I'm confused because in the prior SA questions, we had to explicitly search for the desired conclusion in the answer choices, and now, we're still technically doing SA questions but looking for the desired conclusion is not a criteria anymore? could someone help explain how this is the case
Quick question regarding the structure of these lessons: to this point in my LR study plan, whenever these lessons pop up that don't prompt me to actually "do" the question displayed, I always just watch J.Y. do the question all the way through and move on.
However, would it be more beneficial for me to actually attempt the question itself, and then watch the lesson?
@ArcherHeeren Yes. I believe it useful not only as practice, but getting it correct through your way of thinking can be beneficial in making the problem make more sense in a breakdown, than J.Y.'s videos.
personally, I believe he goes into too much depth or over analyzes some things that end up making the breakdown more convoluted than it needs to be, but nonetheless that is his job.
This section has been kicking my ass a bit, but I feel like nailing down the conclusion gets you 2/3 the way there.
Then, if you have a rough idea of what the hypothesis is saying, you can typically get to the right answer. I was getting very hung up on parsing the language of the hypothesis which was not feeling like a particularly wise use of time on these medium-difficulty questions.
Does anyone else just do the questions, if they get it right they move on, if they get it wrong they watch the video? That's been my method to avoid wasting time, am I missing out on too much?
@Jake. If I cannot explain why the other answers are wrong in my BR then I review the video as well so I can be aware of traps and common mistakes that can trip me later.
#feedback when you press show question, you should allow for us to highlight the stimulus so that we can pretend its a practice question. its impossible for me to try to find an answer if i cant mark up the stimulus. i want to be able to try to guess the answer before i view the lesson
@meepmeep yes I do it before I hear him explain anything. I think if someone explain each question we would all get them right….I press and read the question and do it myself. Sometimes I don’t even see the answer as yet I just pause again and see if that’s a good answer or not… then listen
@hannahhuynh that makes so much sense. However, to play devils advocate here. The premise is saying any council member should abstain or vote against, thereby implying that they dont want the propsal to be passed. "A" is saying that if all members abstain, then voters will pass in favor, which is exactly what premise doesn't want......I'm confused why abstaining and voting against doesn't imply that you dont want voters to vote because they will vote in favor....
If B did not exist would A be the correct answer? A seems to require more assumptions and B just rules out the need for any assumptions. Am I understanding this correctly, or would A be incorrect even on its own without it just being weaker than B?
I don't think so because it is already mostly stated in the stimulus. It can't compensate for the jump from the second premise to the conclusion. At least for SA questions, there shouldn't really be any gaps in the logical flow, and A leaves a big one. Why shouldn't voters determine the vote? Why shouldn't the proposal pass? Unless A included an answer to one of these questions, I don't think it would ever be a correct answer. Maybe it could be though if this were a strengthen question and it was the best choice but idk.
@chloebarnett144 IDK....based on your logic, A should answer why the proposal shouldn't pass or why voters shouldnt determine the vote....but B doesn't explain the WHY either. B just says proposal shouldnt be decided by voters, it doesnt say WHY.
What is bro yapping about?????? Obviously we just need to complete it by saying the city members shouldn't have control over it. These abstract examples and mapping out in lawgic are so unhelpful...
I chose A. because I thought we could properly infer from the premise the "additional assumption that the proposal shouldn’t pass," which would allow us to "contrapose on the conditional to arrive at the desired conclusion." (as JY says in the written explanation for A.).
When the stimulus says "any member...ought either to vote against the proposal or abstain," is it not reasonable to infer the activists believes the proposal shouldn't pass?
(I thought this was one of those situations where there's an implied major premise/sub-conclusion that you have to make explicit to make the entire logical chain make sense.)
IF that's true, then the fact that voters would decide in favor would fail the necessary condition and therefore also the sufficient condition ==> /all members abstain = at least one member vote against.
Why is it improper to infer from the stimulus that the proposal shouldn't pass?
