LSAT 131 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q19

LR Question 19 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: At a gathering at which bankers, athletes, and lawyers

QUESTION TYPE: Must be True

FACTS: Lawyer or Athlete → Banker

Banker → Lawyer and Athlete

ANALYSIS: On a short question like this, you should draw the relationships before looking at the answers.

If you got this wrong, this is a good one to review periodically, as it’s an excellent example of how you can make a “some” statement out of two necessary conditions. The key statement is this:

Banker → Lawyer and Athlete

We know Bankers are present. And that those bankers are not lawyers, but are athletes. So we can say “some athletes are not lawyers”.

If there are two necessary conditions, and the sufficient condition exists, then you can always make a “some” statement about the two necessary conditions. Basically if Bob is a banker, then he is an athlete and not a lawyer, so some people (i.e. Bob) are athletes and not lawyers.

___________

1. This is an incorrect reversal. Bankers are athletes, but some athletes could be non-bankers.
2. This could be true, but it doesn’t have to be.
3. CORRECT. This is true of bankers. They are both athletes, and not lawyers.
   When you have a statement like “Banker → Lawyer and Athlete”, then you can always make a some statement out of the two terms in the necessary condition. Assuming Banker exists, which it does in this case.
4. This is false. Bankers aren’t lawyers!
5. This doesn’t have to be true, because not all athletes are bankers. The athletes that aren’t bankers could be lawyers.