Q9

[amywasylyk]

I am having trouble with question 9. I don't understand why answer B is correct. I think I'm confused by the language of the answer choices indicated "X or Y or both" and which one must be true, as it seems to me they all could be true, but I can't distinguish why one of them must occur, any help would be greatly appreciated.

[timmydoeslsat]

According the rules, we must have 4 selected and 3 not selected.

---------------IN----------------

_(J/K)_

_(N/P)_

_______

_______


---------------OUT----------------

_(J/K)_

_(N/P)_

_______


The rules set us up to where 4 are selected. One of J and K must be selected and the other one is not. Same situation with N and P.

Three people must be out. This means that we have only one slot left available.

Notice that it could not be the case that L and M are NOT selected. There would not be room. One of J/K and one of N/P must be out. Only one slot left. So it must be true that at least one of them must be selected, or both. The or both part was not even required to have been put on top the or statement. The LSAT "or" is not disjunctive. It always means or both unless other wise stated, such as "but not both."

[noah]

For #9, I had my answers narrowed down to B, C, D and I guessed B. From all my hypotheticals, I wasn't able to eliminate one of the 3, because they all appeared. Do you have any idea how I can derive at the correct answer?

You could consider the game like this:

In: K/J, N/P, ? ?
Out, K/J, N/P, ?

Who's left to fill those empty slots? Q, L and M. We'll need to use two of them. So, any answer that says we need one of the two of them will be correct. B nails it! Every other answer includes one of the other elements.

The second question of a game shouldn't generally require using hypotheticals and instead is calling upon a basic understanding of the game. Perhaps your approach to the game wasn't optimal if this second question was tough.