February 1992 LSAT Section 3 Question 4

If Nassar's salary is the same as that of one other partner of the firm, which one of the following must be false?

Chinua on June 23, 2020

Answer Breakdown: Would you be able to briefly go through the process you used to approach the question?

I can understand why D is the correct answer but would like to know how to get there efficiently, and see how you ruled out the other options. Thank you.

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Skylar on June 24, 2020

@Chinua, happy to help!

The key to approaching this question efficiently is to have a firm understanding of our chain. This allows us to determine the limits of where we can place N so as to have the same salary as another partner.

To do this, we need to be aware of which variables are directly linked and which are left unspecified. For example, we are told that K precedes L and that L precedes N. These are directly linked. It would be impossible for N to have the same salary as either of them because we are explicitly told that N must be to their right. However, N has no direct linkage to I. Would it be possible for I and N to have the same salary? Sure, if our order goes: K-L-N/I-F-M-G-J-H. This is the earliest spot we can place N in the chain while making sure it has the same salary as another partner.

Now, let's look to establish the other limit- the latest possible spot we can place N while making sure it has the same salary as another partner. The last partner in our long direct chain (K-I-F-M-G-J-H) is H. So, can we make N the same as H? Yes, we can have: K-I-F-M-G-J-H/N with L placed anywhere in this chain after K but before H/N.

Now that we know the two limits of this scenario, we can easily go through the answer choices and eliminate those regarding partners in the middle of the chain, as we know these are possible. We can use the first arrangement we came up with (K-L-N/I-F-M-G-J-H) to rule out (A), and we can use the last arrangement we came up with (K-I-F-M-G-J-H/N with L placed anywhere in this chain after K but before H/N) to rule out (B), (C), and (E). You will note that (D), our correct answer, will deal with one of the extremes we drew our attention to originally.

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

Chinua on June 25, 2020

This was brilliant, thank you Skylar. :)

Laura_21 on October 19, 2021

Thank you Skylar! That was extremely helpful!