#13 - Art theft from museums is on the rise. Most stolen art

[Kp13]

Thanks very much Ron for the detailed response. It helped a lot!

[Ron Gore]

You're welcome.

[KG!]

HI I guess my thought process was similar to you all presented it in the explanation, but do you all mind checking it?

My prephrase/thought process was:

1. Hmm it appears that the LSAT authors are equating or relating "most interested in buying" to "most valuable pieces" Well for starters this is flawed because we don't know if this is in fact true! Most interested in buying could be the smallest painting that is cheapest piece in the museum!

2. Prephrase: Find an answer choice that shows the author making MIB = MVP. The only choice to do this (although it is in a negated fashion) was answer choice B.

Thoughts on my thinking?

Thanks in advance!

[Adam Tyson]

Perfect! Good job, KG!

[AJITSHARMA880]

Hello,

Is it a typical pattern in LSAT that the answer is a contrapositive, because a contrapositive should blow up the argument, but in this case, why is it a correct answer? I am talking about the answer choice B.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi AJITSHARMA,

I'm not sure what you mean by your statement:

"because a contrapositive should blow up the argument"

I think that you may be confusing contrapositives with negations. These are not at all the same. For Assumption questions, the negation of the correct answer will attack/weaken the argument, not the contrapositive.

When an answer choice is a conditional statement, it can appear either as the "original" statement or in the form of the contrapositive. A contrapositive is simply a logically equivalent statement to the original conditional statement in a different form. Think of the "original" and its contrapositive as two different sides of the same coin. They look/sound different, but are identical in meaning.

The test makers often show conditional answers in the form of the contrapositive in order to increase the difficulty of certain questions and test whether test takers recognize answers in their contrapositive form.

This is a completely separate concept than negating an answer choice, which is turning an answer choice into its logical opposite (regardless of whether the answer is conditional or not).

More information on conditional reasoning, including contrapositives, and Assumption questions, including the Assumption Negation Technique, can be found in "The Logical Reasoning Bible."