LR Question 12 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Rosen: One cannot prepare a good meal from bad food…
QUESTION TYPE: Must be True
Facts/Chain of REASONING:
Good meal ➞ Good food ➞ Good soil ➞ good farming ➞ culture of maintenance of natural resources.
ANALYSIS: This is definitely a question to diagram. It’s one long chain of conditional statements. You need to get it all straight in your head before trying to answer the question.
___________
- CORRECT. The final statement is having a culture of maintenance of natural resources.
- It’s the other way around. Farming needs natural resources.
- This is backwards. Soil needs farming, but farming might not need good soil.
- This is backwards. Cuisine needs culture, but culture might not be sufficient for cuisine.
- There could be many reasons why food is bad. All we know is that soil and farming are necessary for good food. But they aren’t sufficient.
More Resources for Must Be True Questions
- Conditional Reasoning Article: Learn about conditional statements on the LSAT.
- LR Diagrams Guide: Learn how to draw LR diagrams.
- Intro to Conditional Reasoning: This intro course lesson covers conditional reasoning basics.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Must Be True questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers must be true questions.
BUT the logical opposite of Bad Food isn’t “good food ” !! It’s “not bad food” (similar to how the logical opposite of cold is not hot, it’s just “not cold”). I still got this answer correct because the other answer choices were backwards, but, still, can someone address that point ?? I am very careful not to make that mistake when doing questions, so would just like to get someone’s perspective here. thanks !!!!!!
You’re right that, for example, the logical opposite of bad soil is technically “not bad soil”. And it’s good to have the instinct of taking the logical opposite as you did.
I agree that the question is poorly worded. My guess is that LSAC might support this question and its response by arguing that it’s a common sense assumption to say that the negation/opposite of bad soil is good soil, i.e. to say that soil is neutral or somewhere in-between is not very commonplace. They also might apply this logic to “good food”, “good farming”, etc.