My internal reasoning for accepting JY's rationale for excluding option A is that option A is merely an extension of premise 2. This distinction matters because if you assume that "activists believe the proposal shouldn't pass," it is a plausible statement, but it shifts the conclusion of the stimulus from "at least one member of the city council should vote against the proposal" to "the proposal shouldn't pass." While we may intuitively process these as equivalent, there could be underlying reasons why activists do not want the bill to be voted on by the public while still believing it shouldn't pass. For example, publicly deciding on the proposal could backfire on them for strategic or political reasons.
Returning to an LSAT-style explanation, strictly analyzing the relationship between the premise and conclusion, the premise is only activated when we assume that the bill should not be voted on by the citizens.
I feel that comparing these question types to PSA to such an extent has made the curriculum confusing, thinking about them in an MSS/MBT sense or even standalone would be more beneficial because I really don't see how we're finding the rule, we're looking for an answer choice that would make the argument solid, less vulnerable - not really trying to justify it or search for the rule it conveys
I got this question right by treating it like a principle question in my mind (I'm sure this is not a good idea but I have been struggling with sufficient assumption for days now).
I asked myself what the underlying idea driving the argument was and landed on B.
I got it right but I am wondering if this is a bad way to continue going about these questions. Did anyone else do this? Am I screwing myself over? Help
The first part of answer choice A is cancelled out by the second premise, so really what we'd be left with if we chose A is:
Any member of the city council ought either to vote against the proposal or to abstain. But if all the members abstain, the matter will be decided by the city's voters in favor of the proposal. GAP IN ARGUMENT. So at least one member of the city council should vote against the proposal.
Ok, but there is a still a disconnect between the desired voting behavior of the council and that of the voting public. What assumption would make the conclusion absolutely assured, in all its potential behavorial variations and etc? Answer Choice B.
Just for fun, if we combined the condition of A with the sufficient condition of B, we'd get:
Any member of the city council ought either to vote against the proposal or to abstain. But if all the members abstain, the matter will be decided by the city's voters in favor of the proposal. Nevertheless, the proposal should not be decided by the city's voters. So at least one member of the city council should vote against the proposal.
Oh, yeah. Definitely right. I read only up until B quickly and chose A because they were both certainly on the right track but A was more specific. I didn't realize B actually shored up the disconnect in the argument even though I predicted the intentions of the author were in line with B.
When I revealed the right answer, I had to really think about why my choice was wrong and came up with the same points as you. Even thought about how A feeds in additional information into B but only B is needed to make the argument work.
#feedback How do you decide not to use "members of city council ←s→should vote against" as the conclusion? I have a hard time, when working through the problem before JY explains, deciding why I shouldn't use the ←s→ format. It makes so much sense why JY went through the process he did, but only after. Did anyone else, if you tried this by yourself first, want to use the ←s→ in the conclusion and kick ups "members of city council" into the domain?
I viewed this as the stimulus saying either they vote against the proposal or abstain (thus we know there are two options possible) and from this, we are told that if all abstain, the city voters will decide. It goes on to conclude that one member of the. city council should AT LEAST vote which implies that the activist believes it should not be up to the city voters to decide the decision. AC B. is correct since it says that the city voters should not decide. By choosing this we are making sure the arugment follws.
Can someone explain to me in similar words what JY means when he says we are dealing with prescriptive and descriptive premises? This is really confusing me I wish he would use fewer words when explaining if you get what I mean lol. Over explaining tends to be confusing
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69 comments
I think the goal is to worry about understanding rather than timing first and then worry about timing later. I think that's my issue.
B just seemed too simple
I'm confused because in the prior SA questions, we had to explicitly search for the desired conclusion in the answer choices, and now, we're still technically doing SA questions but looking for the desired conclusion is not a criteria anymore? could someone help explain how this is the case
@AkshayaAnnampedu i THINK for this one, we r like adding an assumption to the premise to bridge the gap in the premises
Quick question regarding the structure of these lessons: to this point in my LR study plan, whenever these lessons pop up that don't prompt me to actually "do" the question displayed, I always just watch J.Y. do the question all the way through and move on.
However, would it be more beneficial for me to actually attempt the question itself, and then watch the lesson?
@ArcherHeeren Yes. I believe it useful not only as practice, but getting it correct through your way of thinking can be beneficial in making the problem make more sense in a breakdown, than J.Y.'s videos.
personally, I believe he goes into too much depth or over analyzes some things that end up making the breakdown more convoluted than it needs to be, but nonetheless that is his job.
