Logical reasoning PrepTest 146 · Section 2 · Question 10

Incorrect. There's nothing in the stimulus suggesting returning something early would be wrong.

Incorrect. The stimulus establishes not being difficult to return as a part of the sufficient condition, so this answer is wrong in saying that Nick should return it even if it's difficult to do so.

Incorrect. Ted said that it would be fine to return the car late, so this situation doesn't meet the sufficient condition of the principle (not Permission to return late).

Incorrect. There's no indication that Yesenia promised to return the computer by a certain date, so the principle doesn't necessarily apply here. Note that it would have been easy to miss that condition when diagramming the principle. If that happens, don't worry! It just means that after seeing (E) also appears to conform to the principle, you'd head back to the stimulus and see the discrepancy between the answers that makes (E) right and (D) wrong.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Illustration (Principle)

Stimulus Summary:
Promised to return on certain date AND not Difficult to return on time AND not Permission to return late → Should return borrowed item on time

Answer Anticipation:
First things first, note how we included the overall precondition for the rule applying as a sufficient condition—it's essentially another "If" condition that the person promised to return an item on a certain date.

There's not much anticipation to do here—we've got the principle written out as a conditional, so we need to find an answer that follows it. One important note—the conditional/principle justifies a conclusion about when someone should return an item on time, not when it's okay to return something late, so we can eliminate answers stating that quickly.

Answer Explanation:
Oliver promised to bring a borrowed item back by a given date, it'd be easy for him to do so, and Madeline hasn't given him permission to return it late. That ticks all the sufficient condition boxes, thus allowing the conclusion that he should return it on time (today) to be drawn.

Key Takeaway:
You will never get through an LSAT Logical Reasoning section and have completely anticipated every answer choice, or without needing to return to the stimulus to decide between two remaining answer choices. There's nothing wrong with that—this is true of our LSAT experts, as well! Experts don't fail to make mistakes or miss important pieces of a stimulus; instead, they know what to do when that happens. Here, if you were caught between (D) and (E), it'd be important to stay calm, revisit the stimulus to see what you missed, note any differences between the two answer choices, and then settle on an answer without investing too much time.