@LiviaLSAT I'm the same way. But I heard that we don't need to diagram all the questions. I try to read it to understand it and figure out what's the missing piece.
@SaulMcGill At first, I saw how long the video was and was like not viewing it. But on second thought, I watched it, and it made this way clearer. Thank you for sharing this. Well worth the time.
I keep getting them correct, but honestly I don't understand the lawgic for these type of questions? I have intuativley gotten the answer right, but the explanation is making no sense and I can't apply lawgic... anyone else having this issue?
I've been doing relatively well this entire SA unit and sometimes his lawgic translations do not make sense to me at all. In fact, they confuse me more than the plain English explanations. Does anyone else run into this problem from time to time?
Personally, I feel the same way! I have noticed that I am often much better off avoiding taking the time to covert to (or listen to him explain) lawgic.
That is not to say that I don't use the concept of conditional logic though, I just don't do well breaking down the content that far.
I will say there are times that translating to lawgic might have helped me avoid a simple mistake, but in the long run I am less confused and more accurate working off of the plain English.
@KMK That's a good question! I'm not sure that it's really something you "decide", but rather something you realize when you identify the flaw in the argument and consider the answer choices. In the case of this question, the flaw is the gap between 'rule of law' and 'social integrity'. The conclusion is that the rule of law is necessary for individual freedom. Why? Because social integrity is necessary for individual freedom. Notice the gap? We need the answer choice to link 'rule of law' and 'social integrity'.
In abstract terms: We need A to achieve B because we need C to achieve B. (Where A = rule of law; B = individual freedom; C = social integrity). A must be connected to C.
Whether or not the second premise is there, it doesn't change the fact that there is a gap in the support structure between the first premise and the conclusion. The second premise says that social integrity is necessary to pursue the good life. But this isn't directly connected to the conclusion in the same way as the first premise. It's presented as an "also" rather than a "because".
The explanation did not need to be so complicated. You could have stopped at simply explaining we needed to bridge from (make up a "hypothetical syllogism" form) IF to ROL, whereby the assumption is SI → ROL
IF = Individual Freedoms, ROL = Rule of Law, and SI = Social Integrity
Hypothetical Syllogism:
A → B
B → C
A → B →C
--------------
∴ A → C
This argument in the stimulus simply didn't possess B → C and needed us to create it as the assumption
If anyone is confused about my use of the term "hypothetical syllogism," this was taught as "conditional chaining" in the Logic of Intersecting Sets chapter: https://7sage.com/lesson/valid-formal-arguments-review/
A → B → C
-----------------
A → C
Hypothetical syllogism is just how I was taught to refer to it as in university.
Really disliked this question. Not sure how people got C here, but felt like it could really have been either A or B.
the conditionals we are given are:
g.l→s.i
i. f→ s.i
i.f → r.l
as g.l →s.i obviously doesnt matter, we can strike it leaving us with:
i.f →s.i
i.f →r.l
You are supposed to pick B here instead of A because of the ",for" (meaning because) which for them seems to be sufficient to logically indicate that s.i → r.l is missing. For some reason, this really urks me because I dont think thats enough to indicate the relationship should be s.i →r.l more than r.l → s.i, which would naturally swing the question in favor of A or B. Not sure if I am missing something but I just dont think thats enough to move the needle in either direction.
@AzealiaBanks I think the same way! Only way B makes a bit more sense is no social integrity (action) without rule of law (objective) as opposed to A where the objective is stated to not be possible without the action when the objective needs to exist first. I don't know if this makes any sense at all lol.
I really struggle with negation and sufficient/necessary once you throw in a bunch of "nos" and "withouts," like we did here. If anyone else had that issue and was able to overcome it, what videos did you watch in the CC or what materials did you use to have this make sense?
For example, my initial Lawgic was all about those negatives, e.g.:
"There can be no individual freedom without the rule of law"
I said: /IF → /RL when the correct answer is IF → RL
ME TOO. For me it helps to approach these with sets and subsets like the circles we learned about. There can be no individual freedom without rule of law. So that means 100% of individual freedom's circle is nested into rule of law land, because otherwise, you COULD have individual freedom without rule of law. So, IF → RL
I have this same struggle too, but I think it helps to take it one step at a time. Lets start with IF on the left
IF
which has a "no" so we will negate it
/IF
then we have "without" RL so first lets add the RL to the chain
/IF -> RL
and then work with the "without", which means we negate suff so the statement now reads, but because the suff is already negated the negation cancels out and we have
I actually read somewhere that if you have two logical indicators that are the 3 and 4 categories, all you do it disregard those words and just put the two categories in a left to right form. So like the there can be NO x WITHOUT y, all you do it put x→y. So in this case PGL → SI.
what a great lesson... I have been able to intuit many of the questions until now... this has been a great, but I am really seeing the utility in mapping everything out using lawgic...
