December 2004 LSAT Section 2 Question 12

If the play were successful, it would be adapted as a movie or revived at the Decade Festival. But it is not successf...

awashing on November 27, 2016

Diagramming assistance

I've diagrammed this statement as PS - >AM or R. The contrapositive of the statement being Not AM and R - >not PS. I chose A rather than E because the statement seemed to be presuming Not AM or R, which goes against the contrapositive that I diagrammed. E makes sense reading it again but I would appreciate assistance in thinking through that option.

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Mehran on December 1, 2016

@awashing let's break down the stimulus.

"If the play were successful, it would be adapted as a movie or revived at the Decade Festival."

PR: S ==> AM or RDF
not AM & not RDF ==> not S

"But it is not successful."

P: "not S"

"We must, regrettably, conclude that it will neither become a movie nor be revived at the Decade Festival."

C: "not AM & not RDF"

The flaw here is that the author is taking the non-existence of the sufficient condition to conclude the non-existence of the necessary condition.

But we know that you DON'T JUST NEGATE!

Stated another way, the author is mistaking sufficient for necessary as follows:

PR: AM or RDF ==> S
not S ==> not AM & not RDF

P: not S

C: not AM & not RDF

As such, (E) would be the correct answer choice, i.e. there could be alternative sufficient conditions other than S that lead to AM or RDF.

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

Mark-Livecchi on December 24, 2019

I was with MEhran until the very last sentence. Could you please give an example of an alternative sufficient condition or am I Overthinking it. I narrowed it down to A vs E.