Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Easy

PT146 S3 Q22 Explanation

Riverdale’s Modern Party Chairperson

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

TopicsMust be False

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Stimulus

Riverdale’s Modern Party Chairperson: Maples, the Modern Party candidate, would be a better mayor than his opponent, Tannett, who is a member of the Traditionalist Party. Every member of the Modern Party is better any member of the Traditionalist Party.

What this question is testing

Must be False

Your task

Break the argument into its conclusion and evidence, then do exactly what the question stem asks with that structure.

Common trap

Answers that sound relevant to the topic but don't connect to the argument's actual reasoning.

Winning move

Predict what a right answer must do, then test each choice against the conclusion-evidence gap.

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

The question
22.

If the statements of Riverdale’s Modern Party Chairperson are true, each of the following could

Answer choices

  1. Out of Scope: seniority / ousted4% picked this

    Maples has the least seniority of any member of Riverdale’s Modern Party and was recently ousted

    We know nothing about seniority, so we can't contradict that Maples is the most recent person to join the MP. And we know nothing about her backstory, so we can't contradict the idea that she was recently in TP but got ousted.

  2. Compatible4% picked this

    Tannett would be a better mayor than would any other member of

    This is just saying that Tannett is better than other members of the TP. That's possible. What is impossible is for Tannett to be better qualified than any member of the MP.

  3. Out of Scope: residents' beliefs3% picked this

    Few residents of Riverdale believe that Maples would be a better

    We have no information about what residents believe, so we couldn't contradict a statement about what they believe.

  4. Compatible4% picked this

    Of all the members of Riverdale’s Modern Party, Maples would be

    We know that Maples is better than Tannett (who is part of the TP). But she may be worse than all the other members of MP.

  5. Correct85% picked this

    Tannett is better qualified to be mayor than is Riverdale’s Modern

    Why this is right

    This contradicts our conditional, as we expected. Every MP member (including the chairperson, who clearly is a member) is better qualified than every member of TP. Tannett is a member of TP, so he has to be less qualified than MP's chairperson. He has to be less qualified than all members of MP.

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

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