PT51.S1.Q21 - garden and adjoining living room separated

K

Can someone explain what role "even if" plays in (D)?

I was able to eliminate all of them except (D) so I picked it. Turns out, I got lucky.

I tried to make even if a sufficient condition so "even if" it fails, the necessary could still happen. However, is this correct way of thinking about it? Or is even if similar to only if?

On a side note I only got one wrong on PT 51 S1

Not sure if this LR section was easier or if I got better :P

Edit: can we also go over Q16? I had trouble doing the diagram for it but managed to get it right.
http://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-51-section-1-question-21/

Justin Giles

"Even if" isn't so much a sufficient condition as indicating there isn't a conditional relationship there. Basically, D says "We can have A, even if not B," but not B certainly doesn't imply A either, so you cannot call it sufficient. It's not like the garden not contributing causes the merging, it's just not necessary for the merge for the garden to contribute.

You can look at it this way: Justin won't get hungover tomorrow, even if he gets trashed tonight.
So, the relationship between "getting trashed" and "hungover" isn't entirely conditional.