Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Hard

PT17 S3 Q24 Explanation

Ditrama is a federation made up

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

TopicsMust be True

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Stimulus

Ditrama is a federation made up of three autonomous regions: Korva, Mitro, and Guadar. Under the federal revenue-sharing plan, each region receives a share of federal revenues equal to the share of the total population of Ditrama residing in that region, as shown by a yearly population survey. Last year, the percentage on which the revenue-sharing was based showed that Korva’s population had increased.

What this question is testing

Must be True

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
24.

If the statements above are true, which one of the following must also have been shown by the population survey on which last year’s

Answer choices

  1. Unsupported Comparison7% picked this

    Of the three regions, Korva had the smallest number

    We can infer that the number of residents in Korva increased less than the number of residents in the other regions taken together. But we don't have any facts to support the claim Korva has the smallest number of residents overall.

  2. Unsupported Comparison4% picked this

    The population of Korva grew by a smaller percentage than it did

    This question hinges on comparing the number of residents and the percentage of residents in the three different regions. It also involves comparing the amount of money a region receives this year versus last year. This answer cobbles those two flavors of comparison together into an unholy Frankenstein-like union: it compares percentage population growth of a single region over multiple years.

  3. Unsupported Comparison24% picked this

    The populations of Mitro and Guadar each increased by a percentage that exceeded the percentage by which the

    This answer is definitely tempting, and for many of us it's probably a keeper on the first pass. It compares the right things and sounds almost like our prediction. The problem with this one is that we don't need Mitro and Guadar to each increase by a percentage that exceeds Korva's increase. Say Korva increased its population from 100 to 110 people, Mitro increased from 100 to 150 people, and Guadar's population stayed at 100 people. Taken together, the percent of the population who live in Mitro + Guadar increased more than the percent of the population who lives in Korva. So in this hypothetical, Korva still gets less money this year than last year, without both other regions increasing their population. That means this answer does not have to be true. Sometimes for Mathy questions, it's helpful to run the numbers like this, choosing figures that are easy to understand and manipulate. And just as in Logic Games, for a Must Be True question, try to break the answer by creating a legal hypothetical that doesn't conform to the answer choice. If you can, it's wrong. If you can't, it's probably right. That being said, doing math on the first pass is probably not the best use of your time unless you have a great head for math, and this comes quickly and easily. Holding this one until the end and seeing how it stacks up against D and E is probably the better call for most test takers.

  4. Unsupported Comparison7% picked this

    Of the three regions, Korva’s numerical increase in population was

    As we've established in our deep dive into the other answer choices, we don't need Korva's increase to be the smallest, either in terms of raw numbers, which this answer deals with, or percentages, which answer choice C dealt with. We just need the increase in Korva to be smaller than the increase in Mitro + Guadar, taken together. One other noteworthy thing about this answer choice: if answer choice C had to be true, that would imply that answer choice D was also true. If Mitro and Guadar's percentages both move more than Korva's, we can also infer that their raw numbers moved more than Korva's. Noticing that allows us to rule out answer choice C, because the right answer in a Must Be True question can't imply that another answer must be true as well.

  5. Correct58% picked this

    Korva’s population grew by a smaller percentage than did the population of at least one of the

    Why this is right

    Here's what we're looking for: Korva's population percentage moved less than at least one of the other two regions. This matches our prediction that the movement in the other two regions, taken together, was greater than the movement in Korva. If we like this one but still need to circle back to C, D, or both, we can compare them and see that if either C or D was true, E would need to be true as well. This rules out both C and D and allows us to pick E with confidence.

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

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