#22 - One can be at home and be in the backyard, that is,

[netherlands]

The second time around I was able to choose the right answer on this one via the process of elimination. BUT! I'm still not 100% sure what C is actually saying to me...

Sentence 1: "One can be at home and not in one's house"
Conclusion: "Being at home is not required for one's being in one's own house

Basically: Being at home doesn't require one's house, Being at one's house doesn't require being at one's home. The two just the reverse of one another - and are compatible with one another.

Home House (Neither requires the other)

Just looking for thoughts on this question.

Thanks!

[Jason Schultz]

Hi netherlands,

The issue is that the statement "Being 'at home' without being in one's house" is not directly related to the argument's conclusion. As you pointed out, neither requires the other as a necessary condition. However, they don't contradict each other either, so one statement ("I'm at home but not in my own house") can be independently true or false of the other statement ("I'm in my own house but not at home"). Accordingly, they are compatible regardless of the truth of falsity either statement.

[brettb]

I have a hypothetical question.

If the question stem had asked us how the second sentence relates to the conclusion what would be the correct answer in that case?

Thanks,

Brett

[Nikki Siclunov]

Brett,

Great question! The argument has two premises. The first premise suggests that being at home does not require being in one's house, because one can be at home without being in one's house:

• Premise (1): Home, House

The second premise suggests that being in one's house does not require being at home, because one can be in one's house without being at home:

• Premise (2): House, Home

These two premises, when combined, justify a conclusion whereby neither condition requires the other:

• NOT TRUE: (House Home)

The conclusion in the stimulus, however, only rejects half of this negation:

• Conclusion: NOT TRUE: (House Home)

The conclusion is properly supported by the second premise only, showing that the sufficient condition can occur in the absence of the necessary condition. Indeed, if the stem had asked us to describe the relationship between the argument's conclusion and its claim that one can be in one's house without being at home (premise 2), the correct answer choice would have been (A) - the claim in the second sentence is required to establish the conclusion.

The claim in the first sentence, by contrast, has no relevance to the conclusion as stated. For that claim to have the same evidentiary relevance, the conclusion should have stated, "So, one's being in one's own house is not required for one's being at home."

Does this help? Let me know.

Thanks!

[PresidentLSAT]

Hello,

Is there a difference between, "compatible with accepting or denying an argument" and "compatible with the truth or falsity of an argument?"

I adapted the same principle from PT 3 S4 Q,20 and got this question wrong. What I got from my review was that a statement that is compatible with accepting or denying an argument doesn't offer support or contradict the argument. It's sort of a preliminary premise.

Applying it to this specific question makes choice C problematic. Choice C DOES offer support. The conclusion doesn't hold without it. If I eliminate the first sentence, my conclusion is weak. It only justifies being in your house and not being at home-which isn't what the conclusion is about. is there anything I'm missing here?

Many thanks

[Robert Carroll]

Pres,

The phrase "compatible with the truth or falsity of an argument" would not occur on the LSAT, because arguments are not true or false, but valid or invalid. Statements within arguments, including premises or conclusion (even beyond that, any declarative statement in a stimulus) can be true or false, but an argument is not a statement. An argument is an attempt to prove a point using certain evidence.

The phrase "compatible with accepting or denying an argument" would probably not occur either. You might accept or deny a premise or conclusion, but accepting or denying an argument doesn't strike me as the right way to put things.

The correct answer for PT 3, Section 4, Question 20 says "It is compatible either with accepting the conclusion or with denying it." So, as I said, a declarative statement like a premise or conclusion could be accepted or denied, but nothing in that answer choice talks about accepting or denying the argument.

I think there is a slight difference between the statement in PT 3 S4 Q20 and the statement in this stimulus that the question is talking about. In PT3, the author isn't even trying to use the statement as a premise. So I think "preliminary" is fine, but "preliminary premise" isn't a good description. Here, the statement in the question is something that I think the author might THINK supports the conclusion, but it actually doesn't at all. To show that "home" is not necessary for "house", all you have to do is show a situation where one is in a house but not at home, and the second sentence alone takes care of that entirely. The first sentence has no role in the argument.

A lot of this is gone over in Nikki's post right above yours, so I don't want to belabor it unless you have questions that remain, but I'd read my post and Nikki's, and let us know if you have any further questions.

Robert Carroll

[Robert Carroll]

Follow-up:

It only justifies being in your house and not being at home-which isn't what the conclusion is about.

That is exactly what the conclusion is about: "being at home is not required for one’s being in one’s own house".

Robert Carroll

[ashpine17]

is A describing a necessary or sufficient assumption? would A be referring to the first sentence? Doesn't the first sentence prove sufficient to establish the conclusion?

[ashpine17]

Was the second sentence completely useless then? A distraction?

[Adam Tyson]

Answer A describes a necessary assumption, and I don't think it accurately describes the second sentence, although it's close. That claim wasn't necessary, although it was sufficient to prove the conclusion. The second sentence was certainly useful to the test makers, because it caused many students confusion! But that's all it was therefore, and the question was not asking anything about it, so in that sense, yes, it was useless to us as the test-takers.