Q1 - Terry: If you want to get a decent job, you should go t

[hnadgauda]

I went with my intuition here and ended up choosing the right answer. I wanted to ask what the methodical way of choosing the right answer is.

Here's my take on the question:

Mark says Terry is wrong because there are other reasons to go to college. Meaning that Mark interpreted Terry's remarks to mean that the only reason to go to college was to get a decent job.

Can someone break this down further please?

[ohthatpatrick]

If they ask us how one person interpreted another, the 2nd dude's interpretation is always wrong, in a sense. Otherwise, we wouldn’t bother to label it an “Person #2’s interpretation”. So we read these thinking, "how is #2 going to botch this?"

Terry gives us a conditional rule, so it’s fair game to think that LSAT may be testing how we interpret/understand conditional logic.

The rule
“If desire decent job, then go to college”
lets us conclude that anyone who wants a decent job should go to college. It also lets us conclude that anyone who shouldn’t go to college apparently doesn’t desire a decent job.

Mark says, “I don’t like you’re rule. There are other reasons to go to college.”

Would Terry argue with the idea that there are other reasons to go to college? Probably not. Terry would likely just say, “I agree. I was just saying that IF you want a decent job, then college is for you. I can also believe that IF you want to live with 18-22 year olds in a quasi-anarchical society called Dorm Life, you should also go to college. And IF you want to challenge your intellectual biases and assumptions, you should also go to college.”

Mark essentially heard THIS rule:
“If you should go to college, then you must want to get a decent job.”

THAT rule is vulnerable to someone saying, “Nuh-uh. There are OTHER reasons that people should go to college.”

That rule would be diagrammed the way (C) is expressed. “The Only” is a conditional word that will always be attached to the LEFT side condition.

“Reason for going to college --> want to get decent job”

Disagreeing with a conditional (i.e. contradicting it) is always just this form:
“Nuh-uh. It’s possible to BE the left side, but NOT BE the right side”.

If we were to disagree with Terry’s rule, we’d be saying
“Nuh-uh. It’s possible that you want a decent job, but you SHOULDN’T go to college.”

Mark is saying,
“Nuh-uh. It’s possible that you AREN’T wanting a decent job, but you SHOULD go to college.”

That would be disagreeing with a conditional that looks like
“Don’t want a decent job --> shouldn’t go to college”
“Should go to college --> want a decent job”

Since Mark is essentially arguing “That’s not true” to his interpretation of Terry, we could just read every answer choice, pretend it’s Terry, and ask ourselves if Mark sounds like he’s objecting to that idea.

(A) Mark doesn’t attack the idea that college is a possible place to get job training.
(B) Mark doesn’t attack the idea that you HAVE to go to college to get a decent job.
(C) YES. Mark attacks this idea by saying that there are OTHER reasons for going to college.
(D) Mark doesn’t attack this idea, which would involve arguing that there is job training for decent jobs OTHER places than college.
(E) Mark doesn’t attack this idea. This idea is actually similar to Terry’s idea, although Terry’s claim is about whether people who want decent jobs SHOULD go to college, not about whether they WANT to go. (Neither person is talking about that)