LSAT 15 – Section 3 – Question 26

LSAT 15 - Section 3 - Question 26

June 1995

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT15 S3 Q26
+LR
Must be true +MBT
A
1%
165
B
13%
159
C
8%
160
D
20%
161
E
57%
167
154
162
170
 +Hardest 147.322 +SubsectionMedium

This is a must be true question, as it asks: If the statements above are true, which one of the following must also be true on the basis of them?

This stimulus is full of conditionals with comparisons. The first sentence and the second half of the second sentence both begin with the conditional indicator “when”, which gives us three conditionals in addition to the “but if” beginning the second sentence. All three conditionals involve comparisons indicated by “than” or “as”. If we notice that the “fall more slowly” of the necessary condition of the first conditional is equivalent to the “fall less rapidly” of the second conditional, and that the “unable to lower prices” of the second conditional is equivalent to the “cannot lower prices” of the third, we should recognize that the three conditionals form a chain: slower adoption → slower falling costs → cannot lower prices → squeezed out. The contrapositive of this chain is: not squeezed out → can lower prices → not slower falling costs → not slower adoption. Since this is a must be true question with a chain of conditionals, we should be looking for answers which say something about a condition earlier in this chain or the contrapositive chain that guarantee a condition further down the chain. Let’s see if any answers take this form:

Answer Choice (A) We are told nothing about raising prices, only stuff about being unable to lower them.

Answer Choice (B) This answer is a classic case of confusing sufficiency for necessity. Just because foreign competitors (FCs) adopting technologies faster is sufficient to squeeze a country out of the global market, doesn’t mean that it is required for a country to be squeezed out of the market.

Answer Choice (C) This answer makes the same mistake as B, just with different parts of our chain of conditionals.

Answer Choice (D) The problem with this answer is that it gives us the negation of the first condition of our conditional chain, because “the same rate” is equivalent to “not slower”, but we can only use the negation in the contrapositive where it is the final necessary condition. Even if A→B is true, we can’t infer anything from B alone. In this case we certainly cannot infer that neither group will be squeezed out of the market. It is entirely consistent with what we are told in the stimulus that there are a million ways a manufacturer can be squeezed out of the market even when it has the same tech adoption rate as its FCs.

Correct Answer Choice (E) Our contrapositive chain comes in handy here. If we look at it, we’ll notice that if a manufacturer can lower prices as rapidly as their foreign competitor, then they must not have slower falling costs, which means that they must not be adopting tech at slower rate. If it is true that a manufacture can lower prices as rapidly as its FCs, then it is required that it is not adopting tech at a slower rate.

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LSAT PrepTest 15 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logic Games

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