October 2015 LSAT Section 4 Question 14

Certain methods of creating high-quality counterfeit banknotes involve making accurate measurements of the images pri...

yassmenaraim on January 8, 2021

Answer B

Isn't answer choice B the answer if the question stem is asking what is the assumption that is required (necessary assumption) instead of sufficient? I'm kind of confused. Is the answer supposed to be both necessary AND sufficient?

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shunhe on January 8, 2021

Hi @yassmenaraim,

Thanks for the question! So sometimes necessary assumption and sufficient assumption questions can bleed into each other, depending on how you view the stimulus. This question, for example, is one of those in-between questions. Recall that this argument just gives us a sentence of background information and then the conclusion, which is

Prevent counterfeiting banknotes —> Make some images very difficult/impossible to measure accurately

So you can think of this as “well, what does the argument have to assume for the conclusion to be true/what is the hidden assumption making the conclusion true” or you can think of it as “what is something I can add to this conclusion to make it true that isn’t already there?” The first is the necessary approach, the second is the sufficient approach. Here, they happen to overlap.

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