Please, as someone who was confused on Sufficient and Necessary, just practice that until it is engrained in your brain, until it feels intuitive what is necessary and what is sufficient.
Personally, for weeks, I would go about my day and just make up random conditionals about the moment.
"If I see the library in front of me, I am on the south side of campus. It is necessary for me to be on the south side of campus to see the library. If I see the library, it is sufficient to say I am on the south side of campus. If I am not on the south side of campus, I cannot see the library.......etc etc etc" Do this whenever you have free time to think/brainrot, at least just a couple times per day. It really helps the understanding.
lol the only reason i didn't pick it was because it said "exceeds 250" and the wording said "at least" so i was like nah, then i heard his logic and was like oh...
I've been geting the answers right, but I don't know if I am oversimplifying my methods and just getting lucky lol. Can anybody else relate lol? I'm scared I'm developing bad habits that will bite me in the a on the actual test huhu
I'm intuitively able to come to the correct answer every time for these types of questions without having to create a conditional chain. Should I be mastering drawing out the chains regardless of my ability to use intuition to solve these MBT questions? I feel like I always take a long time to map out the chains, much longer than I will get per question on a real exam.
@Shawndeo5 I honestly feel the exact same... I haven't been drawing out the lawgic but I am consistently getting these correct. Not only the MBTs, but the other question types as well. If we're intuitively doing well, should we even bother with the maps? Someone please let us know!
@AlexZelaya234 I would still do them in blind review to reaffirm you know why you're getting the correct answer. You could run into harder questions on the actual test, and that's when mapping will come in really handy.
I was able to POE down to B and C. I ended up choosing B (i see now why it's wrong, I'm just going to keep falling for that trick), but the reason I opted not to go for C, was because I over-thought it, I guess. I figured it's not really necessary for them to obtain a larger habitat, what if they just obtain an additional, or secondary habitat. Couldn't that yield the same result? As such, I saw C as strongly supported, but not necessarily MBT. Tricky...
@tswalker83 The reason I chose B was because I didn't know what to do with the "must" and the "if". So by default, I went with the "if" and switched the suff. and nec. conditions. Of course, that throws off the entire argument. Soooo, I guess my learning moment was the "must" and "if" in the same sentence = generally "must" takes precedence?
@CaptivatingKindlyPresident I get really confused when I try to default to the set of rules or indicator groups 7sage teaches. Instead, I use the meaning of the words. In this case, "must" means "requires", which is the same as "necessary". So reaching a population of at least 250 is a necessary condition for a self-sustaining population. In other words, if the population is self-sustaining, then we know that the population is at least 250. However, just because the population is at least 250, we cannot assume that it is self-sustaining - that is confusing the necessary and sufficient conditions.
One thing that I noticed - and please correct me if I am wrong - but I believe that besides the fact that B is an example of "the oldest mistake in the book," meaning that it reverses the conditional relationship making it look like if 250+ population → SS, it also wrongfully uses "exceeds 250" since the stimulus clearly states that SS → at least 250 (meaning, a population of 250 or more). So even if this option was re-written to indicate the right conditional relationship, if it did not replace "exceeds 250" with "at least 250" or "250 or more" it would still be wrong because it would say "if the population of panthers is ever SS it exceeded 250" which can be translated to SS → 250+ - which is different from what the stimulus says (SS → at least 250)
That wouldn't be the case though, because if "250 or more" was a sufficient condition for SS, then "exceeds 250" would also be contained within "250 or more" it's contained right there in the "or more" part, so "250 or more" contains both conditionals.
did not seem like something I would have worked out on my own.
When I tried to rationalize it for my self, I took note of the "any" as a Group 1 sufficient condition indicator, and qualified "more of these animals" AKA more panthers as the sufficient condition. And then understood it as there can NOT be any more of these animals, turning it into /more panthers
Then, I translated "their current habitat is NOT large enough as /current habitat
So for me it looked like: /more panthers--->/current habitat.
