I was between A, B, and E. I chose B the first time, then E for blind review. I almost always get the answer choice correct during blind review, but I can't help but still feel defeated. I watch the video explanation and understand JY's reasoning, but I"m still mad at myself for getting it wrong initially. Anyone else relate?
I feel like I just intuitively answered this question correctly, as opposed to understanding it under the notion of Necessary Assumptions. Could someone explain it again in those terms?
So, the chair of the AD said that J has her approval ONLY IF J includes all of the recommendation topics the chair of the AD reviewed. "Only if" is a necessary indicator, so in lawgic it would be
Chair AD Approval → J includes all the recs
/J includes all the recs → /Chair AD approval
However we know that James misled (gasp LIED TO) the committee and said he had the chair of the AD's approval. This is where we make an assumption. Its pretty to break absolutes like "all." Since we don't know if J included ALL of the recommendations, that could definitely be why he misled the committee.
I think Oliver's saying the same thing as the videos. By "find the rule that breaks it", I understood it as the negation tactic. One rule will connect or bridge the gap between premise and conclusion and that same rule negated will break the argument. By finding that one rule that will break it, you can also in a way work backward and find your answer choice that way.
These types of questions are really great opportunities for discovering what is best way for you as an individual to learn.
I've learned that using lawgic and writing it all out super confuses me and mostly leads me to the incorrect AC. However, when I think through the question in my mind and give myself time, (it took me 4-minutes to get this question) I nearly always get them correct.
Has anyone else noticed this about themselves? What kind of learning type is this?
Agreed. Basic lawgic is mostly good for clarifying potentially confusing/new concepts, I.e., necessity v. sufficiency, and/or learning the basics of logic/argument forms.
But, especially with the time constraints of the actual test, writing out the lawgic of every question would be very inefficient.
Me! I have noticed that I get caught up in lawgic and struggle to apply it back to the answers, but when I simply closely read the stimulus and each answer, it's usually enough for me to conceptualize what's going on and find the right answer. Not sure what kind of learning type this is....
This section is hurting my brain. The last question made only like 5% sense to me. This one, I was able to immediately know where the discrepancy was and hunted for the answer. wtf
Think of suff assum as making the conclusion in the stimulus 100% true with an answer choice. Meaning there are no loopholes in the conclusion when answered correctly.
For Nec Assum think of think of making it possible for the conclusion to be true with the correct answer choice. The answer choice makes it the conclusion possible.
Someone please help lol. After writing out "endorsement → [certain conditions]," JY says "[James] did something to make this conditional endorsement to go away. And what's the thing he could have done? The only thing he could have done?" And then says that James must have failed the necessary condition. But isn't it true that failing the necessary condition is not the only way to come to the conclusion of /endorsement? The contrapositive gives us /[certain conditions] → /endorsement. So fulfilling the /[certain conditions] sufficient condition is sufficient to come to the conclusion of /endorsement, but I thought we learned that just because there isn't a conditional statement, it doesn't mean that there are not other routes that can be taken to get to necessary condition. I.e., just because A → B doesn't mean that X → B can't also be true. So as it relates to this question, I don't see how answer choice E is necessary. I see how it's sufficient to make the argument valid and brings you to the conclusion of /endorsement, but aren't there other avenues that also could have been taken to get to the conclusion of /endorsement? For instance, can't it be true that maybe the proposal that the chair had seen actually did include all of the recommendations (meaning E is false), but the chair still decided not to endorse for another reason? Like maybe she was just in a bad mood that day? The argument doesn't seem to exclude this possibility. It only looks like it would exclude this possibility if the conditional had been "if and only if" rather than just "if."
I would really appreciate some help!! I'm really struggling to see how this is a necessary assumption and not just a sufficient assumption. Thank you!!
Hey there! Not sure if you've already resolved this point, but its a good question that had also stumped me. And here's my reasoning for it.
