Many prep companies make the mistake of failing to distinguish between Most Strongly Supported and Must Be True.
They place "Most Supported" / "Most Strongly Supported" Logical Reasoning questions under the category of "Must Be True" questions. This is incorrect.
It's understandable.
After all, the answer to a Most Strongly Supported question is sometimes something that Must Be True. After all, something that Must Be True based upon the stimulus can certainly be said to be the Most Strongly Supported of the answer choices. It's 100% supported by the stimulus, and you can't support something more than 100%.
For this reason, you can sometimes treat Most Strongly Supported questions like Must Be True / Inference questions.
However, keep in mind that the test-writers have some wiggle-room with Most Supported questions. The question is not asking for what Must Be True, so our task is not always to find something that Must Be True.
Instead, we must look for what's Most Supported among the choices, and the correct answer choice will not necessarily be supported 100% of the way. While it's certainly easier when the correct answer happens to be something that Must Be True, the correct answer choice does not necessarily have to be true. If you find yourself staring at 5 choices, and none of them appears to be a Must, look for the answer choice that's Most Likely To Be True.
To summarize:
It's incorrect to treat Most Strongly Supported questions as Must Be True questions because the correct answer doesn't necessarily need to be true. It's just the answer choice that's most likely to be true.
Examples:
I've picked two examples from The Next 10 Actual Official LSAT PrepTests, and an example from a recent LSAT PrepTest, to illustrate the difference.
First, a Most Strongly Supported question where the correct answer Must Be True:
PrepTest 36 (December 2001), Section 1, Question 16 (page 258 in Next 10)
The evidence gives examples of countries with viable economies that have populations of fewer than 7 million - everything listed aside from Switzerland and Austria, which leaves Israel, Ireland, Denmark, and Finland.
Therefore, it must be true that economic viability doesn't require having a population of at least 7 million.
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Now, a Most Strongly Supported question where the correct answer is Most Likely to Be True but is not necessarily something that Must Be True:
PrepTest 33 (December 2000), Section 3, Question 13 (page 171 in Next 10)
To say that the credited response Must Be True would be to commit the post hoc fallacy (a type of correlation/causation fallacy). Yes, the argument in the stimulus states that once ramps, etc., are installed, wheelchair users come there. However, this is only a correlation.
The sudden arrival of wheelchair users could simply be a coincidence, or perhaps there's something else going on - some third variable at play.
For example, maybe the wheelchair users didn't go to those areas in the past for other reasons. Maybe the non-accommodation-providing business areas were managed by jerks, and their jerkitude was the real reason the wheelchair users didn't frequent the area. Maybe the new business area managers happen to be nice people and the wheelchair users like to hang out with them.
However, out of the 5 choices, it is Most Likely To Be True that the wheelchair users didn't come there in the past due to the lack of proper accommodations.
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I'm also explaining a Most Strongly Supported question in a recent exam where the answer did not necessarily have to be true.
I'm posting this explanation in the comments to avoid corrupting this recent LSAT PrepTest for those of you who intend to take this as a full-length timed exam. If you like, take a quick peek at the bolded portion of the comment to see if it's from an exam you intend to save for later.
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You can find more information about the difference between Must Be True and Most Strongly Supported on pages 20-22 of LSAC's SuperPrep.
Photo by ms_cwang / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
