Logical Reasoning

PT104 · S1 · Q22 Some people believe that saying

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Logical Reasoning question.

  • Save & drill this skill — build targeted practice sets from questions like this one

  • Video walkthroughs — watch every question solved step by step

  • 81 official LSATs — as questions, timed sections & full-length tests

Start practicing free

Some people believe that saying that an organization is hierarchical says everything there is to say about how that organization operates.

Conditionals

Bureaucratically controlled → hierarchical organization

Facts

PWD is bureaucratically controlled (so, it's hierarchical). It operates very differently from how other bureaucratically controlled (hierarchical) organizations operate.

Some people say, .

Evaluation

There were three critical overlapping terms: bureaucratically controlled / hierarchical / how an organization operates.

This paragraph seems to be setting us up to say, Some People are wrong.

They essentially said

Not so fast, Some People -- the PWD operates very differently from most other hierarchical bureaucracies, so I wouldn't be sure how a hierarchical bureaucracy operates if I weren't sure whether it was in the PWD club or in the "most other" club.

Goal

Look for an answer saying that these people are wrong to believe that all hierarchical organizations operate the same way.

22.

If the statements above are true, which one of the following must also be true on the basis of them?

  1. The Public Works Department operates

    Unsupported Comparison

    We know PWD is different from most other bureaucracies, but we don't know in what way. We can't say that it's different in that it's more dissimilar to non-bureaucracies. It might be different in that it's more similar to non-b's.

    6% picked this

  2. Any organization that is hierarchical

    Reversed Logic

    This just reverses the conditional we were given that said, BC ? H

    2% picked this

  3. From the fact that a

    Too Strong: nothing can be concluded

    We know "some people" are wrong to think, "Once you know an org is hierarchical, you know everything about how it operates". So we're saying, "Nuh-uh. You don't know everything about how it operates". But this answer goes much farther and says, "Nuh-uh. You know nothing about how it operates."

    10% picked this

  4. Correct

    Not all hierarchical organizations operate

    Why this is right

    We know the PWD operates differently from other bureaucratically controlled orgs, and we know all of those bureaucratically controlled orgs are hierarchical. So this proves that some hierarchical orgs operate differently from others. They can't all be identical, or else PWD would be identical to "most other bureaucratically controlled orgs".

    Skill tested: Must be True · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    73% picked this

  5. Whether or not an organization

    Too Strong: nothing to do

    This basically contradicts our conditional, which says that if an organization is bureaucratically controlled, then it's hierarchical, and being hierarchical probably has something to do with how that organization operates. Our inference was that "being hierarchical doesn't tell a complete picture of how the organization operates".

    9% picked this

Continue the review in LSAT Lab

Save this question, watch the video walkthrough, and drill similar questions in your LSAT Lab account.

Save and practice this skill
LSAT Lab

Turn this review into a targeted study plan.

Save this question, drill more like it, watch the video walkthrough, and track your progress in your LSAT Lab account.

Start practicing free