LSAT 130 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q25

LR Question 25 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: If a wig has any handmade components, it is more expensive

QUESTION TYPE: Sufficient Assumption

CONCLUSION: Made to measure wigs should be dry cleaned.

M2M → DC

REASONING: Made to measure wigs are medium to expensive

M2M → ME

Wigs with handmade foundations always use human hair.

Wigs with human hair should be dry cleaned.

HF → HH → DC

Note: Handmade foundation → Human hair is a hard sentence to understand. I find it helpful to think about it using your own knowledge of English. “Ok. So I will never find a handmade foundation on a wig that doesn’t use human hair. That means if I find no human hair, I can conclude no handmade foundation. So I can write HH → HF. Take the contrapositive, I get HF → HH”.

ANALYSIS: On sufficient assumption questions you should take the conclusion and split it apart. Then fill in the evidence. This will eventually lead you to a gap, which will be the right answer.

Split conclusion:

M2M DC

Conclusion with evidence filled in

M2M → ME HF → HH → DC

If we assume “medium to expensive wigs are made with handmade foundations (ME → HF)”, we prove the conclusion.

Note that the first sentence is just a distraction. It doesn’t lead anywhere. I didn’t include it in the reasoning.

___________

1. CORRECT. See the analysis above. If this is true, it means that any wig that is made-to-measure should be dry-cleaned.
2. This isn’t even true. The first sentence was talking about wigs with handmade components. So a wig without a handmade foundation could be more expensive if it had other handmade components.
   In any case, this doesn’t connect the conclusion to the evidence.
3. This doesn’t help connect handmade components to made-to-measure wigs.
4. This doesn’t help connect handmade foundations to made-to-measure wigs. A wig could be in the medium range without being made-to-measure.
5. This just incorrectly reverses the second part of the evidence. It doesn’t help us connect dry-cleaning to made-to-measure.