#10 - Cafeteria patron: The apples sold in this cafeteria

[Coleman]

Hi Laura,

Great question. The word "but" here just indicates the two ends of a time period. Think of the ends of string. "I took the train after breakfast but before lunch." Here, "breakfast" is one end of the string and "lunch" is on the other end. I took the train sometime between those ends. It can be helpful to make a note on your test when you see this again. You can write something like "Harvest |-------| Cafeteria" so you can clearly visualize the time period. Answer choice (A) is saying that the apples were NOT washed during that time. So with the Assumption Negation technique, you ask yourself "What would happen if the apples WERE harvested during that time?" Well, the pesticides would be washed off and the author's conclusion "Clearly, the cafeteria is selling pesticide covered fruit, thereby endangering its patrons" would be undermined.

Hope this helps. I like the way you're thinking - look at each question as an opportunity to learn skills and techniques you can apply on test day.

Now all these perfectly make sense to me since it merely "indicates the two ends of a time period." Like so many other people posted here, I fell for this little grammar trick that seems like test-makers intentionally devised.
However, I want to pose another question when it comes to the usage of "but."

I like everything about you BUT your personality.
= I like everything about you BUT (I don't like) your personality.

Can we break down the former statement like the latter one if it happened in the actual LSAT? Since the statement above is clearly different from what we dealt with the passage, (It doesn't imply any kind of time period at all) the conjunction 'but' here demonstrates a different implication within this sentence, correct?
Is there another good example that gives us more insight into this specific usage of BUT? I just want to make sure that this is not a particular rule that we have to follow during the LSAT aside from the common use of English.

Thanks in advance!

[Adam Tyson]

Correct, Coleman! "But" commonly introduces a contrary notion - a change in opinion, a change in time, an exception to a prior statement, etc. But it can also indicate other things, like an additional notion that adds to, rather than detracts from, the prior one (I did exactly that in this sentence). English is a real pain in the "but," isn't it?

[MeliXi]

Hi Laura,

Great question. The word "but" here just indicates the two ends of a time period. Think of the ends of string. "I took the train after breakfast but before lunch." Here, "breakfast" is one end of the string and "lunch" is on the other end. I took the train sometime between those ends. It can be helpful to make a note on your test when you see this again. You can write something like "Harvest |-------| Cafeteria" so you can clearly visualize the time period. Answer choice (A) is saying that the apples were NOT washed during that time. So with the Assumption Negation technique, you ask yourself "What would happen if the apples WERE harvested during that time?" Well, the pesticides would be washed off and the author's conclusion "Clearly, the cafeteria is selling pesticide covered fruit, thereby endangering its patrons" would be undermined.

Hope this helps. I like the way you're thinking - look at each question as an opportunity to learn skills and techniques you can apply on test day.

This is the ONLY explanation in the entire thread that actually helped me to clarify this very confusing question. thank you Kristina!
so "the apples that the cafeteria sells are not thoroughly washed after harvest but before reaching the cafeteria" does NOT mean "the apples weren't washed after harvest, however, they were washed before they got to the cafeteria" correct?
and just to restate Kristina's point to make sure I understand it:
"after harvest but before reaching the cafeteria" represents a timeline: "point 1: harvest_____________point 2: reaching the cafeteria"
at no moment throughout this entire timeline between these 2 points were the apples thoroughly washed. Am I understanding this correctly?

I feel like this answer choice was EXTREMELY unfair because isn't it fair to conclude that it could mean "the apples weren't washed after harvest, however, they were washed before they got to the cafeteria"? how are we supposed to know it means in terms of the timeline & not the aforementioned sentence?

[KelseyWoods]

Hi MeliXi!

You are understanding the idea of the timeline correctly!

As Kristina says, the Assumption Negation Technique can be extremely helpful for conceptualizing Necessary Assumption questions like this one.

If you negate answer choice (A) it becomes: The apples that the cafeteria sells ARE thoroughly washed after harvest but before reaching the cafeteria.

If the apples the cafeteria sells are washed after they are harvested but before they reach the cafeteria, that totally destroys the author's conclusion that the cafeteria is selling pesticide covered fruit. If the apples were washed before they got to the cafeteria, that would mean that they were no longer covered in pesticides.

Remember that with Necessary Assumption questions, we're looking for something that must be true if the conclusion stated follows from the premises given. In order for the conclusion that the cafeteria is selling pesticide covered fruit to be true, the fruit has to be unwashed. From the stimulus, wee already know the cafeteria doesn't wash it. So we have to know that it also wasn't washed before it got to the cafeteria. That's what answer choice (A) tells us.

Assumption questions are definitely tricky but they're fairly common so keep working at them! Check out this podcast about Necessary Assumption questions for further discussion on dealing with this question type: https://www.powerscore.com/lsat/podcast/11/

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[yjos1012]

Hi Dave,

I got tripped up on the language as well does power score provide any resources to assist with better understanding LSAT language to prepare for these type of questions with some what convoluted language .

[Jeff Wren]

Hi yjos,

Difficult language shows up throughout the LSAT in many different ways, and PowerScore discusses language throughout its materials based on topic. For example, there are discussions on how to recognize specific parts of arguments, conditional reasoning, causal reasoning, flaws, recognizing different question types, etc. all based on the language being used.

However, for a general discussion on how to handle difficult language, I'd actually suggest "The Reading Comprehension Bible" and "The Reading Comprehension Bible Workbook." The RC Bible has a discussion on this very topic, including "Killer Sentences." The Workbook includes language simplification drills that are helpful for this exact problem. Even though you're asking about logical reasoning, the same skills for decoding complex language in RC will apply to LR.