#2 - Ann: All the campers at Camp Winnehatchee go to

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Must Be True-SN. The correct answer choice is (E)

In this dialogue we have two conditional statements:

• Ann: All campers from camp W go to Tri-Cities High: Camp W → TC
  
  Bill: TC Camp L

Although Bill thinks that there is some disagreement, this simply reflects his misunderstanding: there is no contradiction when we combine these two conditional statements:

• Camp W → TC Camp L

So, looks like Bill got the wrong impression—he must think that Ann’s claim is as follows:

• TC → Camp W

If Ann were claiming that all Tri-Cities students attend Camp W, then Bill would be right to object, based on the fact that some of those students go to Camp Lakemont. Correct answer choice (E) reflects this misunderstanding.

Answer choice (A): This answer choice is incorrect; the word “most” takes this out of contention, because we are looking for a sufficient-necessary relationship (denoted with indicator words such as “all,” “every,” “none,” or “only.”

Answer choice (B): This answer choice is incorrect for the same reason as answer choice (A) above: “most” does not reflect the conditional relationship that we are looking for.

Answer choice (C): Like both incorrect answer choices above, this answer can be taken out of contention based on the presence of one word: “some.” Since this answer does not reflect Bill’s misunderstanding, this choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (D): There is no discussion of whether every single student a Tri-Cities attends summer camp in general—the discussion, rather, focuses on where they attend.

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice, as it perfectly reflects our prephrase above. Bill is under this mistaken impression: He thinks that Ann is saying the following: TC → Camp W

[rameday]

So I was able to get this one by process of elimination but I don't quite understand why E is the right answer!

I got the diagrams correct, noticed the chain relationship etc but I don't quite understand how that leads to the answer being E.

A

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hi rameday,

Thanks for your question. Did you get a chance to read our explanation of that question online? I assume you did. If not, definitely take a look.

Essentially, Ann says that all the campers at Camp W go to Tri-Cities High School:

Ann: Camp W TC High

Ben disagrees, claiming that some TC High students went to a different camp. Of course, the two claims are consistent with each other: Ann never said that all TC High students went to Camp W, nor did she argue that the only camp TC High students go is Camp W. By objecting to her claim, Ben shows that he misunderstood Ann to mean just that:

Ben thinks Ann said: TC High Camp W

Answer choice (E) properly reflects this misunderstanding on Ben's part, which is why answer choice (E) is correct.

Does that clear things up? Let me know!

[mile1114]

Hello,

What throws me off in this question is that answer choice (E) has the word ONLY at the beginning.

[Adam Tyson]

That's what makes it the right answer, mile 1114! That "only" indicates a necessary condition, and that's the mistake that Bill made: he seems to believe that what Ann meant is that if you are a camper from Tri-Cities, then you are a camper at Camp W. That's what we diagrammed here in this thread:

TC High Camp W

There are many ways to say this in plain English, and here are a few:

"IF you are a camper from TC High, THEN you go to Camp W"

"PEOPLE WHO go to TC High camp ONLY at Camp W"

"One cannot be a camper from TC High UNLESS one goes to Camp W"

"THE ONLY campers from TC High are the ones that go to Camp W" (watch out for this tricky construction using "the only"!)

"ONLY Camp W has campers who attend TC High"

That word "only" at the start of answer E is what expresses Bill's mistaken interpretation of Ann's statement. She meant that being at Camp W was SUFFICIENT for going to TC High, but Bill though she meant being at Camp W was NECESSARY. In other words, Bill made a classic mistaken reversal!

Isn't conditional reasoning fun? Keep coming back to play with us some more! (But seriously, I hope that helps clear it up, and we will continue to be here to help you with it, and anything else LSAT related, as long as you need us.)

[portilloa3]

I could use some help on identifying the sufficient / necessary conditions for both Ann and Bill.

I understand the concept on suff. & nec. conditions and how it is encouraged to turn these conditions into if... then... statements as much as possible, but I struggled with identifying the suff. & nec. conditions in this particular problem.

With Ann, I can see the "All" being the sufficient indicator, but with bill, it wasn't as clear.

Your input would clarify the concept a little more!

-Thanks!

[Charlie Melman]

Hi there,

I think you're not as clear with Bill because there actually aren't any sufficient and necessary conditions in his statement.

As you know, a if a sufficient condition triggers, then the necessary condition MUST trigger as well. But the word "some" in Bill's statement makes this impossible.

There are some Tri-Cities students who are campers at Camp Lakemont. But if we said

Tri-Cities student camper at Camp Lakemont

then we'd be saying that, if we know that X is a Tri-Cities student, we also know that X must be a camper at Camp Lakemont. But wait. We can't speak in absolutes like this, because only some Tri-Cities students are campers at Camp Lakemont. Some aren't.

Thus, when you see , we're absolutely, 100% sure that X is sufficient for Y. Here we're not, so we can't use . Not all statements have sufficient and necessary conditions.

Hope this helps, and let me know if I can assist further.

[portilloa3]

Thanks! That solidified the concept for me.

[kwcflynn]

So conditional reasoning only deals with indicator words such as "all," "every," none," and "only"? We should never be concerned with words such as "most," "some," and "many"?

[Dave Killoran]

So conditional reasoning only deals with indicator words such as "all," "every," none," and "only"? We should never be concerned with words such as "most," "some," and "many"?

It's not quite this simple, but certainly at the beginning you focus more on absolute terms in order to make things easier. As time passes and you become netter with the idea, you'll start to see how less absolute terms can play in conditional reasoning. For example, consider the following:

• If we win this playoff game, most of our fans will attend the championship game.
  
  Win playoff Most fans attend championship

It all depends on how it is used, of course, but the English language is so malleable that the test makers have many options.

Note also, the "some" in the original Winnehatchee problem wasn't ignored; it was used to determine what Bill thought Ann was originally saying. This was a critical part of helping to determine that we knew Bill had made a flaw in interpreting Ann's statement

Thanks!