LSAT 115 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q21

LR Question 21 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Cognitive psychologist: The majority of skilled…

QUESTION TYPE: Sufficient Assumption

CONCLUSION: Some people who are good at abstract reasoning are famous

REASONING: Most skilled artists are creative, and everyone creative is good at abstract reasoning. Some skilled artists are not famous.

ANALYSIS: If only 10% of skilled artists are famous, then this isn’t a very good argument. Maybe those 10% of skilled artists aren’t part of the >50% of skills artists who are creative.

If we knew that more than half of skilled artists are famous, then we could combine that with the statement that more than half of skilled artists are creative and conclude that some famous people are creative and famous.

• SA (most) F
• SA (most) C

Whenever you have two most statements with the same term on the left, you can make a “some” statement by combining the two terms on the right. So some people who are famous are also creative and therefore skilled at abstract reasoning.

This isn’t always obvious, so I’ll try a simple numerical example. Imagine 3 families. Most of them have dogs, and most of them have cats. That means at least 1 family has both cats and dogs.

Two families must have cats, and two must have dogs. Family A and B have dogs. Family B and C have cats.

___________

1. We already know this. Most skilled artists are good at abstract reasoning because most skilled artists are creative.
2. This doesn’t tell us if any of them are famous.
3. We already know this, it can’t help us.
4. In our scenario, we already know that creative people are good at abstract reasoning. We didn’t have any example of someone being good at abstract reasoning without also having been creative.
5. CORRECT. See the discussion in “Analysis.”

Recap: The question begins with “Cognitive psychologist: The majority of skilled”. It is a Sufficient Assumption question. Learn how to master LSAT Sufficient questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.