Q18 - Leadership depends as much on

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

We know from the stimulus that to follow a leader someone must both be convinced that their efforts are necessary and that their efforts will accomplish the goal. So it is not possible for someone to follow a leader and not be convinced that their efforts are necessary _ answer choice (E) states this perfectly.

(A) is irrelevant. Whether these leaders fail to lead people to the goal does not play any role in whether the people were convinced at the start that they would accomplish the goal.
(B) is again irrelevant. Accomplishing the goal is not relevant to what is stated in the stimulus.
(C) is arranged backwards and discusses the wrong thing. We know that to follow a leader someone must be convinced of the necessity of their efforts, but not that if one must convince people of the necessity of their efforts that the person is a leader.
(D) Is again irrelevant. Accomplishing the goal is not relevant to what is stated in the stimulus. The stimulus discusses that people need to be convinced that their efforts will accomplish their goal in order to follow a leader, but this does not mean that the goal will actually be accomplished. People can be convinced of a lot of things that don’t come to pass.
(E) Cannot be true. In order to follow a leader people must be convinced that their efforts are needed. It’s not possible that they remain unsure whether their efforts are needed and yet follow a leader.

[JonT]

For this type of problem, could we get the correct answer by eliminating answers that might be true? Or do we simply look for an incorrect (must be false) answer? Just was wondering ...

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Hey JonT! What a coincidence since we were just working in this exact issue in office hours today.

This Must be False question uses conditional logic, and when they do so, you can predict a narrow range of answer choices. If it plays on percentages and amounts you can do so as well. Otherwise you'll need to eliminate answer choices that could be true.

Flexibility is key, and it's always a good idea to have more than one way of doing something. That way if you get to a question on the test where your usual strategy isn't working, you'll have a backup plan.

In this case, because the statements have conditional relationships, I'd set them up to see what can be inferred, and then read through the answer choices, comparing them to the conditional statements to see if they contradict anything stated or implied in the stimulus.

Hope that helps!

[mcrittell]

I'm def not understanding this one. I think I'm having trouble with the stem "CANNOT be true." So the answer choice must be false. But, for example, A says that although ppl are persuaded efforts=necessary to achieve a goal, then they won't be lead, right? How could this be true? (repeat and rinse A-D).

[timmydoeslsat]

You will begin to understand how must be false questions tend to work.

When you have conditional relationships like in this stimulus, the answer choice that will be correct on a must be false will tend to be like this:

Stimulus:

A ---> B and C


Answer Choice: C does not happen. However A still happens.

We know that is something that has to be false.


As for this stimulus:

Leadership ---> Followers aware of their own importance AND conveying a vivid image of a collective goal

Follow a leader ---> Followers convinced that efforts are necessary for the goal to be accomplished AND their efforts (if performed) will achieve the goal.


So we have two conditional statements. I will tell you that on these answer choices in must be false questions, do not force the issue. I can relate this issue to one dealing with logic games.

You know the types of questions in logic games where it asks you which one of the following answer choices, if plugged in, would give us the entire sequence of a game? There will be times where you will plug in answer choice A and you are kinda thinking about how this might solve the game, but it is not an automatic thing. You just do not have certainty.

Same goes with must be false questions. Go with the certainty factor.

Answer choices:

A) This is giving us a necessary condition in the stimulus of the second condition (followers convinced that efforts are necessary) but that they fail to lead them. We do not have any way to tie those two ideas together from what was given in the stimulus. Thus, it could be true.

B) The relationship between their efforts and attainment of a goal? This is not addressed in the stimulus. Also, succeeds in leading these people to the goal? I suppose you can equate this with attainment of a goal, but notice that this is one part of a necessary condition. Nothing could be proven false logically with that aspect.

C) Must one convince people of the necessity of their efforts to attain a goal---> Leader

Leader is not addressed in the stimulus. This cannot be proven false based on the two conditional statements from the stimulus.

D) People attain goal without someone saying that their efforts would achieve it.

This is simply trying to put one necessary condition against the other, trying to make you think it has to be false.

This is what this is doing.

A ---> B and C

Answer choice: B happens without C

That does not have to be false! We cannot prove that answer choice false with what is given in the stimulus by that conditional statement.

E) Directly provable that this must be false.

People who remain unsure still follow a leader.

The conditional in the stimulus is:

Follow a leader ---> Followers convinced that efforts are necessary for the goal to be accomplished AND their efforts (if performed) will achieve the goal.

This triggers the contrapositive. If followers are unsure, then this triggers ~Follow a leader.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Nice work Timmy! And I think your explanation is very helpful, thanks!

Let me just add something about questions that ask for what Must be False or Cannot be True.

So we have two conditional statements. I will tell you that on these answer choices in must be false questions, do not force the issue.

I agree, but I'd add that the conditionals should set your expectations. So if you have a lookout for how to break a conditional, you can make effortless checks of the answer choices. Remember if you're ever given several conditional relationships, the correct answer will meet the sufficient condition and fail to meet the necessary condition, either of a given statement or an inference of those statements.

So if you're given:
A ---> B
B ---> C

then it Must be False that
some A's are not B's
some B's are not C's
some A's are not C's

Since your options are so limited, it makes sense to have expectations of what you might expect from a correct answer choice. Hope that helps!

[LSATN100]

first sentence:
leader -> aware importance + collective goal
second sentence:
follow leader -> necessary for accomplishing the goal + actually achieve

It is important to realize that:
leader = follow leader
aware importance = necessary for accomplishing the goal
collective goal = actually achieve
these terms are interchangeable

So combining the terms, we have:
leader -> importance/necessary + collective goal/achieve

(A) NOT necessary -> achieve
(B) collective goal -> leader
(C) necessary -> leader
(D) achieve --some-- necessary
(E) NOT collective goal --some--leader

We don't know the relationships between the two terms on the right sight of the diagram. So A and D are gone.
We don't know what the terms on the right side of the diagram lead to. (SO if A->B, then A-> NOT B is a must be false. But if it uses a mistaken reversal, i.e. B->A, it is could be true) So B and C are gone.
E is, therefore, the correct answer