LSAT 103 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q7

LR Question 7 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Speakers of the Caronian language constitute a minority of the…

QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption

CONCLUSION: We can’t give Caronians their own country where they form a majority.

REASONING: We can’t give Caronians a connected country where they form a majority.

ANALYSIS: We tend to assume that all countries must be connected within a single border. Everyone seems to forget about Alaska, which is separated from the continental USA by Canada.

We might be able to satisfy the recommendation by giving the Caronians a disconnected country.

___________

1. We don’t care about the past. We want to know what we can do for the Caronians in the future.
2. This would help, but it’s also possible to have a nation made up of several different communities.
3. CORRECT. If this were false, then we could give the Caronians a disconnected country where they form the majority, and satisfy the recommendation.
4. This would strengthen the argument if true. This assumption would make it impossible to create a “pure” Caronian nation without ethnic cleansing. But this isn’t necessary to the argument. We might not be able to satisfy the recommendation even if the new nation could have non-Caronians.
5. Would the argument be hurt if different languages were only spoken in 49% of nations (not most)?
    
   Also, we’re not told if Caronia must be monolingual.

Recap: The question begins with “Speakers of the Caronian language constitute a minority of the”. It is a Necessary Assumption question. Learn how to master LSAT Necessary questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.