LSAT PrepTest 43 Section 3 Question 24 Explanation | Logical Reasoning

I didn't write the following blog post. It was already on the blog when I took over the URL. The following blog post may contain mistakes. -Steve

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Here's a Logical Reasoning question from the June 2004 LSAT.

Let's make a quick chain of phrases:

Some new grads want environment --> all want salary --> Only a few vets consider stress --> all new grads want vacation

Considering all that, let's look at the choices:

A) Out of scope. The argument makes no claim about everyone who cares about environment. It says all new grads care about it. Maybe other people care about the environment also, but these people don't care about salary as the new grads do. The argument doesn't address this, so this choice needn't be true.

B) Correct. The argument says some new grads care about environment, and all new grads care about vacation. As such, new grads who care about the environment also care about vacation.

C) Wrong for a reason similar to A. The argument makes no claim about people who care about environment in general. It just says some new grads care about it. We don't know if this choice is true or not, so we can eliminate it.

D) Wrong for about the same reason as A and C. The argument makes no claim about everyone who considers vacation policy. It just says all new grads care about vacation. Maybe people besides new grads who care about vacation don't care about salary.

E) Wrong for the same reason as the others. The argument makes no claim about everyone who cares about salary. All new grads all care about salary, but they might only be one group of those who care about salary. Maybe a bunch of other people (who aren't new grads) care about both salary and stress. We don't know, so this choice needn't be true.

Remember:

1) Use a chain of phrases to make sense of the argument.

2) Eliminate choices outside the scope of the argument. If the argument never addresses the topic of an answer choice, the answer choice isn't required / necessary for the argument to work.