Logical Reasoning

PT21 · S3 · Q1 Everyone sitting in the waiting

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Everyone sitting in the waiting room of the school’s athletic office this morning at nine o’clock had just registered for a beginners tennis clinic.

Statements

two conditionals

Everyone - sufficient (left side) indicator

sitting in waiting registered for room of athletic → a beginner's office at 9am today tennis clinic

No - (No A's are B = All A's are ~B)

accomplished → wouldn't register for tennis player beginner's tennis

When we get more than one conditional, we want to see if they chain together. We look for overlapping terms. Here we have one -- whether or not you'd register for a beginner's tennis clinic. We can contrapose this 2nd rule and get

registered for → not accomplished beginner's tennis tennis player

If we combine that with the first rule, we have this:

sitting in → registered for → not accomp. waiting beginner's tennis tennis player room at 9am

We also are provided a Fact, so we want to see if this fact triggers any of the rules.

John, Mary, and Teresa were all sitting in the waiting room at 9am, so that means that all three of them registered for beginner's tennis, and that all three of them are not accomplished tennis player.

Goal

Look for an answer saying that John, Mary, and Teresa all registered, or (more likely, since it involves more work), one that says they're not accomplished tennis players.

1.

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

  1. None of the people sitting

    Too Strong: none had ever played

    We know all these people in this office registered for a beginners tennis clinic, and thus are not accomplished tennis players, but that doesn't mean they've never ever tried playing tennis.

    5% picked this

  2. Everyone sitting in the school’s

    Too Strong: only

    This is basically just repeating the first sentence, but changing the meaning by adding the word "only". LSAT loves to trap people with this feel of "the only thing we mentioned must be the only thing". We don't know if beginners tennis is the only thing they registered for. They might have also signed up for intramural volleyball. We have no idea.

    14% picked this

  3. John, Mary, and Teresa were

    Too Strong: only

    Same as (B). We know that these three people all registered for a beginners tennis clinic, but we have no idea if they were the only ones who did. It's trying to fool people into thinking, "if these three are the only ones mentioned, then they must be the only ones." That's not how language/meaning works. I can say, accurately, that Mars and Venus revolve around the Sun. Does that mean I just committed myself to the idea that "only Mars and Venus revolve around the Sun?" Of course not.

    4% picked this

  4. John, Mary, and Teresa were

    Too Strong: only

    Same as (B) and (C). We know that these three people were all sitting in the office, but we don't know if they were the only people sitting there.

    3% picked this

  5. Correct

    Neither John nor Teresa is

    Why this is right

    Our prephrase was that "John, Mary, and Teresa are not accomplished tennis players". But wait -- why does this only name two of them? Because, LSAT is trying to make things less obvious. The fact that this is only 2/3 of what we know doesn't make it any less true. If I say, "Mars revolves around the Sun", it's a true statement. Just because there are other planets that also revolve around the Sun doesn't make what I said any less true.

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

    72% picked this

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