"Of the students, 25 percent labeled themselves conservative, 24 percent labeled themselves liberal, and 51 percent labeled themselves middle-of-the-road."
S-some-C
S-some-L
S-most-MoR
"When asked about a particular set of issues, however, 77 percent of the students endorsed what is generally regarded as a liberal position."
S-most-ELP
This is a Must Be True question so we are looking for the answer choice that is directly supported by the statements above.
Right away our attention should turn to our two"Most" statements since we cannot make a valid deduction combining "Some" with "Most" or "Some" with "Some."
S-most-MoR S-most-ELP
We can conclude from these two statements that "some students who labeled themselves middle-of-the-road endorsed what is generally regarded as a liberal position."
MoR-some-ELP
Unfortunately, this is not one of our answer choice options.
While we generally cannot combine "Some" with "Most" we actually have different situation here because we know the exact percentages, i.e. [25% C, 24%L, 51%MoR] and 77% ELP.
Notice that there must also be such an overlap with conservatives as well since 25 percent of the students labeled themselves as conservative but 77 percent of the students endorsed what is generally regarded as a liberal position.
To see this more clearly, just assume there are 100 students at Pitcombe College.
25 are conservative but only 23 total students did not endorse what is generally regarded as a liberal position.
This means that 2 conservative students endorsed what is generally regarded as a liberal position, i.e. "some conservative students endorsed what is generally regarded as a liberal position."
This is exactly what (D) says, so (D) would be the correct answer.
Hope that helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions.
MehranDecember 1, 2016
@loungecleaner also, to answer your specific question about (E), it is a trap answer.
Notice they subtly swapped out "liberal position" and replaced it with "conservative position."
If (E) had said "liberal position" it would have also been correct.
Hope that helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions.
mprezzyApril 7, 2020
@loungecleaner can you please explain why you combined two some statements? We are taught that we should not do that on the LSAT so I am curious to know why that was part of your approach. Thank you.
