LSAT 159 | Section 3 | Logical Reasoning: Q22

LR Question 22 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: For a zoo to make a valuable contribution to the community …

QUESTION TYPE: Must Be True

FACTS:

1. If a zoo makes a valuable contribution, it must be well run.
2. All large zoos that are well run have some full-time vets.
3. Many small zoos that are well run only have part-time vets.
4. There are many large zoos that make valuable contributions and are open all year, while most small zoos are closed in winter.

ANALYSIS: There’s a lot of information here, so let’s start with the large zoos.

You can put facts 1 and 2 together: if valuable contribution -> well run -> some full-time vets.

We also know that many of the large zoos that make valuable contributions are open all year. So if some of the valuable ones have full-time vets and many are open all year, that means at least some zoos that are open all year have full-time vets.

We don’t know as much about small zoos. We can combine facts 1 and 3. If valuable -> well run -> many only have part-time vets.

(Note that this isn’t strictly a conditional statement because of the “many small zoos”).

We also know most small zoos are closed in the winter, but we don’t know for sure how this relates to facts 1 and 3, because it doesn’t say whether these zoos are valuable or not.

The safe move is to use only what is locked in by the facts. The only guaranteed outcome we can pinpoint is that some zoos that are open all year have full-time vets.

___________

1. We don’t know how many large zoos are well run. This goes beyond the facts.
2. This contradicts the stimulus. All large zoos that are well run have some full-time vets. That implies that some vets must be part-time.
3. This makes the mistake I warned about above. We only know that many well-run small zoos have only part-time vets, but we don’t know whether those zoos make valuable contributions. What if it’s the other well-run small zoos — the ones not in that “many” group — that make valuable contributions instead? Since “many” doesn’t mean “all,” we can’t assume the valuable ones fall into that subset.
4. CORRECT. See the explanation in the analysis. Many large zoos make valuable contributions and are open all year. Any zoo that makes VC must be well run, and all large, well-run zoos have some full-time vets. So at least some zoos that are open all year must have full-time vets.
5. We’re given nothing to support “most” here.