When the manufacturers in a given country are slower to adopt new technologies than their foreign competitors are, th...

Shirnel March 9, 2020

Transitive Statement

In the case of this question, was it asking for a conclusion? When I am faced with a set of fact I make a transitive statement. I did this in this case but noticed that the came from the first premise rather than a transitive statement. So I guess I'm just trying to understand why? And in cases this, when given just a set of facts, the LSAT might not necessarily be asking for a conclusion? Is that the case?

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SamA March 9, 2020

Hello @Shirnel,

Let's consider the question stem: "If the statements above are true, which one of the following must also be true on the basis of them?"

On "Must Be True" questions, remember that we are accepting everything in the stimulus as fact. We are not going to worry about what is an argument and what isn't. Everything is a fact. When they ask us what must be true, we are being asked to make our own conclusion based on the evidence! Making a transitive statement, or sufficient and necessary chain as I call it, is often the right way to approach these.

I'll demonstrate my approach to this one.
slower to adopt - -> costs fall more slowly - -> can't lower prices as rapidly - -> squeezed out of the market

and the contrapositive:
not squeezed - -> can lower prices as rapidly - -> costs don't fall more slowly - -> not slower to adopt

From this contrapositive, we can see that E is the only logical conclusion to draw.

Shirnel March 10, 2020

Ok, I went back to watch the explanation and it seems the chain was created by using the first two premises. I guess what causes a little confusion is that a sufficient and necessary chain wasn't created using ALL three premises. So I guess in cases like this a complete chain is not necessary?

AndreaK March 17, 2020

Hi @Shirnel,

In questions like this, you won’t always need to use the entire conditional chain. Sometimes, they will test a connection that exists within a portion of the conditional chain, or within a portion of the chain’s contrapositive. In this case, that’s what’s happening. We have a long conditional chain, detailed by Sam above. However, our correct answer comes from a smaller sub-section of the chain’s contrapositive. It is still logically valid, just as the conditionals that make up the chain are logically valid individually when separated. The chain is just a way to illustrate them so that they are easier to follow. However, smaller combinations of conditionals within the chain are just as valid as the whole chain, which is all the conditionals given in the stimulus that logically follow put together.

Hope this helps! Feel free to let us know if you have anymore questions.