December 2012 LSAT Section 3 Question 24

In the Riverview Building, every apartment that has a balcony also has a fireplace. None of the apartments with balco...

Tegan on July 20, 2020

Can somebody explain the difference between C and D for me?

When I diagram them I continually get the same flaw as the argument. Because of this I couldn't choose between the two of them and I ended up selecting D.

Create a free account to read and take part in forum discussions.

Already have an account? log in

shunhe on July 21, 2020

Hi @Tegan,

Thanks for the question! So let’s take a look at the argument diagram real quick first:

Balcony —> Fireplace
Balcony —> ~One bedroom
Conclusion: One bedroom —> ~Fireplace

Or, to generalize

A —> B
A —> ~C
Conclusion: C —> ~B

Now take a look at (C):

Cat —> Fur
Cat —> ~Dog
Conclusion: Dog —> ~Fur

and we see this matches the structure

A —> B
A —> ~C
Conclusion: C —> ~B

Now take a look at (D):

Cat —> ~Dog
Dog —> ~Fish
Conclusion: Cat —> Fish

This is actually

A —> ~B
B—> ~C
Conclusion: A —> C

And so we can see that these are actually quite different structures.

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