December 1996 LSAT Section 2 Question 19

Spectroscopic analysis has revealed the existence of frozen nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide on the surface of ...

smilde11 on September 11, 2018

Please help clarify

I selected C by eliminating the other choices and because it was the most "LSAT-y" answer choice, however I'm still not understanding the wording of the answer choice If nothing vaporized more readily than methane, wouldn't that mean that it vaporized more readily than both nitrogen and carbon monoxide, and also then that there would be more methane than nitrogen? But then the conclusion is that nitrogen is the MOST abundant and methane is the LEAST abundant. Thanks for your help!

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Max-Youngquist on September 14, 2018

@smilde11 the key here is the conclusion states "THE components of Pluto's atmosphere..", in other words we are talking about ALL components of Pluto's atmosphere. So if there was another frozen substance on Pluto that vaporized more readily than methane but less readily than Carbon Monoxide, our order of THE components would instead read in order: Nitrogen, Carbon Monoxide, {OTHER SUBSTANCE}, Methane. Remember, the passage states that N, CM and M exist on Pluto, but it says nothing about whether OTHER substances exist. I hope that helps!