LSAT 141 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q12

LR Question 12 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Worldwide, more books were sold last year…

QUESTION TYPE: Most Strongly Supported

FACTS:

1. Worldwide book sales are at their highest level ever.
2. Last year, more cookbooks were sold than before.
3. Most of those cookbooks were meant for non-beginners. This has never happened before.
4. More cookbooks than ever were bought by professional cooks.
5. Problem-Free Cooking, a book for beginners, it one of those available on every continent.

ANALYSIS: On the LSAT, some words are more important than others. “Most” is one of those words. This question is testing how well you understand the concept of “more books” and “most of those books”.

We know most cookbooks were not meant for first time users, and that this has never happened before. And also, more books were sold than ever.

So we can say that more cookbooks for non-beginners were sold last year than ever before. I’ll illustrate with some numbers:

Previous year: 900 books sold, 400 for advanced users. (400/900 is less than most)

Last year: 1,000 books sold, 501 for advanced users. (501/1000 is most)

You could make as many examples as you like, but the advanced users number will always be bigger in the second year, because the number of books sold increased, and so did the portion of books bought by advanced users.

The questions presents a lot of information. It’s trying to drown you in details. Focus on key concepts like most, and aim to see what’s certain.

___________

1. CORRECT. See the analysis above.
2. This answer wants you to think of Problem-Free Cooking. But we don’t know if it was best selling. We only know it’s available on all continents. A book can be available on all continents without being a best seller.
3. This could be true, but doesn’t have to be. Cookbook sales were up last year. So it’s possible that more professional and more non-professional books were sold, even though a greater percentage of cookbooks were for professionals.
4. We don’t know this. We know more cooks bought books. But they might have been a tiny proportional of non-beginner purchasers. Advanced home cooks might be the biggest purchasers of books for non-beginners.
5. We have no idea. A book can be available on all continents without being a best seller.