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I was wondering if anyone has found a way that works best to approach these question types? If so, PLEASE share.
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I was wondering if anyone has found a way that works best to approach these question types? If so, PLEASE share.
34 comments
@7491 I tagged you here so you could read the comments above on NA questions @lsultani877's approach helped me improve on these question types.
Haha thank you! I'm happy to have helped -- we're all in this TOGETHERR :)
Wow! Impressive. I’ll keep an eye out for that. Once again, thank you.
It's something that I've picked up on but I think falls into the larger category of "equivocations." I just think that we've been conditioned to see the terms "primary" and "necessary" as meaning the same: important. But, in la la LSAT land, the two terms couldn't be more different. "Necessary" means that you can write a conditional; "primary" means nothing. Or, at the very least, I haven't seen a counter-example to the observation that "primary" is meaningless when it comes to the LSAT and is best left ignored.
RE:Primary. Is that a concept/trend that you’ve just picked up or does any “educational source” discuss it. i’d love to understand the framework for it.
Shoot. Yes, I totally talked myself into (C) because (E) felt too perfect (again, I have this fear of choosing a sufficient assumption when they want a necessary assumption) during Blind Review. I chose (E) during the test but it’s amazing how you can quadruple-guess yourself.
Yes, I do think "primary concern" and "necessary" are different concepts. But I do think the reason (C) is wrong on a larger scale is because it's unrelated to the argument core/ main argument. It doesn't say anything about the how knowledge affects the fairness of a system, and I think you can eliminate (C) for that reason alone.
by the way, HUGE THANK YOU!
Also, I kept thinking that (E) was a Sufficient Assumption too. Am I right about that?
(E) was my front runner. But for some reason, I kept looking at the negated version of (C) (The primary concern in a legal system is NOT to administer punishments that are just.) and thinking. Well, that would wreck the argument. Hence, my paralysis.
“primary concern” when dealing with NA is very interesting concept that I have not thought about. Are you saying that the primary concern isn’t the necessary concern?
@igbodoe249 , I feel you on the "getting it from a theoretical standpoint" but DAFUQ how do I apply it. I remember this question and really like it so let's break it down:
Step 1: Identify the conclusion
"justice is not ensured"
Step 2: Why is this the case? (aka what's the major premise)
"most citizens lack knowledge"
This to me is what I call a classic "P" to "C" linkage NA problem. In simple terms, it means that, for this argument to hold true, P (the premise) actually has to have some affect on C (the conclusion). In our case, it HAS to be the case that knowledge has some affect on ensuring justice. If this is not true, then our entire argument falls apart because then we get: "most citizens lack knowledge" BUT "we can still have justice."
Step 3: ID the P to C link in the answer choice
This is how we get to (E). (E) is the answer choice we expect: knowledge (or lack of knowledge) impacts whether we can have a fair justice system. At first, I was thinking, "wait, criticizing experts?" That seems out of scope. But then I remembered that this is part of the conditional "ensure justice --> criticize experts" (contrapositive: no criticism --> no justice) so if we carry the (E) to its furthest logical conclusion, we get "citizens without knowledge of the legal system's punishments prevents justice from being ensured" (or something like that).
Step 4: Confirm the right answer by eliminating the wrong ones
A , B, C, D can all be found wrong because they don't have anything to do with the main argument (knowledge impacts the fairness of a justice system).
(A) "primary concern" -- we don't care about the primary concern, we care about what is necessary for justice to exist. Primary concern and people's view of justice don't tell us anything about what is necessary for justice.
(B) this is out of scope. B creates a condition "just --> effect of punishment" when the condition given to us in the stimulus is "just --> criticism")
(C) "primary concern" -- See A
(D) is wrong for all kinds of reasons. (1) why does it matter if a concern for punishment is incompatible with an emphasis on deterrence? What effect does this have on ensuring a just system? But (2), even if we say that deterrence does have an effect on the justness of a system, "concern for punishment" is not the same thing as the ability to criticize those who are involved in determining punishment: criticism, not concern, is what allows us to draw conclusions about whether or not justice can be ensured.
Does this help?
And thanks @lsultani877 and @2543.hopkins for your speedy replies. :)
It’s weird. I get it from a theoretical standpoint (SAs fill the gap, NAs don’t have to, required, but not helpful, necessary but not enough, negation test will wreck the argument, etc...). But once I have to apply it to a question (like PT 36, 1, #20), I’m paralyzed. I still am. I’ve been staring at this stupid question now for an hour! :)
@igbodoe249 I'd say the primary difference is that SA correct AC's must make the argument airtight. NA is more identifying the assumption the author must make/be making in order for the conclusion to follow. NA arguments might not end up airtight—it's more about seeing what needs to underly the argument whereas SA is about fixing the argument.
Does that make sense? This is all Trainer-based formulation.
Hey @igbodoe249! I studied Manhattan but didn't really understand what they were saying so just verbalized what I had been intuitively doing. The way I visualize the difference between the two is that SA questions require adding a conditional premise, filling in a gap, or linking two terms.
With Necessary Assumption questions, I found that I am linking things but typically linking the term or assumption to the conclusion, so it looks a bit different. For instance, in the example that I gave above, I know that a correct NA answer choice could either be A --> C (no habitat means no tiger) OR B --> C (no sighting means no tiger). An SA answer choice would have to be both A --> AND B--> C.
