Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Easy

PT12 S1 Q21 Explanation

The new perfume Aurora smells

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

TopicsMust be True

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Stimulus

The new perfume Aurora smells worse to Joan than any comparably priced perfume, and none of her friends likes the smell of Aurora as much as the smell of other perfumes. However, she and her friends must have a defect in their sense of smell, since Professor Jameson prefers the smell of one of the world's foremost experts on the physiology of smell.

What this question is testing

Must be True

The Setup

Joan does not like Aurora; her friends do not either. But Professor Jameson, a top smell expert, prefers Aurora. The author concludes Joan and her friends must have something wrong with their sense of smell.

Evaluate

For that argument to even make sense, Professor Jameson has to be a separate person from Joan's friends. Why? Because the stimulus says and Jameson does prefer Aurora. So if Jameson were one of Joan's friends, we would have a contradiction — one of her friends prefers Aurora, but none of her friends prefers Aurora.

To avoid that contradiction, Professor Jameson cannot be one of Joan's friends.

Goal

The right answer should be a strict logical consequence of the stimulus — not a leap or a reasonable guess. The Jameson-not-a-friend inference is forced.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
21.

From the information presented in support of the conclusion, it can be

Answer choices

  1. Unsupported13% picked this

    none of Joan’s friends is an expert on the physiology

    The stimulus tells us Joan's friends dislike Aurora, but it never says they are not smell experts. Joan's friends could include experts on the physiology of smell — they simply do not happen to share Jameson's preference. Nothing in the stimulus rules out the possibility of expert friends.

  2. Too Strong2% picked this

    Joan prefers all other perfumes to

    The stimulus says Aurora smells worse to Joan than any comparably priced perfume. That is a comparison within one price range. It does not tell us that Joan prefers all other perfumes to Aurora — there could be cheaper or more expensive perfumes that Joan likes less than Aurora. This goes beyond what the stimulus supports.

  3. Correct82% picked this

    Professor Jameson is not one of

    Why this is right

    This must be true. The stimulus says none of Joan's friends likes the smell of Aurora as much as other perfumes — but Professor Jameson does prefer Aurora to all other perfumes. If Jameson were one of Joan's friends, the stimulus would contain a contradiction: one of Joan's friends would prefer Aurora, but no friend prefers Aurora. Since the stimulus is internally consistent, Jameson cannot be one of Joan's friends.

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

  4. Too Strong2% picked this

    none of Joan’s friends likes Aurora

    The stimulus says her friends do not like the smell of Aurora as much as the smell of other perfumes. That is a comparison — they like Aurora less than other perfumes. It does not say they dislike Aurora. They could all like Aurora; they just like other perfumes more.

  5. Unsupported1% picked this

    Joan and her friends all like the same kinds

    The stimulus does not say Joan and her friends agree about which perfumes they like beyond their shared dislike of Aurora. They could like very different perfumes from each other while still all preferring something other than Aurora. Nothing about overlapping preferences is established.

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