since those are a requirement of progress, then there can be no progress.

Answer Choice (C) This answer makes the classic mistake of confusing sufficiency for necessity. Just because there is no progress without unreasonable people, does not mean there are no unreasonable people without progress. If you selected it, you should review this from the curriculum.

Answer Choice (D) Although we cannot conclude that because all progress requires unreasonable people, all unreasonable people create progress, neither can we conclude that some unreasonable people cannot create progress. All we get from the third sentence is the conditional “if there is progress, then there must be unreasonable people”, and the contrapositive “if there are no unreasonable people, there can be no progress.” What proportion of unreasonable people actually bring about progress is unknown to us.

Answer Choice (E) Just because unreasonable people persist in trying to make the world fit them, doesn’t mean they are more persistent overall than reasonable people. The stimulus tells us nothing about the persistence of reasonable people.

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