Logical reasoning PrepTest 127 · Section 1 · Question 17

Question prompt

Curator: Our museum displays Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: C

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Argument or Facts

Facts

Valid or Flawed

NA

Question Type

Must Be True Questions / Sufficient & Necessary Questions

Stimulus Summary

Displayed in museum → 20th century work Displayed in museum → On loan OR Permanent collection Permanent collection → Prints for sale in store Prints for sale in store --some-- ~Permanent collection (Example - Nighthawks)

Answer Anticipation

This Must be True question features several conditional statements, so we should immediately make the decision to diagram them out and see what we can combine. There’s also a quantified statement, so we should see if we can use those rules to make inferences.
Let’s start with our diagram. First, we broke the opening line into two conditionals since it’ll be easier to work with them that way. We know that all of the works in the museum are from the 20th century, and also that all of them are either on loan or in the permanent collection, hence statements 1 and 2.
The “latter” works are the ones in the permanent collection, which is how we ended up with statement 3. The “some” in the last line allows us to create the quantified statement you see as #4, and we included the note about Nighthawks as an example of a print for sale in the store that’s not in the permanent collection.
With the diagram laid out, let’s talk about combinations. First, a quick win - we can stop worrying about statement #4. It shares a term with the necessary condition of the third conditional, and we can’t combine a some statement with a conditional when it has a term that’s shared in the necessary condition.
From there, we can look at the conditionals, but it’s not immediately apparent how to chain these together. The second and third statements have some overlap, but the OR necessary condition can’t be split. Is there any way to guarantee that a work is in the permanent collection, thus allowing that to be chained together with statement #3?
Yep - and this is a common high-level conditional the LSAT uses. We know that all works displayed in the museum are either on loan or a part of the permanent collection. So we can infer that any work displayed in the museum that is not on loan must be in the permanent collection:
Displayed in museum AND ~On loan → Permanent collection

Answer choices

  1. A
    Every print in the Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    The stimulus never presents information about all prints for sale in the museum store, so this answer is too strong. There’s no indication that the museum store sells prints of only pieces displayed in the museum - just that every piece in the permanent collection has prints sold in the museum (a bit of a reversal).
  2. B
    Every print that is Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    Similar to (A), the argument establishes that all permanen collection pieces are sold as prints in the museum store, but there’s no indication that the museum store doesn’t also sell prints of other works (e.g., the Mona Lisa).
  3. C
    There are prints in Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C matches the stem
    This answer matches our anticipation. A work that’s displayed in the museum but not on loan is in the permanent collection, and thus is for sale as a print in the museum store, as this answer states. Don’t get confused by the order the ideas are presented in this answer - the conditional indicator word is “every,” so that’s the sufficient condition. (Displayed in museum AND ~On loan → Print for sale in store.)
  4. D
    Hopper's Nighthawks is both Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    Hopper’s Nighthawks has prints for sale in the store, but it’s an example of a work that isn’t in the permanent collection. We don’t know that it’s on loan or on display, and so we also can’t conclude it’s a 20th century work.
  5. E
    Hopper's Nighthawks is not Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    While it’s not a part of the permanent collection, it’s possible that Nighthawks is on loan and on display, and is thus a 20th century work.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 8%
  2. B 10%
  3. C Credited 52%
  4. D 22%
  5. E 8%

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