@ArcherHeeren you can click "show question" to attempt the question before the video starts
This section has been kicking my ass a bit, but I feel like nailing down the conclusion gets you 2/3 the way there.
Then, if you have a rough idea of what the hypothesis is saying, you can typically get to the right answer. I was getting very hung up on parsing the language of the hypothesis which was not feeling like a particularly wise use of time on these medium-difficulty questions.
Does anyone else just do the questions, if they get it right they move on, if they get it wrong they watch the video? That's been my method to avoid wasting time, am I missing out on too much?
@Jake. If I cannot explain why the other answers are wrong in my BR then I review the video as well so I can be aware of traps and common mistakes that can trip me later.
#feedback when you press show question, you should allow for us to highlight the stimulus so that we can pretend its a practice question. its impossible for me to try to find an answer if i cant mark up the stimulus. i want to be able to try to guess the answer before i view the lesson
@meepmeep I pause all the videos and use my own paper to guess or attempt the question. I don’t waste any question
@DeeTee out of curiosity do you do it before watching the video at all or do you listen to him explain the stimulus first
@meepmeep yes I do it before I hear him explain anything. I think if someone explain each question we would all get them right….I press and read the question and do it myself. Sometimes I don’t even see the answer as yet I just pause again and see if that’s a good answer or not… then listen
@hannahhuynh Thank you for posting this. That is how I was able to find the correct answer.
@hannahhuynh that makes so much sense. However, to play devils advocate here. The premise is saying any council member should abstain or vote against, thereby implying that they dont want the propsal to be passed. "A" is saying that if all members abstain, then voters will pass in favor, which is exactly what premise doesn't want......I'm confused why abstaining and voting against doesn't imply that you dont want voters to vote because they will vote in favor....
PSA overcomplicates SA unnecessarily. I prefer diagramming.
#feedback The show question feature on some lessons in this section have not been working.
#feedback Im confused how to differentiate if Im looking at a SArule questions or an SAappliation question
How do I know based on the QS and stimulus which I should be looking out for?
ive been doing so well in this curriculum then suddenly this last section has me getting everything wrong.
If B did not exist would A be the correct answer? A seems to require more assumptions and B just rules out the need for any assumptions. Am I understanding this correctly, or would A be incorrect even on its own without it just being weaker than B?
I don't think so because it is already mostly stated in the stimulus. It can't compensate for the jump from the second premise to the conclusion. At least for SA questions, there shouldn't really be any gaps in the logical flow, and A leaves a big one. Why shouldn't voters determine the vote? Why shouldn't the proposal pass? Unless A included an answer to one of these questions, I don't think it would ever be a correct answer. Maybe it could be though if this were a strengthen question and it was the best choice but idk.
@chloebarnett144 IDK....based on your logic, A should answer why the proposal shouldn't pass or why voters shouldnt determine the vote....but B doesn't explain the WHY either. B just says proposal shouldnt be decided by voters, it doesnt say WHY.
What is bro yapping about?????? Obviously we just need to complete it by saying the city members shouldn't have control over it. These abstract examples and mapping out in lawgic are so unhelpful...
yea I feel like they overcomplicate so much of these for no reason
@dylanemein NO FR. like when he started off about iced cream but added nothing helpful with that analogy....
Being completely honest here, I suck at these SA questions. But this question I got so easily lol. Surprised it's a 4 star
I chose A. because I thought we could properly infer from the premise the "additional assumption that the proposal shouldn’t pass," which would allow us to "contrapose on the conditional to arrive at the desired conclusion." (as JY says in the written explanation for A.).
When the stimulus says "any member...ought either to vote against the proposal or abstain," is it not reasonable to infer the activists believes the proposal shouldn't pass?
(I thought this was one of those situations where there's an implied major premise/sub-conclusion that you have to make explicit to make the entire logical chain make sense.)
IF that's true, then the fact that voters would decide in favor would fail the necessary condition and therefore also the sufficient condition ==> /all members abstain = at least one member vote against.
Why is it improper to infer from the stimulus that the proposal shouldn't pass?
