Tanya would refrain from littering if everyone else refrained from littering. None of her friends litter, and therefo...

@chris_va July 26, 2019

bc the principle stated all whales and conclusion states blue whales?

Irina July 26, 2019

@chris_va,

(D) is best described as a mistaken reversal.

NA -> EO

IF need air THEN easy to observe

is not logically equivalent to

EO -> NA

IF easy to observe THEN need air.

Equivocation is when a term with multiple meanings is used differently throughout the argument. Using blue whales and whales would not constitute equivocation.

Does this make sense?

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Giovanni October 29, 2020

Hi, I'm still confused as to why Blue Whales is considered the same as whales from the video explanation. I would think Blue Whales is a subgroup and therefore similar to the stimulus. Can someone please explain. Thank you.

camcani November 24, 2020

While I did get this question correct, I have the exact same question. It is the same as 46 answer choice B in the Sufficient and Necessary Questions. That one differs with "all jazz musicians" and then "all musicians." And this question choice says "all whales" and then "blue whales". In other LSAT questions I don't remember different words being allowed to be used interchangeably unless I am mistaken. Some clarification on this is all I need. Thanks!

dianalazar November 28, 2021

l agree why are blue whales the same as "all" whales. wouldn't this be a different group exactly like the question ?

Ravi February 8, 2022

@dianalazar,

Premise: if everyone doesn't litter, Tanya won't litter
Conclusion: all of Tanya's friends don't litter, so she does not litter

All of Tanya's friends effectively means that some people do not litter

So since some people don't litter, Tanya doesn't litter

The problem with this is that we know that if everybody didn't litter, that she wouldn't litter. However, the claim shifts from everyone not littering to just some people not littering, and this doesn't guarantee that Tanya doesn't litter

With D, I agree that this is tempting because it has a switch from all whales to blue whales (matching the switch from all people to all of Tanya's friends), but the problem is that the converse is added here, which wasn't present in the stimulus.

D's diagram:

Whales need to surface-->whales easy to observe

Blue whales easily observed-->blue whales need to surface for air

This is why we can get rid of this choice.