LR Bible 2014 p. 340

[OriginalJane]

Dear David,

For the Statement Negation Drill, could you clarify the conditional structure of the phrase in question 10? Based on the answer, it appears as though 'reaching the scene on time' is the sufficient condition, while 'exactly one car' is the necessary condition. Could the phrase be read as follows: "If the police reach the scene on time, then there will be only one car?"

Thanks!

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hi Jane,

Thanks for your question.

The original statement, "Exactly one police car will reach the scene on time" does not exhibit the structure typically observed in conditional statements. The police reaching the scene on time is a certain outcome, not a condition sufficient or required for the occurrence of some other event. In other words, we know that the police will reach on time, so saying that something will happen "if" they do is somewhat redundant.

In the Statement Negation Drill, all you need to do is negate the original statement (some conditional, some not). The logical opposite of the statement in question is that it is not true that exactly one car will reach the scene on time. Maybe 100 cars will reach it. Or maybe none will. As long as it is not true that exactly one car reaches the scene, the negation will hold.

Just in case you start seeing conditional reasoning everywhere (which happens when you study for the LSAT, trust me), check out this blog post I wrote on the topic a few years back:

http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/288 ... Everywhere

Does that answer your question? Let me know.

Thanks!

[avengingangel]

Thanks Nikki, for this explanation. I has a slightly different question regarding #10, but I look forward to reading your blog post about "seeing" conditional reasoning everywhere, even when it is not.

What I originally wrote as my answer to this drill was "Exactly one police car will not reach the scene in time." Could that be the answer, too? Isn't that logically negating the statement that exactly one will ?? Why does it seem in the explanation that you have to negate the quantity construct ? Thanks!

[Shannon Parker]

Hey there,

I can understand the confusion here, and it's something that took me a while to get used to when I was studying for the LSAT. While we may consider the "exactly one police car will not reach the scene in time," to be the real world opposite of "exactly one police car will reach the scene in time," it implies that every police car will make it to the scene in time. The logical opposite of "exactly one police car will reach the scene in time," is that something other than one police car will reach the scene on time. This is best written as "it is not true that exactly one police car will reach the scene on time.

I hope this clears it up.

-Shannon

[avengingangel]

OH, DANG. That's meta. Thanks, Shannon!!