#9 - Even though she thought the informant was untrustworthy

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[swt2003]

There are three ways to have the identity revealed:

if False info --------> Revealed

If Judge Order -------> Revealed

if Editor Order --------> Revealed


Conclusion: Info concerns safety violation therefore identity will be revealed


Answer C.

If safety issue -----------> Judge's Order

if Safety----------> Judge------------>Reveal

This can be demonstrated abstractly as follows: if A------>B------->C. Therefore if A----->C

[erust2]

What is wrong with B? The “unless” led me to ....
editor order reveal —-> accuarate and safety issue.


Is the “accurate” part of the problem for answer B?

[Malila Robinson]

Hi erust 2,
Since this is a Justify question we need to add something that will make the conclusion true. B is simply restating the conclusion (the last 2 sentences) without adding a link between the premises and conclusion (which is what is done in Answer C).
Hope that helps!
-Malila

[EmmasMama]

Hi! I am really confused as to why this is a justify question when the question stimulus has the word "assume" Wouldn't that make it an assumption question? If not, how can we tell the difference between assumption and justify on the test?

[mollyquillin]

I'm also wondering - how would we diagram this correctly? I want to be sure I understand the logic. I didn't diagram this question in my practice test and I got the question wrong... Thanks!

[Frank Peter]

Hi! I am really confused as to why this is a justify question when the question stimulus has the word "assume" Wouldn't that make it an assumption question? If not, how can we tell the difference between assumption and justify on the test?

Hi EmmasMama,

What makes this a justify question is the presence of the word "if" in the question stem, as in "if which one of the following is assumed." "If" is a sufficient condition indicator - when we have a sufficient condition, it is a guarantee that we will also have the necessary condition. Essentially, what this question stem is asking us to do is to come up with an additional premise which will guarantee the conclusion. Even though it is not technically using the word "justify", it logically works the same as a normal justify the conclusion question.

The bigger takeaway here is to watch out for nuances in question stems. The word "assume" doesn't always mean that you can think about the question as a regular assumption question, as we saw here. Also, when we see the word "justify" in a question stem, we have to pay attention to whether there is anything in the question stem that would lessen the degree of justification. For example, if a question stem asks "which one of the following does the most to justify the conclusion", that technically is closer to a strengthen question, since our answer choice does not have to completely justify the argument, it just has to do a better job of trying to justify it than the rest of the answer choices.

[Frank Peter]

I'm also wondering - how would we diagram this correctly? I want to be sure I understand the logic. I didn't diagram this question in my practice test and I got the question wrong... Thanks!

Hi Molly,

I would diagram it this way:

False Info Identity Revealed
Ordered by Judge OR Editor Identity Revealed

When conditional reasoning isn't presented in the most straightforward manner, I like to tell students to focus on trying to pick out the necessary condition language, since it is often more forceful and definite than sufficient condition language. In the first sentence, the necessary condition is indicated by the phrase "so long as." When diagramming this, I initially took the contrapositive of the first statement above because it tracks more closely to the presentation in the stimulus: ~Identity Revealed ~False Info.

[mollyquillin]

Ahhh, thank you so much Frank! I appreciate it.

[AnimalCrossingLSATer]

Hi Powerscore!

I just wanted to begin my first-ever post on here by saying that I've been using the forum for a while (at least the past few months) and I appreciate all of the work that you do in dissecting questions and explaining why answers are correct/incorrect. I'm scheduled to take the LSAT-Flex in February, so I anticipate posting a few times as needed as I go through PrepTests. (I also have the PowerScore Bible Trilogy, although I got those back in 2017, and those have been helpful as well.)

So here's my post: I erroneously chose answer choice A, and would like clarification as to what separates A from C (the correct answer choice). i do get that C is correct, because C provides the proper linkage between the third sentence of the stimulus (the information concerning safety violations) and the conclusion by way of the judge ordering the journalist to reveal the informant's identity (the journalist will surely reveal the informant's identity), as noted in the first non-Administrator post on this.

My line of thinking with A (the informant's information is known to be false), at the time I did this section timed, was:

First sentence of the stimulus: Journalist promised NOT to reveal the informant's identity --> the information from the informant does NOT turn out to be false

With the contrapositive of the above, as I understand it to be:

The information turns out to BE false --> Journalist DOESN'T promise NOT to reveal identity. (i.e. the journalist MAY reveal identity)

And then I thought, "ok! A is the sufficient indicator of the contrapositive (above), so A seems to be good!"

Now, as I typed this, I realized that I may committed a mistaken reversal during my timed section: I mistakenly assumed "so long as", separating the concepts of revealing the informant's identity and the information not turning out to be false, as introducing the necessary, when it's actually introducing the sufficient (as I understand from this article within Powerscore's Forum: viewtopic.php?t=27015).

So it appears that the first sentence should have been read as:

The information DIDN'T turn out to be false --> Journalist promised NOT to reveal identity

CONTRAPOSITIVE: Promised to reveal identity --> the information turned out to be false

So, is A incorrect because it relies on a mistaken reversal of the conditional in the first sentence as noted above? This may have been the first time seeing a conditional using "so long as" type language, which I found unusual in the several LR sections I've done to date.

Thanks very much for your input on this! I realize it's a long response on here, but am intending to share my thought process on here, and in case any LSAT studiers happen to have the same thought process that I did at the time of posting this.