@Isabella! i would say because there is no “overlap” between it and the conclusion. No mention of it in the conclusion. Only one of the premises has logical ties to the conclusion. Only one premise mentions individual freedom so only that premise can be tied/chained to the conclusion.
@VincentLaGuardiaG. This is tempting but incorrect. "There is no individual freedom without the rule of law" still allows for the rule of law without individual freedom.
I'm confused on how you know which idea to make negate and make sufficient. Because the premises had "no" and "without" I actually worked in the contrapositive framework, because I thought that would be easier. But, I chose A.
Here is what I got on the map:
/Social Integrity --> /Freedom
/Social Integrity --> /Pursuit
------------------------------
/ROL --> /Freedom
So, do we just always work to not be in a contrapositive or what? Can we get more resources/practice on just mapping?
@16dnholli generally, if you are picking something to negate, pick the thing that's already negated. if the sentence is: "You can't have a pet dog unless your mom gives you permission," pick "can't have a pet dog" to negate (since it is already negative) and then your sentence will be: you can have a pet dog --> your mom gave you permission.
you will save yourself so much hassle doing this. remember, a negative times a negative is a positive :)
Not sure if this will help, but I struggled with the same thing on this question. It helps to think about it like this for me:
For the sentence, “Pursuing the good life is not possible without social integrity,” the idea is that social integrity is necessary for pursuing the good life. In other words, if someone is pursuing the good life, then they must have social integrity.
So the conditional would be:
Pursuing the good life → social integrity
This means that pursuing the good life is the sufficient condition, while social integrity is the necessary condition. You can think of social integrity as the larger umbrella: pursuing the good life requires it, but social integrity may include many other things beyond just pursuing the good life.
The conclusion we are trying to prove demands that we start with /ROL and end with /Freedom.
(A) cannot accomplish that.
Here's why. Let's start by assuming (A) is true. We now have two premises to work with.
/Social Integrity --> /Freedom
and
/Social Integrity --> /ROL
Okay. Now, again, the conclusion demands that we start with /ROL and end with /Freedom. Let's take /ROL and try to see which of the two conditionals we can trigger.
As it turns out, we can't trigger any of the premises. /ROL is not a sufficient condition for any of them.
But (B) is different. (B) works because it satisfies the demand that we start with /ROL and end with /Freedom.
(B) states: /ROL --> /Social Integrity
The two premises we have now to work with are:
/Social Integrity --> /Freedom
and
/ROL --> /Social Integrity
The conclusion we're trying to prove starts with /ROL, so we must start there. The first part of our chain must be /ROL. Assuming /ROL, which premises can we trigger?
You'll see that we can trigger the second one, and then trigger the first one, yielding the ultimate conclusion /ROL --> /Freedom.
152 comments
LSAT test writer -> evil
Anyone else completely lost on this one?
The way im understanding it is that the answer will be the premise that you make up that will lead to the conclusion
How I broke down the Question:
Individual freedom -> Social Integrity
Individual freedom -> rule of law
in order to make this argument "correct" we have to find a link between social integrity and rule of law. So if we plug this in
Individual freedom -> Social Integrity
Social integrity -> rule of law
Individual freedom -> rule of law
the statement "Social integrity -> rule of law" makes the conclusion true and thats why the answer is B
@Amelia_D ME TOO
i am so hopeless at lawgic i just don't cant map these correctly to save my life
@LiviaLSAT I'm the same way. But I heard that we don't need to diagram all the questions. I try to read it to understand it and figure out what's the missing piece.
what!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I feel like "kicking things up into the domain" confuses me more
This video helped me understand SA questions A LOT:
@SaulMcGill Great video; thanks.
@SaulMcGill Thank you! This is the first video that made this make sense
@SaulMcGill I literally teared up because I get it now
@SaulMcGill Thank you for posting that! Very helpful!
@SaulMcGill w video appareciate it
@SaulMcGill At first, I saw how long the video was and was like not viewing it. But on second thought, I watched it, and it made this way clearer. Thank you for sharing this. Well worth the time.
@SaulMcGill Thank you so much!! This question now makes sense.
@SaulMcGill Omg this helped so much. thank you!!!!!
