MBT conditional reasoning

[parisielvirac]

When the stimulus contains a single conditional statement followed by a Must Be True question stem, the correct answer choice could be a contrapositive. What I don't understand from lesson 2 is if the correct statement could be a conditional statement worded very similarly?

[parisielvirac]

When the stimulus contains a single conditional statement followed by a Must Be True question stem, the correct answer choice could be a contrapositive. What I don't understand from lesson 2 is if the correct statement could be a conditional statement worded very similarly?

Or if simply the only answer to a must be true question and conditional statement is a contrapositive, or a conditional statement itself reworded, since those are the only two valid options we can prove? or will they not restate the conditional rule in the question answers? Thanks

[KelseyWoods]

Hi parisielvirac!

With any stimulus in the LR section, there are multiple things that must be true based on it. A Must Be True question is only asking you to identify one of the things that must be true and any answer choice that must be true would be the correct answer.

That said, there are types of answer choices the LSAT is typically looking for. As you noted, when we have a conditional statement in a Must Be True question, often the correct answer will have to do with the contrapositive of that statement. When you have multiple conditional statements in a Must Be True question, often the correct answer will have to do with chaining those statements together. But does the correct answer ALWAYS have to come from the contrapositive or from chaining multiple conditional statements together? No.

So could the correct answer in a Must Be True question, instead of being the contrapositive, basically just restate the conditional statement from the stimulus? Sure. If it was stated in the stimulus, then it is something that must be true. And if it is something that must be true based on the stimulus, then it must be the correct answer. But usually, the LSAT isn't going to give you a direct restatement because that would be a bit simple. More likely, they might apply a conditional rule to a specific scenario. For example, the stimulus might say "All doctors are wealthy." A correct answer choice might say something like "If Cindy is a doctor, then Cindy is wealthy." And if something looks like it's just rewording the conditional statement, pay careful attention to how they've reworded it and make sure they haven't changed up some key words/ideas/relationships so that it looks like it is rewording the conditional rule, but is actually saying something a little different that isn't supported by the stimulus..

Prephrasing the contrapositive in questions like this doesn't mean the correct answer has to be the contrapositive. It just means you're prepared to recognize the contrapositive. But you should also be prepared to recognize anything else that must be true based on the stimulus.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey