Only people who are willing to compromise should undergo mediation to resolve their conflicts. Actual litigation shou...

shunhe on May 28, 2020

Hi @tkj97,

Thanks for the question! So let’s walk through the stimulus. First, only people who are willing to compromise should undergo mediation. Remember that “only X, Y” is diagrammed as Y—>X. So we get

Undergo mediation —> People willing to compromise

Then we’re told actual litigation should be pursued only when one is sure that one’s position is correct. Based on the same rule as above, we get

Actual litigation pursued —> Sure that one’s position is correct

Interestingly enough, we don’t actually use this second statement in getting to the answer choice, but the LSAT is like that sometimes. Sometimes, you won’t need every single piece of information in the stimulus.

Finally, we’re told that people whose conflicts are based on ideology are unwilling to compromise; in other words, if someone has a conflict based on ideology, then they are unwilling to compromise.

Conflict based on ideology —> ~Willing to compromise

Note we can chain this together with the contrapositive of the first statement

~Willing to compromise —> ~Undergo mediation

To get

Conflict based on ideology —> ~Willing to compromise —> ~Undergo mediation

And this is what (E) tells us: that people whose conflicts are based on ideology shouldn’t undergo mediation, and so that must be true based on the statements given in the stimulus.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.