@SaulMcGill you're the best
@SaulMcGill thank you for sharing this here! that video is the clearest explanation/run down i've seen of sufficient assumption questions
i think lawgic will never make sense to me/doesn't seem to make things either. i just straight up interpret sometimes and try to answer from there.
@eimanintikhab i feel this so much
This question fried my brain
I keep getting them correct, but honestly I don't understand the lawgic for these type of questions? I have intuativley gotten the answer right, but the explanation is making no sense and I can't apply lawgic... anyone else having this issue?
same
you guys are born lawyers! Cherish the win!!
normally i think intuitively as well without lawgic but this one got me. you think you could explain how u got it without lawgic?
all question types lead back to conditionals cries
Answering this question would have made an excellent medieval torture method back in the day
I've been doing relatively well this entire SA unit and sometimes his lawgic translations do not make sense to me at all. In fact, they confuse me more than the plain English explanations. Does anyone else run into this problem from time to time?
Yes I agree with you completely!! I am so glad to know that I am not the only one who experiences this lol!
Personally, I feel the same way! I have noticed that I am often much better off avoiding taking the time to covert to (or listen to him explain) lawgic.
That is not to say that I don't use the concept of conditional logic though, I just don't do well breaking down the content that far.
I will say there are times that translating to lawgic might have helped me avoid a simple mistake, but in the long run I am less confused and more accurate working off of the plain English.
IT TOOK ME 6 MINUTES BUT I GOT IT
🧎🏾♀️🧎🏾♀️🧎🏾♀️
How are you able to decide that a certain premise doesn't matter and ignore it?
@KMK That's a good question! I'm not sure that it's really something you "decide", but rather something you realize when you identify the flaw in the argument and consider the answer choices. In the case of this question, the flaw is the gap between 'rule of law' and 'social integrity'. The conclusion is that the rule of law is necessary for individual freedom. Why? Because social integrity is necessary for individual freedom. Notice the gap? We need the answer choice to link 'rule of law' and 'social integrity'.
In abstract terms: We need A to achieve B because we need C to achieve B. (Where A = rule of law; B = individual freedom; C = social integrity). A must be connected to C.
Whether or not the second premise is there, it doesn't change the fact that there is a gap in the support structure between the first premise and the conclusion. The second premise says that social integrity is necessary to pursue the good life. But this isn't directly connected to the conclusion in the same way as the first premise. It's presented as an "also" rather than a "because".
The explanation did not need to be so complicated. You could have stopped at simply explaining we needed to bridge from (make up a "hypothetical syllogism" form) IF to ROL, whereby the assumption is SI → ROL
IF = Individual Freedoms, ROL = Rule of Law, and SI = Social Integrity
Hypothetical Syllogism:
A → B
B → C
A → B →C
--------------
∴ A → C
This argument in the stimulus simply didn't possess B → C and needed us to create it as the assumption
------------------------------------------
IF → SI (assumption: SI → ROL)
IF → SI → ROL
--------------
∴ IF → ROL
If anyone is confused about my use of the term "hypothetical syllogism," this was taught as "conditional chaining" in the Logic of Intersecting Sets chapter: https://7sage.com/lesson/valid-formal-arguments-review/
A → B → C
-----------------
A → C
Hypothetical syllogism is just how I was taught to refer to it as in university.
Really disliked this question. Not sure how people got C here, but felt like it could really have been either A or B.
the conditionals we are given are:
g.l→s.i
i. f→ s.i
i.f → r.l
as g.l →s.i obviously doesnt matter, we can strike it leaving us with:
i.f →s.i
i.f →r.l
You are supposed to pick B here instead of A because of the ",for" (meaning because) which for them seems to be sufficient to logically indicate that s.i → r.l is missing. For some reason, this really urks me because I dont think thats enough to indicate the relationship should be s.i →r.l more than r.l → s.i, which would naturally swing the question in favor of A or B. Not sure if I am missing something but I just dont think thats enough to move the needle in either direction.
@AzealiaBanks I think the same way! Only way B makes a bit more sense is no social integrity (action) without rule of law (objective) as opposed to A where the objective is stated to not be possible without the action when the objective needs to exist first. I don't know if this makes any sense at all lol.
I really struggle with negation and sufficient/necessary once you throw in a bunch of "nos" and "withouts," like we did here. If anyone else had that issue and was able to overcome it, what videos did you watch in the CC or what materials did you use to have this make sense?