I'm not sure if that makes a lot of sense or if I just ended up confusing you haha. I also found that the arguments given for NA and SA questions tend to look fairly different so I haven't really run into the problem of getting confused. If you have a troublesome NA question in mind, I can try breaking it apart to better elucidate my point.
@lsultani877 did you get that from Manhattan? Right now, I’m BR-ing PT 36 s.1. #20 (been staring and thinking about this question for over 30 minutes now. At this rate, I’ll never find out my score) and I’m paralyzed because I’m worried the answer I want to pick is a sufficient assumption, not an required one. Your reasoning sounds similar to the gap that we see on Sufficient Assumption questions. How do you tell the difference? It seems to me that you can negate an SA and also wreck the argument, can’t you? Ugh, if I had any hair, I’d be ripping it out right about now.
I'm glad you were able to parse through the gibberish @igbodoe249! If you have any questions/want to talk about, just PM me or start a new thread and I'd be happy to respond. :)
Thanks @lsultani877 I'm going to print the cambridge questions o NA and i think I understand your method. So I am going to attempt to work these questions using ur method. Hopefully it'll make sense to me once im under timed conditions lol
AHHHH, the good ol' NA question. Hated these and now I love them. I'm not sure if my advice will work/make sense for non-visual learners but I started doing much better on these questions when I visualized the argument.
Generally speaking, let's say you have an argument A (main premise) --> C (main conclusion). There's also an assumption that leads connects A --> C, which I will call B. So your argument looks like this: A --( B ) --> C. A necessary assumption will either be B --> C (most common) or A --> C. These things HAVE to be true or else the entire argument falls apart. In the diagram, if B --> /C, then how could we have an argument that says B --> C? I then look for an answer choice that has one of the causal linkages and verify that it is correct using the negation test.
I know this might sound like gibberish so let's see this in practice (J2007, 3, 9):
STEP 1: Identify main conclusion, premise, and assumption
Main Conclusion: Tasmanian tiger does not exist (WHY?)
Main Premises: No more natural habitat + no sightings
STEP 2: Write out argument Core
No natural habitat + no sighting --> no more tiger
In simple logic terms: A + B --> C
STEP 3: Determine the assumption
In this question, the necessary assumption is fairly straightforward. It will have to be either A --> C or B --> C. Translating this back into normal language, either:
A --> C: no more natural habitat means that there is no more tiger OR
B --> C: no sighting means there can't be any tiger
STEP 4: Go through answer choice
In real time, I knew D was the answer I was looking for because it is a translation of A --> C but let's do the actual breakdown since it's good practice.
(A) premise booster: explains why there is no habitat but doesn't tell us anything about the connection between lack of no habitat and having no tiger
(B) premise booster: explains why there is no sighting of tiger carcasses but again, this doesn't tell us about the connection between lack of sightings and there being no more Tasmanian tigers
(C) detail creep/premise booster: it gives us additional information for why the fact that there are no sightings of the tiger be reliable but again, it doesn't get at the core argument which is: if there is no habitat and no sightings, does that mean it MUST be there are no tigers.
(D) DING DING DING! This is A --> C. This tells us that no habitat MUST mean there can't be a tiger. Why? Because these tigers can't live anywhere else. If we use the negation test, does this destroy the argument? Absolutely.
NT: The Tasmanian tiger DID move and adapt to a different region in response to the loss of habitat.
If this is true, then that means you can have A be true (no more natural habitat) but still arrive at the opposite conclusion (that the tigers actually can exist).
(E) ad hominem: attacks the source of the supposed counter-evidence
I hope this helps. Also, if you have more NA questions that you'd like to see diagrammed out, let me know. If this makes no sense, I'm sorry :(
I am constantly getting these necessary assumption JY videos practice wrong. So I try to answer the questions before watching his video and keep missing. I know necessary assumption is something that the argument depends on. And that there is basically 2 types ....1.) Shield 2.) Blocker (defends or protects argument)
http://classic.7sage.com/lesson/protein-drinks-na-question/?ss_completed_lesson=1795
I had the hardest time with the above question (protein drinks). The answer is C, but is it because it basically says engineered food do no good so there is no good reason to take it. Is it right because it is just repeating that Athletes shouldn't consume what is no good for muscle ?
How do you approach these nasty annoying necessary assumption questions? What do you look for ?
Good thread! I was just wondering the same . Thank god to Sage at least now I know there is a difference between sufficient and necessary assumption questions (didn't learn that in my over 1,000$ crappy test prep course).
@igbodoe249 dont talk about your new best friend that way ... All the RA's can hear you ...
@igbodoe249 yes, i completely understand. That's why these questions are my least favorite. And on top of all the context that they sometimes use and we have to referred back to because the premise refers back to it really makes these questions challenging.
@2543.hopkins I already feel like I'm a full-time student! But then I remember that I'm only studying to get into law school. What is life?
I think that properly and accurately solving Necessary Assumption questions requires the negation test. Before applying the negation test, some answer choices seem attractive because they match with what could be true. But we don't know if it is merely a proposition that could be true or a proposition that must be true. And that, I feel, is the hardest part about these questions.
@igbodoe249 I just want to be a 7sage/LSAT Trainer success story *cries*
oh yeah also maybe go to law school sometime. I forget about that part.
@2543.hopkins at the rate you're going you'll be scoring 180s way before Oct! ^_^