October 2010 LSAT Section 1 Question 27

As it is presented in the passage, the approach to history taken by mainstream U.S. historians of the late nineteenth...

mikaylamobley on January 17, 2018

Question 4

I am confused about how the answer is C on Question 4 instead of B. Can you not assume that since H is on day 2 that J would be in slot 1?

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Margaret.e.hood@vanderbilt.edu on July 3, 2019

I have this same question.^

Ravi on July 4, 2019

Happy to help. Could you specify which game you're referring to? You
said question 4, but I'm not sure if it's Game 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. Let
me know, and I'll be happy to help!

Skylar on May 3, 2020

@Mikayla and @Margaret,

No, you cannot make that assumption. Doing so would require using the Necessary condition to conclude the Sufficient condition, which is a logical flaw that is discussed in depth in the Sufficient & Necessary lesson.

Rule #3 tells us: "If Jones views the site on day 1, Hall views the site on day 2."
We can write this as: J(1) -> H(2)
The contrapositive is: NOT H(2) -> NOT J(1)

So, we can only conclude something if we have either J(1) or NOT H(2), as these are the Sufficient conditions in our above diagrams.

We cannot assume anything based off H(2) because it is never Sufficient. So, we cannot conclude that J is in spot 1 just because H is in spot 2.

Does that make sense? Please let us know if you have any additional questions!