While in SA questions, our goal was to elevate the argument to validity, there are assumptions that not only guarantee the conclusion, but are also required to usher in validity.
You are absolutely right in that the chair may have been feeling under the weather a particular day, and that despite James having all the recommendations, the chair still did not endorse. But for this argument to work and be valid, we must deal with the premises at hand. And E is required, within this argument, for us to reach validity.
I guess a way to put it would be that we aren't looking for a necessary assumption of the conclusion, we are looking for a necessary assumption of the argument itself. You are right that E isn't necessary for the conclusion, but for the argument it is.
This is a good question. In the stimulus, when it says "The Anthropology Chair had told James that his proposal had her endorsement, but only if the draft proposal she saw had all the recommendations..." I think we are to preclude any other variable or conditions. In other words, the only way that James does not get the endorsement ("his proposal had her endorsement") is only if the proposal fails to include all the recommendations he made. In that case, E is not only sufficient, but also necessary as it is the only way the endorsement condition could fail.
Hey thanks for your response! I definitely better understand necessary assumptions now, and I think your point about an assumption for the argument vs. for the conclusion is where my issue was. A necessary assumption is needed for the support structure of the argument to work - it's required for the premises to support the conclusion.
Another way to think of it (and where my issue was) is with the negation test. As Kevin Lin put it in his response to my comment in lesson 1 (thanks Kevin!), "the negation does not need to show that the conclusion cannot be true. It just needs to show that the given premises, without more, are not enough to guarantee that the conclusion is true." So negating the correct answer choice does leave open the possibility that the chair didn't endorse for a different reason. However, when it comes to the argument structure, negating the correct answer choice makes it so that the premises that we have no longer support the conclusion.
Im not sure why it is so important to understand what kind of reasoning we are using. I havent found that very helpful in "lighting the way to the right answer choice". Could someone let me know what kind of method they are using in regards to what they do once they ID the reasoning??
Thank you! So you are saying if i understand that it is using causal reasoning, then i would make sure to look for an answer that uses causal language as opposed to conditional reasoning that would lead me to chose potentially an answer that is more definitive/valid? Any other examples?
I was missing SO many of these SA and NA questions before I just started attempting to predict what the correct answer would say. Figuring out the missing link and then finding an answer that resembled my phrasing has worked for the last 7 questions (and the drilling portion). I haven't missed a question since (but now I'm jinxing myself)
I keep getting these right but I actually have no idea how because I am thinking them through way less lol... I think overthinking these questions makes them wayyy harder
I got caught up in the language of "seen all of the recommendations". Isn't it possible that he just didn't show it to her at all? So it is not necessary that it is the case that he didn't include all of the recommendations? Couldn't it be either? Either he didn't show it to her at all or he showed her only partial recommendations. I may be overthinking the language in the question but I thought both possibilities were true. This is ultimately why I didn't pick AC E because I thought it would include both options. Is it just implied that he had to show her at least something for it to be misleading?
hi!!! we need the answer choice that is required for this logical relationship to work. we have to assume he did not show her everything. if he didn't show her everything then perhaps he showed her one thing or two things or a few things or most things or everything except for one thing. the extent to which james did not show the chair the proposals is not that relevant except when understanding he did not show everything he was supposed to. so yeah it could be either, but i don't think it necessarily impacts the relationship. you could also think of it conditionally:
chair endorses proposal → james includes everything
since it was misleading for james to claim the proposal was endorsed, that means the chair didn't truly endorse, which is the contrapositive of the above. if james does NOT include everything then the chair does NOT approve. the contrapositive of all is not none! it's just "not all" aka some. i hope this helps!!
Even just the language of the wrong answers were a signal. POE helped alot here. The argument is that it was MISLEADING, no one cares what he "thought" or what "would" happen. That's what helped me here.
Confused at the initial setup where JY fails the sufficient condition and then goes hunting for an answer that fails the necessary. Is this because we are looking for an answer that forces the sufficient to fail? Maybe I just answered my own question?
