PT30.S2.Q22 - The Rattlesnake Question and Perceived Relevance

hendricks

I learned a subtle but crucial characteristic of necessary assumptions today, and am excited to share it with you:

Be careful when dismissing a Necessary Assumption answer on the basis of it appearing to be irrelevant to the argument in the stimulus. "Relevance" is more the domain of Sufficient Assumptions. With Necessary Assumptions, the correct answer is relevant in a structural sense, which might not jump out at you without a careful read.

In the rattlesnake question, I saw "food" and dismissed it too soon. I picked A, even though I felt uneasy about it. It felt too obvious. Perhaps a good question to ask of the answer in the NA context is not 'what does it say' but 'what does it do'.

Admin Note: https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-30-section-2-question-22/