If Then

If a few future lawyers are irked, some future lawyers are irritated, and many future lawyers are weighing the benefits of aggravated assault, then what can you deduce about most future lawyers?

According to the LSAT prep instructor holding court in the basement of the Hotel Monticello: not a damn thing.

Curiously, all the future lawyers in the room appear conclusively pissed. But that is not an answer choice.

As it turns out, the words “few”, “some”, and “many” mean the same thing: a number between one and infinity. Who knew? (Offhand, you may be able to think a few people who didn’t know, like, say, all the Talmudic scholars you’ve ever met, the editors at The New York Times, and Mr. Webster himself, but la heim!) To complain is futile!

Yet somehow, in every LSAT prep class there are at least two Ivy Leaguers hell-bent on futility. Book-smart and street-silly, these anti-test crusaders insist on challenging every answer choice with a barrage of faux-philosophical, deeply personal questions.

“I am struggling with the word “except”’, whines one Ivy-diva. “Can you graph the linear, paradoxical, and emotional implications of “except” then hold still like a statue until I’m sure I understand?”

Revealing a deep misunderstanding of social cues, she prods long after answers A though D are eliminated; until (at last!) the instructor cedes ground to the possibility that “an answer may not exist in this stratosphere”. 

Meanwhile, her peers are curled in the fetal position on the floor trying to identify the flaw in the following statement:

People who attend Ivy League Universities are more likely to succeed in school. People who do not attend Ivy League Universities are less likely to succeed in school. Therefore, people who attend Ivy League Universities are more likely to succeed.

The LSAT prep instructor, ever-mindful of the type of person who will pursue the money-back guarantee, allows this lady, the bane of his existence, to yap indefinitely while his non-ivy clients finally discover the flaw:

The statement erroneously assumes that “success in school” is a sufficient condition for “success” in life.

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