December 2009 LSAT Section 3 Question 16

All poets, aside from those who write only epigrams, have wit. All lyrical composers are poets. Azriel does not write...

rebut on April 23, 2020

eliminating B

could we eliminate B right away simply by the structure of the first sentence? I.e., B starts by offering two exceptions ("not dogcatcher" and "not police chief") whereas the stimulus offers only one ("not epigrams"). Just wondering if I really had to take the time to diagram all of that to realize B was wrong, or if I could have taken this more speedy way out. Thanks!

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BenMingov on April 23, 2020

Hi Rebut, thanks for the question.

I would say that distinction would lead me to be sceptical of B as the correct answer choice, but I wouldn't rule it out right away just in case. Because it might be possible that the correct answer choice might be paralleling the structure of the conditional statements and simply uses two exceptions which are both then ruled out to make a correct deduction.

I think the true mistake for B is that the conclusion is about a website, when this is completely unsupported in the entire passage. So even without doing an entire diagram and chain, you could take a quick peak and see that the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you'd like to me to elaborate further.

aaronjin3297 on February 25, 2021

I got the right answer but it took me way too long. How can I do this type of question in a faster pace?