by Laura Damone Tue Feb 09, 2021 4:59 pm
Hi there!
Forgive the extreme delay here. A spammer responded to your post so it didn't show up on our list of posts awaiting a reply!
Q5 asks which of the following Must Be False. That means the 1 correct answer Must Be False, while the 4 incorrect answers Could Be True. So, what you were seeing is exactly what you should be seeing. The issue was your expectation that the wrong answers would be Could Be False!
I like to think of truth value questions (ones that ask you to find an answer with a certain "status" of truth) as coming in one of two flavors, each of which deals with a different pair of truth values.
Flavor 1 deals with this pair of truth values: Must Be True and Could Be False.
In the MBT/CBF flavor, either
- you're asked what Must Be True, and the 4 incorrect answers Could Be False, OR
- you're asked what Could Be False and your incorrect answers Must Be True.
Flavor 2 deals with this pair: Could be True and Must be False.
In the CBT/MBF flavor, either
- you're asked what Could Be True and the 4 wrong answers Must Be False, OR
- you're asked what Must Be False and the 4 wrong answers Could Be True.
The reason we pair the truth values up in this way is that the pairs contain values that are mutually exclusive. That's important because a statement can have more than one truth value. If it Must Be True, it's also the case that it Could Be True. And some statements Could Be True and Could Be False.
When you're trying to find an answer of a given truth value, you can rule only rule out answers that have a mutually exclusive value. If you're looking for an answer that Must Be False, you can only eliminate answers that Could Be True or Must Be True. Figuring out that an answer Could Be False is inconclusive. It doesn't prove that it Must Be False, and it doesn't rule that out either. That's why Must Be False isn't paired up with Could Be False.
Hope this helps!
Laura Damone
LSAT Content & Curriculum Lead | Manhattan Prep