June 2014 LSAT Section 4 Question 12

Which one of the following, if substituted for the constraint that the house in Riverton must be shown either first o...

Batman on September 29, 2015

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Could you please explain why the rest of the answer choices were wrong? Especially, (C) seems very attractive to me. Yes, I was trapped by (C). Thanks,

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Naz on October 2, 2015

Regarding answer choice (C): Just because V must be shown either third or fourth does not mean that R is going to be first or second, which is what we need to replace rule number one. In this sense, we could have V 4th and R 5th, showing us that (C) doesn't give us the same effect on the order.

Regarding answer choice (D): We can use our previous work from question 9 here. As you can see, it is possible in this scenario (using our old rules) for 1: S, 2: R, 3: V, 4:Q, 5: T. But, if we replace answer choice (D) with rule number 1, we can no longer have this be a viable scenario since R and Q must be next to one another.

Regarding answer choice (E): So if T is not shown fifth, then it is shown first. So if (E) is followed, when T is not 5th, we would have 1:T, then 2: R (since T must immediately be shown before R, according to the rule in (E)). But, what about when T is fifth? What do we know about R? Nothing. So, we could technically follow (E) and rules 2-4 and have: 1:S, 2:V, 3:Q, 4:R, 5:T. So, in this scenario we are not breaking any rules having R 4th, but this does not give us the same effect on the order as before.

Thus, answer choice C, D, and E are wrong.

Hope that helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Batman on October 5, 2015

Thanks a lot!!!^^

zacdon81 on June 16, 2020

Regarding answer choice C, in the explanation, I do not see why having V 4th and R 5th can work. Can someone explain how this will work and therefor, cause C to be incorrect? Thanks!

Remi on September 4, 2021

question, in my set up, is there a way I could have deduced that V could only be 4th or 5th?

Ravi on February 5, 2022

C still leaves open the possibility for R to be last, and in the original rules, V can only go 3rd or 4th. @zacdon81, the issue is that R can go 4th or 5th with C (I believe there was a typo in the original explanation). This leads to scenarios not present with our initial rules, so we can get rid of this choice.