However I'd have to look back at the stimulus when hunting for the answer to understand that by /current habitat, I meant a habitat that is large enough.
It's definitely clunky but I'm struggling to naturally come to the video's way of interpreting that last sentence.
I understand that B is confusing sufficient and necessary, which is fundamentally why it is wrong, but I also eliminated it because the rule dictated in the stimulus states "[the Florida panther] population must reach at least 250 in order to be self sustaining" while answer B states, "If the population of Florida panthers ever exceeds 250, it will be self-sustaining". What made me detect this answer as wrong (before actually considering the sufficient-necessary inversion), is the difference between reaching at least 250 to be self-sustaining and exceeding 250 to be self sustaining.
Let's imagine that, for Answer B, the sufficient and necessary weren't inverted and that Answer B instead read as follows: "If the population of Florida panthers ever becomes self-sustaining, its population has exceeded 250".
In Lawgic, such an inverted (corrected) Answer B would be:
SS --> 250+
Since the stimulus mentions that the population must only be at least 250, not necessarily exceed 250, doesn't the stimulus Lawgic actually require "greater or equal to 250", not "more than 250" as JY indicated above? I understand the stimulus Lawgic should actually be:
SS --> 250≥
If this is the case, Answer B is not only wrong because the sufficient and necessary are confused, but also because self sustenance would require even just 250 panthers, not necessarily an excess of or more than 250 panthers.
With this in mind, I would notate (a corrected sufficient-necessary) Answer B as follows if I wanted to check its validity:
(FP = Florida panthers)
SS --> FP^250≥
------------
SS --> FP^250+
Not valid.
Any feedback, confirmation, or explanation as to why this is wrong, would be very appreciated!
The frustrating part of the answer choice of "oldest mistake in the book" is that technically B is correct, if 250 or more than self-sustaining. BUT that doesn’t follow with what the ENTIRE stimulus says.
The stimulus says that current habitat is holding 70-100 and can't support more. 250 would mean self-sustaining, but the underlying implication is that all 250 must be in the same habitat, which we are directly told they can’t. 70-100 all on the same habitat isn’t enough, so if the total population reaches 250 but 70-100 are together in Florida and the remaining populations are in captivity in other places, then they’re not self-sustaining EVEN THOUGH there’s 250+. Therefore it’s impossible for the current population to reach the desired number if there isn’t more habitat.
This line of thinking has helped me a ton in understanding why mixing the sufficient and the necessary causes problems. It will present itself as a right answer because it technically is something the argument says, but it doesn’t FOLLOW the argument.
update , no not necessarily however during the MBT questions you pretty much need to map out all the formal logic during the higher level difficulty questions. although I can do a lot in my head or visually, its in our best interest to still try and master the Lawgic & mapping out the conditionals , once you get to MBT question types. for now though I can and will do the lower difficulty questions without the mapping! so at this level its totally fine and encouraged , but once you get into the material I would say its a mistake to not utilise the Lawgic.
113 comments
Please, as someone who was confused on Sufficient and Necessary, just practice that until it is engrained in your brain, until it feels intuitive what is necessary and what is sufficient.
Personally, for weeks, I would go about my day and just make up random conditionals about the moment.
"If I see the library in front of me, I am on the south side of campus. It is necessary for me to be on the south side of campus to see the library. If I see the library, it is sufficient to say I am on the south side of campus. If I am not on the south side of campus, I cannot see the library.......etc etc etc" Do this whenever you have free time to think/brainrot, at least just a couple times per day. It really helps the understanding.
Answer choice b is precisely why I cant wait to be done with this test and never think about it again. Spain without the S
Extremely rude of them to do us like that lol
lol the only reason i didn't pick it was because it said "exceeds 250" and the wording said "at least" so i was like nah, then i heard his logic and was like oh...
bro I thought the Florida Panthers were just a hockey team
I really hate how we cant see the answer choices first.
same.