My internal reasoning for accepting JY's rationale for excluding option A is that option A is merely an extension of premise 2. This distinction matters because if you assume that "activists believe the proposal shouldn't pass," it is a plausible statement, but it shifts the conclusion of the stimulus from "at least one member of the city council should vote against the proposal" to "the proposal shouldn't pass." While we may intuitively process these as equivalent, there could be underlying reasons why activists do not want the bill to be voted on by the public while still believing it shouldn't pass. For example, publicly deciding on the proposal could backfire on them for strategic or political reasons.
Returning to an LSAT-style explanation, strictly analyzing the relationship between the premise and conclusion, the premise is only activated when we assume that the bill should not be voted on by the citizens.
Do we always have to look for the contrapositive with sufficient assumption q's?
I feel that comparing these question types to PSA to such an extent has made the curriculum confusing, thinking about them in an MSS/MBT sense or even standalone would be more beneficial because I really don't see how we're finding the rule, we're looking for an answer choice that would make the argument solid, less vulnerable - not really trying to justify it or search for the rule it conveys
Every question I have got wrong in this section has been 50/50. This is so discouraging :(
thank you for the encouragement Jazzman180
I got this question right by treating it like a principle question in my mind (I'm sure this is not a good idea but I have been struggling with sufficient assumption for days now).
I asked myself what the underlying idea driving the argument was and landed on B.
I got it right but I am wondering if this is a bad way to continue going about these questions. Did anyone else do this? Am I screwing myself over? Help
I get it now.
The first part of answer choice A is cancelled out by the second premise, so really what we'd be left with if we chose A is:
Any member of the city council ought either to vote against the proposal or to abstain. But if all the members abstain, the matter will be decided by the city's voters in favor of the proposal. GAP IN ARGUMENT. So at least one member of the city council should vote against the proposal.
Ok, but there is a still a disconnect between the desired voting behavior of the council and that of the voting public. What assumption would make the conclusion absolutely assured, in all its potential behavorial variations and etc? Answer Choice B.
Just for fun, if we combined the condition of A with the sufficient condition of B, we'd get:
Any member of the city council ought either to vote against the proposal or to abstain. But if all the members abstain, the matter will be decided by the city's voters in favor of the proposal. Nevertheless, the proposal should not be decided by the city's voters. So at least one member of the city council should vote against the proposal.
Right? #feedback
Oh, yeah. Definitely right. I read only up until B quickly and chose A because they were both certainly on the right track but A was more specific. I didn't realize B actually shored up the disconnect in the argument even though I predicted the intentions of the author were in line with B.
When I revealed the right answer, I had to really think about why my choice was wrong and came up with the same points as you. Even thought about how A feeds in additional information into B but only B is needed to make the argument work.
#feedback How do you decide not to use "members of city council ←s→should vote against" as the conclusion? I have a hard time, when working through the problem before JY explains, deciding why I shouldn't use the ←s→ format. It makes so much sense why JY went through the process he did, but only after. Did anyone else, if you tried this by yourself first, want to use the ←s→ in the conclusion and kick ups "members of city council" into the domain?
I viewed this as the stimulus saying either they vote against the proposal or abstain (thus we know there are two options possible) and from this, we are told that if all abstain, the city voters will decide. It goes on to conclude that one member of the. city council should AT LEAST vote which implies that the activist believes it should not be up to the city voters to decide the decision. AC B. is correct since it says that the city voters should not decide. By choosing this we are making sure the arugment follws.
Can someone explain to me in similar words what JY means when he says we are dealing with prescriptive and descriptive premises? This is really confusing me I wish he would use fewer words when explaining if you get what I mean lol. Over explaining tends to be confusing
Prescriptive describes a rule - "One must do A or B"
Descriptive describes a relationship - "if A then B"
In this example the Prescriptive phrase is -
"any member of the city council ought either to vote against the bill or to abstain"
The Descriptive phrase is -
"if all the members abstain, [then] the matter will be decided by the city's voters."
I know this is a brief explanation but I try to avoid being too wordy. Let me know if this helps or you have any more questions.
It helped me for sure!! Thank you :)
If the AC is a bi-conditional, is it usually a trap AC? Is the correct AC ever a bi-conditional?