October 2010 LSAT Section 3 Question 11

Psychologists observing a shopping mall parking lot found that, on average, drivers spent 39 seconds leaving a parkin...

Renee' on February 11, 2020

Last rule

I am finally starting to wrap my head around this!! However, I am struggling with coming up with a better way of both understanding and writing out the last rule "P has fewer than L but more than N &O". Any tips for simplifying and writing it out?

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Skylar on February 11, 2020

@Reneel, happy to help.

Glad it's starting to click! Let's break this statement down.

The statement "P has fewer than L" means that L has more than P, or in other words, that L is greater than P. This can be diagrammed as: L - P.

The statement "P has more than N and O" means that P has more than N and P has more than O. In other words, this means that P is greater than N and is greater than O. It says nothing about the relationship between N and O. This can be diagrammed separately as: P - N and P - O. We can also combine it in a single diagram as: P - N
- O

When we combine both halves of the statement, we get the following diagram: L - P - N
- O

So, out of the four variables, we know that L comes first, P comes second, and then N and O are left to fill the third and fourth spots in no particular order. This gives us either LPNO or LPON.

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

Skylar on February 11, 2020

@Reneel, it looks like the spacing on my last message posted a little off. The single diagram for the statement "P has more than N and O" should look like this:

P - N
- O

Hope that helps!