For this question, the conclusion is that James failed the sufficient condition.
Logically, in order to draw that conclusion, all you need is the contrapositive. Hence why he went hunting for answers that failed the necessary condition.
Would it be accurate to say this stimulus was a biconditional rule? That is: endorsement ↔ certain conditions
It seems like the phrasing would imply that, and J.Y.'s explanation that it is both necessary and sufficient makes me think of biconditional rules from logic games. #help
no, the term for a biconditional is "if and only if". there may by other terms that also conclude a biconditional: if they exist, i'm not aware of them.
"only if" can be translated into "then." So, the sentence could read as "if james had an endorsement, then he included all the recommendations by the chair."
The correct answer is an exact negation of the necessary condition that I just wrote out.
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52 comments
took 2 min but i got it right, wording was just convoluted af
yayayay got it right!!!!
7Sage clears Lsatlab
I was between A, B, and E. I chose B the first time, then E for blind review. I almost always get the answer choice correct during blind review, but I can't help but still feel defeated. I watch the video explanation and understand JY's reasoning, but I"m still mad at myself for getting it wrong initially. Anyone else relate?
how do you blind review with the new 7sage?
PERIODD everything is starting to make sense
I feel like I just intuitively answered this question correctly, as opposed to understanding it under the notion of Necessary Assumptions. Could someone explain it again in those terms?
So, the chair of the AD said that J has her approval ONLY IF J includes all of the recommendation topics the chair of the AD reviewed. "Only if" is a necessary indicator, so in lawgic it would be
Chair AD Approval → J includes all the recs
/J includes all the recs → /Chair AD approval
However we know that James misled (gasp LIED TO) the committee and said he had the chair of the AD's approval. This is where we make an assumption. Its pretty to break absolutes like "all." Since we don't know if J included ALL of the recommendations, that could definitely be why he misled the committee.
honestly all the answer choices just sounded too stupid and complicated which made E the only correct AC for me haha
I dont understand how this is different from SA?? Anyone else concur? #feedback
Find the conclusion, find the rule that breaks it, ez
Can someone confirm Olivers method please?
I think Oliver's saying the same thing as the videos. By "find the rule that breaks it", I understood it as the negation tactic. One rule will connect or bridge the gap between premise and conclusion and that same rule negated will break the argument. By finding that one rule that will break it, you can also in a way work backward and find your answer choice that way.
These types of questions are really great opportunities for discovering what is best way for you as an individual to learn.
I've learned that using lawgic and writing it all out super confuses me and mostly leads me to the incorrect AC. However, when I think through the question in my mind and give myself time, (it took me 4-minutes to get this question) I nearly always get them correct.
Has anyone else noticed this about themselves? What kind of learning type is this?
Agreed. Basic lawgic is mostly good for clarifying potentially confusing/new concepts, I.e., necessity v. sufficiency, and/or learning the basics of logic/argument forms.
But, especially with the time constraints of the actual test, writing out the lawgic of every question would be very inefficient.
Me! I have noticed that I get caught up in lawgic and struggle to apply it back to the answers, but when I simply closely read the stimulus and each answer, it's usually enough for me to conceptualize what's going on and find the right answer. Not sure what kind of learning type this is....
Same girl! Lawgic over confuses for me. I tend to do much better in my head. Now, just need to learn how to cut time like a lottt.
What kind of reasoning is being used in the stimulus here?
conditional reasoning : committee will endorse only if james proposal included all the reccomendations
Oh ok! Hahaha. I forgot the only if when thinking about the kind of reasoning being used. Thank you for your reply. It is very appreciated! : )
This section is hurting my brain. The last question made only like 5% sense to me. This one, I was able to immediately know where the discrepancy was and hunted for the answer. wtf
I don't understand necessary assumptions.
