LSAT 106 – Section 1 – Question 20

LSAT 106 - Section 1 - Question 20

June 1999

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Question QuickView	Type	Tags	Answer Choices	Curve	Question Difficulty	Psg/Game/S Difficulty	Explanation
PT106 S1 Q20	+LR	Must be false +MBF Conditional Reasoning +CondR	A 37% 170 B 8% 162 C 18% 166 D 19% 165 E 19% 166	162 174 180	+Hardest	152.148 +SubsectionHarder

If the economy is weak, then prices remain constant although unemployment rises. But unemployment rises only if investment decreases. Fortunately, investment is not decreasing.

Summary

If economy is weak, then prices stay constant.
If economy is weak, unemployment also rises.
If unemployment rises, investment must be decreasing.
Investment is not decreasing.

Notable Valid Inferences

Since investment is not decreasing, we know unemployment is not rising. And if unemployment is not rising, that means the economy is not weak.
Note that we cannot infer whether prices are staying constant.

Either the economy is weak or investment is decreasing.

Must be false. One starting fact is that investment is not decreasing. And since investment is not decreasing, that implies unemployment is not rising, which in turn implies the economy is not weak. So the economy is not weak, and investment is not decreasing.

If unemployment rises, then prices remain constant.

Could be true. We don’t know whether unemployment rising implies that prices remain constant. Both are things that are implied by a weak economy. But there may or may not be a relationship between the two directly.

The economy is weak only if investment decreases.

Must be true. If economy is weak, that requires unemployment rising, which requires investment decreasing.

Either the economy is weak or prices are remaining constant.

Could be true. Although we can infer that the economy is not weak, it’s possible for prices to be constant. A weak economy implies that prices are constant, but it’s possible that a non-weak economy can also exist with constant prices.

Either unemployment is rising or the economy is not weak.

Must be true. We know that investment is not decreasing, which implies unemployment is not rising, which in turn implies the economy is not weak. So, the “economy is not weak” part of (E) must be true. When one part of an “or” statement is true, the “or” statement itself is true.

This is a pretty tough question.

I'll try to explain why (A) is correct with an analogy because I don't want to spoon feed you the answer. You should work through it.

Here's the analogous passage:

(P1) If it's sunny, we go camping. S-->C
(P2) If we go camping, we make a bonfire. C-->B
(P3) We did not make a bonfire. /B

We can conclude a couple of things.

(C1) If we didn't make a bonfire, then it wasn't sunny. /B-->/S

Note that this conclusion is made using P1 and P2 ONLY. We did NOT use P3.

Using P3, we get to draw the conclusion (C2) it wasn't sunny. /S

The contradiction of C1 is different from the contradiction of C2.

Contradicting C1, we get /B and S.

But, let's say we drew the conclusion C2. Now we have two true statements in our hands. P3 and C2. /B and /S. Contradicting that, we get /B-->S.

LSAT 106 – Section 1 – Question 20

LSAT 106 - Section 1 - Question 20

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Review Results

LSAT PrepTest 106 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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