June 2010 LSAT Section 4 Question 23

A species in which mutations frequently occur will develop new evolutionary adaptations in each generation. Since spe...

AndrewArabie on September 4, 2022

Help me find my issue with diagramming

I diagrammed all the answer choices correctly but I diagrammed the stimulus incorrectly. The stimulus states, "A species in which mutations frequently occur will develop new evolutionary adaptations in each generation." I reversed the order for it to read "If a species develops evolutionary adaptations with each successive generation, then mutations must frequently occur." So I mapped it out as: P1) Dev New Adaptations--> Mutations Freq Occur. P2) Survive-->Dev New Adaptations Why is my P1 wrong? It seems logical to me that mutations frequently occurring must be the necessary condition for each successive generation to have new evolutionary adaptations.

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Emil-Kunkin on September 6, 2022

Hi Andrew,

Lets look at the first sentence. We are told that a species with frequent mutations will develop new adaptations. This is saying that FM guarantees NA. So, If FM -> NA.

This also makes sense logically- if we have a lot of mutations, then the special will be able to adapt quickly. Either way, when diagramming, we only need to consider what the passage actually says.

AndrewArabie on September 6, 2022

Thank you Emil. So which word in the stimulus was my necessary indicator? Was it "will"?

Emil-Kunkin on September 8, 2022

Yep, if we say that tomorrow will be better, we know that if tomorrow -> better