LSAT 8 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q12

LR Question 12 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: It is clear that none of the volleyball players at yesterday’s…

QUESTION TYPE: Parallel Reasoning

CONCLUSION: None of the volleyball players at the office party came to work.

REASONING: Every volleyball player got sunburned. No one at work today was sunburned.

ANALYSIS: This is a good argument. If you aren’t sunburned then you didn’t play volleyball. Since no one at work is sunburned then no one at work is a volleyball player.

Normally it’s important to mirror the structure. There was one sufficient necessary condition, and the argument required taking the contrapositive of that condition.

Not sunburned ➞ not a volleyball player (the contrapositive of the statement)

But in this case, all four of the wrong answer choices are bad arguments. The structure of answer choice D doesn’t quite match but that’s all right. It’s the only good argument.

___________

1. The conclusion is wrong. It’s possible that some TRF employees were not given the opportunity to purchase dental insurance.
2. This makes an incorrect negation. Sure, everyone who was promoted went. But maybe people who weren’t promoted went too. Maybe the whole company went.
3. You may have a reputation for being hardworking despite the fact that you are lazy. Or vice versa. Reputation is not the same things as actually being something.
4. CORRECT. If you take a July vacation, then you don’t work for the president. Therefore nobody on the second floor will take a July vacation since they all work for the president.
5. Actually, this provides strong evidence that MXM isn’t hiring anybody. How could it be hiring if everyone has been there at least five years?

Recap: The question begins with “It is clear that none of the volleyball players at yesterday’s”. It is a Parallel Reasoning question. Learn more about LSAT Parallel questions in our guide to LSAT Logical Reasoning question types.