PrepTest 132

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Must Be True

Stimulus Summary:
Fewer than 50/year available to hire in that field AND Duplicate 25+% of material in existing department → not Fund new department
Area Studies Dept – Duplicate 25+% of material in existing department; Funded

Answer Anticipation:
The stimulus here sets up a very wordy conditional rule that establishes a sufficient condition for a new department not getting funded. That sufficient condition has two parts to it, and if both are met, that new department isn't getting money.

The stimulus then brings up two pieces of information about a potential new department. This department will duplicate 25+% of the material in an existing department—one of the two joint sufficient conditions for not being funded. However, the department is getting funded.

There's two ways to arrive at the inference we can draw from this.

The first is to take the contrapositive of the conditional from the stimulus, which would set up being funded as sufficient to tell us either the department doesn't have fewer than 50 people/year available for hire in that field OR it doesn't duplicate 25+% of existing material. Since the stimulus establishes the department does duplicate more than that much material (i.e., it doesn't satisfy one of the necessary conditions of being funded), it must be the case that it satisfies the other necessary condition of being funded —at least 50 people/year are available to hire.

The other way of looking at it is to say that since the argument doesn't meet the necessary condition of the conditional, then it can't meet the sufficient condition, and since it meets one of them, it must not meet the other. This is the same as the above process without formally taking the contrapositive—but it requires you to do some work in your head.

In either case, the inference to be drawn here is that the Area Studies Department has at least 50 people/year available for hire.

Answer Explanation:
This answer matches our anticipation almost word-for-word. If the department is funded despite overlapping with another department, it must have a lot of potential hirees—otherwise, it would meet the sufficient conditions for not being funded.

Key Takeaway:
The LSAT will sometimes throw these exceptionally wordy conditional statements at you to see if you 1) notice it's a conditional and 2) can track through all the details. Slow down, focus on the keywords, and reread the original statement back-to-back with the conditional to make sure you wrote it down correctly and you'll be fine!

Incorrect. There's no way of determining how this new department overlaps with other departments since none of them are mentioned, so this answer is out of scope.

Incorrect. It's rare that a Must Be True question answer that negates details from the stimulus will be correct. This isn't an exception. In fact, not duplicating material would see it meeting a necessary condition for being funded!

Incorrect. If the Area Studies Department is much larger than the Anthropology Department, then it could duplicate 25% of that department while the Anthropology Department duplicates much less of this new one.

Incorrect. This answer is the opposite of what we're looking for—the conditional applied to this scenario lets us conclude that the field has at least 50 people per year available for hire.