I thought this was about the hockey team and got so excited
Same hahhahaha
Even more so now!
soooooooo... this ISN'T about the hockey team?
B is super tricky
@charlie.jin Honestly just go through the fundamentals section for conditionals. That would help a lot!
I've been geting the answers right, but I don't know if I am oversimplifying my methods and just getting lucky lol. Can anybody else relate lol? I'm scared I'm developing bad habits that will bite me in the a on the actual test huhu
Agreed, I feel like I've been relying too heavily on intuition lol
That is a good thing, this process is for when you're stumped and/or your intuition fails you.
Also a good sign of getting this, is these processes becoming part of your intuition!
The age old question:
What are people down in Florida doing?
I live here and I got no clue
I'm intuitively able to come to the correct answer every time for these types of questions without having to create a conditional chain. Should I be mastering drawing out the chains regardless of my ability to use intuition to solve these MBT questions? I feel like I always take a long time to map out the chains, much longer than I will get per question on a real exam.
@Shawndeo5 I honestly feel the exact same... I haven't been drawing out the lawgic but I am consistently getting these correct. Not only the MBTs, but the other question types as well. If we're intuitively doing well, should we even bother with the maps? Someone please let us know!
@AlexZelaya234 I would still do them in blind review to reaffirm you know why you're getting the correct answer. You could run into harder questions on the actual test, and that's when mapping will come in really handy.
I was able to POE down to B and C. I ended up choosing B (i see now why it's wrong, I'm just going to keep falling for that trick), but the reason I opted not to go for C, was because I over-thought it, I guess. I figured it's not really necessary for them to obtain a larger habitat, what if they just obtain an additional, or secondary habitat. Couldn't that yield the same result? As such, I saw C as strongly supported, but not necessarily MBT. Tricky...
Yeah I did the same thing, B is a bitch of an answer
@tswalker83 The reason I chose B was because I didn't know what to do with the "must" and the "if". So by default, I went with the "if" and switched the suff. and nec. conditions. Of course, that throws off the entire argument. Soooo, I guess my learning moment was the "must" and "if" in the same sentence = generally "must" takes precedence?
@CaptivatingKindlyPresident I get really confused when I try to default to the set of rules or indicator groups 7sage teaches. Instead, I use the meaning of the words. In this case, "must" means "requires", which is the same as "necessary". So reaching a population of at least 250 is a necessary condition for a self-sustaining population. In other words, if the population is self-sustaining, then we know that the population is at least 250. However, just because the population is at least 250, we cannot assume that it is self-sustaining - that is confusing the necessary and sufficient conditions.
Conditional logic clearly matters a LOT here
Reminders:
Do not get tricked by mistaken reversals! (That's why I could not eliminate B when I did this problem on my own.)
Conditional relationships can still be represented in the text, regardless of whether it has clear indicator words.
One thing that I noticed - and please correct me if I am wrong - but I believe that besides the fact that B is an example of "the oldest mistake in the book," meaning that it reverses the conditional relationship making it look like if 250+ population → SS, it also wrongfully uses "exceeds 250" since the stimulus clearly states that SS → at least 250 (meaning, a population of 250 or more). So even if this option was re-written to indicate the right conditional relationship, if it did not replace "exceeds 250" with "at least 250" or "250 or more" it would still be wrong because it would say "if the population of panthers is ever SS it exceeded 250" which can be translated to SS → 250+ - which is different from what the stimulus says (SS → at least 250)
That wouldn't be the case though, because if "250 or more" was a sufficient condition for SS, then "exceeds 250" would also be contained within "250 or more" it's contained right there in the "or more" part, so "250 or more" contains both conditionals.
#feedback interesting! curious if LSAT ever penalizes you for misunderstanding greater than and greater or equal to
proud of myself for figuring out the necessary and sufficient conditions without error. It took this many lessons but it's doable.
all of us are gonna make it!