For example, my initial Lawgic was all about those negatives, e.g.:
"There can be no individual freedom without the rule of law"
I said: /IF → /RL when the correct answer is IF → RL
ME TOO. For me it helps to approach these with sets and subsets like the circles we learned about. There can be no individual freedom without rule of law. So that means 100% of individual freedom's circle is nested into rule of law land, because otherwise, you COULD have individual freedom without rule of law. So, IF → RL
hi!
I have this same struggle too, but I think it helps to take it one step at a time. Lets start with IF on the left
IF
which has a "no" so we will negate it
/IF
then we have "without" RL so first lets add the RL to the chain
/IF -> RL
and then work with the "without", which means we negate suff so the statement now reads, but because the suff is already negated the negation cancels out and we have
IF -> RL
I actually read somewhere that if you have two logical indicators that are the 3 and 4 categories, all you do it disregard those words and just put the two categories in a left to right form. So like the there can be NO x WITHOUT y, all you do it put x→y. So in this case PGL → SI.
Thank you; this helped a lot! It reminds me of something Henry said in a live class a while back :)
what a great lesson... I have been able to intuit many of the questions until now... this has been a great, but I am really seeing the utility in mapping everything out using lawgic...
#Question - Why do we ignore "the good life" part of the premise?
@Isabella! i would say because there is no “overlap” between it and the conclusion. No mention of it in the conclusion. Only one of the premises has logical ties to the conclusion. Only one premise mentions individual freedom so only that premise can be tied/chained to the conclusion.
[This comment was deleted.]
@VincentLaGuardiaG. This is tempting but incorrect. "There is no individual freedom without the rule of law" still allows for the rule of law without individual freedom.
@VincentLaGuardiaG. no. "Without" is a Group Three indicator.
The final premise is translated as /SI -> /GL (GL -> SI), whereas you translated it backwards.
I'm confused on how you know which idea to make negate and make sufficient. Because the premises had "no" and "without" I actually worked in the contrapositive framework, because I thought that would be easier. But, I chose A.
Here is what I got on the map:
/Social Integrity --> /Freedom
/Social Integrity --> /Pursuit
------------------------------
/ROL --> /Freedom
So, do we just always work to not be in a contrapositive or what? Can we get more resources/practice on just mapping?
@16dnholli Would love to know the answer to this as well
@16dnholli generally, if you are picking something to negate, pick the thing that's already negated. if the sentence is: "You can't have a pet dog unless your mom gives you permission," pick "can't have a pet dog" to negate (since it is already negative) and then your sentence will be: you can have a pet dog --> your mom gave you permission.
you will save yourself so much hassle doing this. remember, a negative times a negative is a positive :)
@16dnholli @LSATKilla87
Not sure if this will help, but I struggled with the same thing on this question. It helps to think about it like this for me:
For the sentence, “Pursuing the good life is not possible without social integrity,” the idea is that social integrity is necessary for pursuing the good life. In other words, if someone is pursuing the good life, then they must have social integrity.
So the conditional would be:
Pursuing the good life → social integrity
This means that pursuing the good life is the sufficient condition, while social integrity is the necessary condition. You can think of social integrity as the larger umbrella: pursuing the good life requires it, but social integrity may include many other things beyond just pursuing the good life.
@16dnholli I've been stuck on this question for a while and found something that might help you and others.
So, given:
/Social Integrity --> /Freedom
We need to prove:
/ROL --> /Freedom
---------------------------------------------------
(A) would not work for the following reason:
The conclusion we are trying to prove demands that we start with /ROL and end with /Freedom.
(A) cannot accomplish that.
Here's why. Let's start by assuming (A) is true. We now have two premises to work with.
/Social Integrity --> /Freedom
and
/Social Integrity --> /ROL
Okay. Now, again, the conclusion demands that we start with /ROL and end with /Freedom. Let's take /ROL and try to see which of the two conditionals we can trigger.
As it turns out, we can't trigger any of the premises. /ROL is not a sufficient condition for any of them.
----------------------------------------------------
But (B) is different. (B) works because it satisfies the demand that we start with /ROL and end with /Freedom.
(B) states: /ROL --> /Social Integrity
The two premises we have now to work with are:
/Social Integrity --> /Freedom
and
/ROL --> /Social Integrity
The conclusion we're trying to prove starts with /ROL, so we must start there. The first part of our chain must be /ROL. Assuming /ROL, which premises can we trigger?
You'll see that we can trigger the second one, and then trigger the first one, yielding the ultimate conclusion /ROL --> /Freedom.