LSAT 126 – Section 1 – Question 15

LSAT 126 - Section 1 - Question 15

October 2008

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT126 S1 Q15
+LR
Inference +Inf
Conditional Reasoning +CondR
Quantifier +Quant
A
3%
154
B
2%
154
C
3%
154
D
64%
165
E
29%
159
147
156
166
 +Harder 146.126 +SubsectionMedium

Zack’s Coffeehouse schedules free poetry readings almost every Wednesday. Zack’s offers half-priced coffee all day on every day that a poetry reading is scheduled.

Summary
Zack’s has free poetry readings almost every Wednesday.
Zack’s has half-priced coffee all day on every day that there is a poetry reading.

Very Strongly Supported Conclusions
Zack’s has half-priced coffee on at least most Wednesdays.
If Zack’s doesn’t have half-priced coffee on a certain day, then they also don’t have a poetry reading that day.

A
Wednesday is the most common day on which Zack’s offers half-priced coffee all day.
Unsupported. Most Wednesdays have half-priced coffee, but this doesn’t mean that most half-priced coffee days are Wednesdays. In other words, although Zack’s has half-priced coffee most Wednesdays, they might have half-priced coffee on other days too.
B
Most free poetry readings given at Zack’s are scheduled for Wednesdays.
Unsupported. Most Wednesdays have a free poetry reading, but this doesn’t mean that most readings happen on Wednesdays. In other words, although Zack’s has free poetry readings almost every Wednesday, they could have readings on other days too.
C
Free poetry readings are scheduled on almost every day that Zack’s offers half-priced coffee all day.
Unsupported. All poetry reading days have half-priced coffee, but this doesn’t mean that most half-priced coffee days have poetry readings. It’s possible that most half-priced coffee days happen on days without a reading.
D
Zack’s offers half-priced coffee all day on most if not all Wednesdays.
Very strongly supported. On most Wednesdays, Zack’s has free readings. On all reading days, they have half-priced coffee. So on most Wednesdays, they have half-priced coffee. “Most” can include “all.” Either way, they could have half-priced coffee on Wednesdays without readings.
E
On some Wednesdays Zack’s does not offer half-priced coffee all day.
Unsupported. Even if there’s not a reading every Wednesday, there might still be half-priced coffee every Wednesday. “Poetry reading” is merely sufficient for “half-priced coffee.” So not having a reading tells us nothing about whether there will be half-priced coffee.

Note: The usage of "almost every Wednesday" here is ambiguous. It's unclear whether it's meant to include or exclude every Wednesday. I can see a reasonable disagreement. But the point is that it doesn't matter. The LSAT does not trade on the kind of ambiguity that gives rise to reasonable disagreements. See, if you want to interpret inclusive, then that's how the video lesson does it too and you get to the right answer choice. By default, you are taught in the Core Curriculum to interpret "most" inclusively.

Now what if you want to interpret exclusive? Okay, let's do it. You'll see that this won't change anything about the right or wrong answers.

Exclusive interpretation of "almost every Wednesday is a free poetry reading day" means that it does NOT include every Wednesday. In other words, on some Wednesdays there are no free poetry readings. Okay, so let's translate this to:
W -(e)m-> free poetry reading -> 1/2$ coffee

"-(e)m->" means "exclusive most" as opposed to
our standard "-m->" which means "inclusive most"

Therefore, what's the relationship between Wednesday and 1/2$ coffee?
W -(e)m-> 1/2$ coffee or
W -m-> 1/2$ coffee

I mean, we know most Wednesdays are 1/2$ coffee days. Really the question is whether we can say for sure that there are Wednesdays on which Zack's does not offer 1/2$ coffee. You might say, well, we do have some Wednesdays where there are no free poetry readings. Okay. And on those days... what's the price of coffee?

We don't know. They could well be 1/2$ coffee for some other reason. Because it could well be that Zack's is just crazy about offering 1/2$ coffee all day every day. Because Zack is just a great guy.

Even under the exclusive most interpretation, what (D) says still Must Be True. Zack's offers 1/2$ coffee all day on most Wednesdays, possibly all Wednesdays. Indeed it must be true that it's possible. Answer (E) is still at best a Could Be True. We just don't know that there are some Wednesdays on which coffee is more than 1/2$.

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LSAT PrepTest 126 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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