LSAT 64, Logical Reasoning II, Q21, LSATHacks

QUESTION TEXT: Economics professor: Marty’s Pizza and Checkers Piz…

QUESTION TYPE: Sufficient Assumption

CONCLUSION: Checkers wanted to hurt Marty’s pizza when it refused the coupons.

REASONING: Accepting the coupons would have cost Checkers nothing and pleased Checkers’ customers.

ANALYSIS: We know two things about Checkers.

1. They would not have been hurt by accepting the coupons.
2. They would have pleased their customers. 

We’re trying to prove that Checkers refused because it wanted to hurt Marty’s. We can prove the argument correct by showing that refusing + 1 or 2 above = wanting to hurt a competitor. Either one of these would work:

No harm to accepting, but company refuses ➞ motive to hurt competitor, OR
Customers would have been pleased, but company refuses ➞ motive to hurt competitor

___________

1. CORRECT. This is the second sufficient-necessary statement above. We know Checkers could have pleased some customers, but they refused the coupons. This proves that their only motive must have been to hurt Marty’s. 
2. This tells us what happens when a company wants to hurt a competitor. But we don’t know that’s true of Checkers….that’s what we’re trying to prove!
3. So, one company wants to hurt a competitor. But is it Checkers pizza, or some unrelated company? 
4. This tells us why Checkers might have thought refusing the coupons would hurt Marty’s. But it doesn’t tell us that Checker’s did refuse the coupon’s in order to hurt Marty’s. They might have had some other reason. Maybe Checkers’ owner is philosophically opposed to coupons?
5. This is completely off target. Checkers would have satisfied customers by accepting coupons. Further, this answer choice only lets us conclude that someone was motivated to help customers. We want to conclude Checkers was motivated to hurt a competitor.

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