LSAT 137 | Section 3 | Logical Reasoning: Q3

LR Question 3 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Unless the building permit is obtained by February 1 of…

QUESTION TYPE: Sufficient Assumption

CONCLUSION: The library won’t be completed on schedule.

REASONING: No building permit AND other stuff not finished faster than planned ➞ building not completed on time

ANALYSIS: This stimulus gives us two conditions for the conclusion. We need both to conclude anything. Yet the argument only mentions the permit not being available by February 1st.

To prove that the building won’t be completed on time, we also need to know that the preliminary work won’t be finished faster than planned.

___________

1. CORRECT. This was the second half of the sufficient condition. If we know this, we know the building will be late.
2. The officials’ beliefs don’t matter. We want certainty that the building won’t be finished on schedule.
3. The stimulus already told us we won’t get the building permit by February 1st. We don’t need any extra building permit evidence!
4. This is irrelevant. The stimulus told us the building permit won’t come by February 1st. That’s all we need to know.
5. This strengthens the argument, but it doesn’t prove it. The only way to prove it is by using the sufficient conditions listed in the reasoning. (No building permit AND other stuff not finished faster than planned)