I think interpreting the last sentence as:
more panthers (250+)--->increase habitat
did not seem like something I would have worked out on my own.
When I tried to rationalize it for my self, I took note of the "any" as a Group 1 sufficient condition indicator, and qualified "more of these animals" AKA more panthers as the sufficient condition. And then understood it as there can NOT be any more of these animals, turning it into /more panthers
Then, I translated "their current habitat is NOT large enough as /current habitat
So for me it looked like: /more panthers--->/current habitat.
However I'd have to look back at the stimulus when hunting for the answer to understand that by /current habitat, I meant a habitat that is large enough.
It's definitely clunky but I'm struggling to naturally come to the video's way of interpreting that last sentence.
#feedback
I understand that B is confusing sufficient and necessary, which is fundamentally why it is wrong, but I also eliminated it because the rule dictated in the stimulus states "[the Florida panther] population must reach at least 250 in order to be self sustaining" while answer B states, "If the population of Florida panthers ever exceeds 250, it will be self-sustaining". What made me detect this answer as wrong (before actually considering the sufficient-necessary inversion), is the difference between reaching at least 250 to be self-sustaining and exceeding 250 to be self sustaining.
Let's imagine that, for Answer B, the sufficient and necessary weren't inverted and that Answer B instead read as follows: "If the population of Florida panthers ever becomes self-sustaining, its population has exceeded 250".
In Lawgic, such an inverted (corrected) Answer B would be:
SS --> 250+
Since the stimulus mentions that the population must only be at least 250, not necessarily exceed 250, doesn't the stimulus Lawgic actually require "greater or equal to 250", not "more than 250" as JY indicated above? I understand the stimulus Lawgic should actually be:
SS --> 250≥
If this is the case, Answer B is not only wrong because the sufficient and necessary are confused, but also because self sustenance would require even just 250 panthers, not necessarily an excess of or more than 250 panthers.
With this in mind, I would notate (a corrected sufficient-necessary) Answer B as follows if I wanted to check its validity:
(FP = Florida panthers)
SS --> FP^250≥
------------
SS --> FP^250+
Not valid.
Any feedback, confirmation, or explanation as to why this is wrong, would be very appreciated!
@elw2147 this is also why I didn’t pick C but I do think it’s good to keep in mind how they will throw necessary vs assumption answers
Its official, I am not contemplating life after this section ;(;(;(;(
Saw the title of the lesson and thought we'd be talking about the hockey team lol
The frustrating part of the answer choice of "oldest mistake in the book" is that technically B is correct, if 250 or more than self-sustaining. BUT that doesn’t follow with what the ENTIRE stimulus says.
The stimulus says that current habitat is holding 70-100 and can't support more. 250 would mean self-sustaining, but the underlying implication is that all 250 must be in the same habitat, which we are directly told they can’t. 70-100 all on the same habitat isn’t enough, so if the total population reaches 250 but 70-100 are together in Florida and the remaining populations are in captivity in other places, then they’re not self-sustaining EVEN THOUGH there’s 250+. Therefore it’s impossible for the current population to reach the desired number if there isn’t more habitat.
This line of thinking has helped me a ton in understanding why mixing the sufficient and the necessary causes problems. It will present itself as a right answer because it technically is something the argument says, but it doesn’t FOLLOW the argument.
go cats go
B would have definitely tripped me lol omg
is not utilising the LAWGIC a mistake if I am still getting these correct under the time requirements?
update , no not necessarily however during the MBT questions you pretty much need to map out all the formal logic during the higher level difficulty questions. although I can do a lot in my head or visually, its in our best interest to still try and master the Lawgic & mapping out the conditionals , once you get to MBT question types. for now though I can and will do the lower difficulty questions without the mapping! so at this level its totally fine and encouraged , but once you get into the material I would say its a mistake to not utilise the Lawgic.
This is what I'm trying to find out too.
Go Oilers 🥳
Great lesson, I would have confused suffiency for necessity on this.