December 2013 LSAT
Section 1
Question 19
One should not intentionally misrepresent another person's beliefs unless one's purpose in doing so is to act in the ...
Replies
Mehran on June 10, 2017
@kldarby let's diagram the principle first:"One should not intentionally misrepresent another person's beliefs unless one's purpose in doing so is to act in the interest of that other person."
"Unless" introduces a necessary condition (i.e. one's purpose in doing so is to act in the interest of that other person) and the negation of the other part of the statement is our sufficient condition (one should intentionally misrepresent another person's beliefs) as follows:
IMAPB ==> AIOP
not AIOP ==> not IMAPB
The question stem is asking us to identify the action that "most clearly violates the principle stated" so we are looking for an answer choice that violates this principle.
How do you violate a S & N statement? You show that sufficient can exist without the necessary condition.
For example, all berries are blue.
I would disprove, or violate this principle, with a raspberry (i.e. sufficient without necessary).
Now let's take a look at (A), "Ann told someone that Bruce thought the Apollo missions to the moon were elaborate hoaxes, even though she knew he did not think this; she did merely to make him look ridiculous."
So you are absolutely correct that Ann misrepresented Bruce's beliefs, but her purpose in doing so was not to act in Bruce's interests.
(A) shows sufficient without necessary so it violates this principle and is therefore the correct answer.
Hope that helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions.
J-McCall on October 21, 2019
Exact same train of thought. I didn't negate this because I believed the answer was easy to pick just with MAPB-API