PT 58, S3, Q19, Anyone who believes in democracy...

[bbirdwell]

Great example of a tough problem that can be easily solved with the correct approach to logical diagramming. These "if assumed" questions are best approached as a sort of connect-the-dots game. Here are the important elements:

if one believes in democracy ----> one has high regard for wisdom of masses

Griley is an elitist.
Griley believes: unpopular artwork is unlikely to be good

Conclusion: Griley does not believe in democracy.

Notice that the only piece of evidence we have in determining "belief in democracy" has something to do with "high regard for wisdom of masses." In order to arrive at a conclusion, that conclusion must appear on the RIGHT side of our conditional logic arrows. So we must ask ourselves, does any of the evidence we have point to "no belief in democracy"?

Yes! If contrapose the very first statement, we get this:

if one has NO high regard for wisdom of masses ---> one does NOT believe in democracy.

Thus, based on the evidence presented, we can only conclude that Griley has no belief in democracy if we know he has no high regard for the wisdom of the masses.

Now, connect the dots. In order to draw the conclusion, we MUST connect one of the two things we know about Griley to "no high regard for the wisdom of the masses." We can predict, then, that the correct answer will be some variation of one of the following two ideas:

if one is an elitist ---> one has no high regard for wisdom of the masses
or
if one believes unpopular art is unlikely to be good ---> one has no high regard for the masses.

Answer choice (B) does this beautifully.

(A) Does not lead to "wisdom of the masses," which means it won't lead us to "no belief in democracy"

(C) Close, but the "not an elitist" is the opposite of what we need.

(D) Close again, but backwards. We need it to go the other direction, from elitist or unpopular art ---> no high regard.

(E) Close, but doesn't do it. We must choose an answer that makes the conclusion valid, meaning we must connect the premises to the conclusion in a logical fashion. This is simply a scrambled version of the conclusion itself.

These problems seem tough when you're not sharp at putting them in that if/then construction, but it's a potent skill for the LSAT, and once you have it down, you'll beg for more of these questions. It makes them game-like and concrete. You'll know exactly when you have the right answer.