As it is presented in the passage, the approach to history taken by mainstream U.S. historians of the late nineteenth...

Victoria on November 13, 2020

Hi there,

Happy to help!

The issue is that you've simply reversed Rule 1 instead of reversing and negating it.

M3 --> L6
Not L6 --> Not M3

We know that if L is not last, then M is not third. We also know that if M is third, then L is last. However, we cannot draw any conclusions based solely on the information that L is last.

If L is last, it is entirely possible that M is not third as demonstrated by the following diagram.

T M K Z O L
1 2 3 4 5 6

Notice that this meets all the conditions:

1) M is not added third. Therefore, this condition is irrelevant.
2) Z is not added first. Therefore, this condition is irrelevant.
3) Neither T nor K is added fifth. O is added fifth.
4) M (second) is added before K (third), but after T (first). Therefore, M is added at some time before T or K, but not both.

Answer choice (A) is correct because of Rule 2. We know that if Z is added first, then L is added before O. However, we know that L is added last. Therefore, Z cannot be added first because there would be no room for O to follow L.

Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any further questions.

michel on December 21, 2020

The explanation makes sense but it makes me want to smash my head through my screen haha

mikaelamartin on June 1, 2021

uuugh! I was so confident in (C) as well

Bola on June 25, 2023

Me too I was so confident in C and thankfully you asked the question already.