Think of suff assum as making the conclusion in the stimulus 100% true with an answer choice. Meaning there are no loopholes in the conclusion when answered correctly.
For Nec Assum think of think of making it possible for the conclusion to be true with the correct answer choice. The answer choice makes it the conclusion possible.
Example: Sam is a cat. Therefore, Sam is fluffy.
Sufficient Assum. Cats are fluffy
This makes the conclusion 100% true
Necessary Assum. Cats can be fluffy.
This makes the conclusion possible
Is your name really Colin?
no way - kingsway??
Yea?
Someone please help lol. After writing out "endorsement → [certain conditions]," JY says "[James] did something to make this conditional endorsement to go away. And what's the thing he could have done? The only thing he could have done?" And then says that James must have failed the necessary condition. But isn't it true that failing the necessary condition is not the only way to come to the conclusion of /endorsement? The contrapositive gives us /[certain conditions] → /endorsement. So fulfilling the /[certain conditions] sufficient condition is sufficient to come to the conclusion of /endorsement, but I thought we learned that just because there isn't a conditional statement, it doesn't mean that there are not other routes that can be taken to get to necessary condition. I.e., just because A → B doesn't mean that X → B can't also be true. So as it relates to this question, I don't see how answer choice E is necessary. I see how it's sufficient to make the argument valid and brings you to the conclusion of /endorsement, but aren't there other avenues that also could have been taken to get to the conclusion of /endorsement? For instance, can't it be true that maybe the proposal that the chair had seen actually did include all of the recommendations (meaning E is false), but the chair still decided not to endorse for another reason? Like maybe she was just in a bad mood that day? The argument doesn't seem to exclude this possibility. It only looks like it would exclude this possibility if the conditional had been "if and only if" rather than just "if."
I would really appreciate some help!! I'm really struggling to see how this is a necessary assumption and not just a sufficient assumption. Thank you!!
Hey there! Not sure if you've already resolved this point, but its a good question that had also stumped me. And here's my reasoning for it.
While in SA questions, our goal was to elevate the argument to validity, there are assumptions that not only guarantee the conclusion, but are also required to usher in validity.
You are absolutely right in that the chair may have been feeling under the weather a particular day, and that despite James having all the recommendations, the chair still did not endorse. But for this argument to work and be valid, we must deal with the premises at hand. And E is required, within this argument, for us to reach validity.
I guess a way to put it would be that we aren't looking for a necessary assumption of the conclusion, we are looking for a necessary assumption of the argument itself. You are right that E isn't necessary for the conclusion, but for the argument it is.
Hope this made sense lol
Sorry, meant to write "just because there is a conditional statement, it doesn't meant that there are not other routes..."
This is a good question. In the stimulus, when it says "The Anthropology Chair had told James that his proposal had her endorsement, but only if the draft proposal she saw had all the recommendations..." I think we are to preclude any other variable or conditions. In other words, the only way that James does not get the endorsement ("his proposal had her endorsement") is only if the proposal fails to include all the recommendations he made. In that case, E is not only sufficient, but also necessary as it is the only way the endorsement condition could fail.
Hope this helps in some way.
Hey thanks for your response! I definitely better understand necessary assumptions now, and I think your point about an assumption for the argument vs. for the conclusion is where my issue was. A necessary assumption is needed for the support structure of the argument to work - it's required for the premises to support the conclusion.
Another way to think of it (and where my issue was) is with the negation test. As Kevin Lin put it in his response to my comment in lesson 1 (thanks Kevin!), "the negation does not need to show that the conclusion cannot be true. It just needs to show that the given premises, without more, are not enough to guarantee that the conclusion is true." So negating the correct answer choice does leave open the possibility that the chair didn't endorse for a different reason. However, when it comes to the argument structure, negating the correct answer choice makes it so that the premises that we have no longer support the conclusion.
First question I’ve ever gotten correct in under target time. LETTSS GOOOOO!!
#help
Im not sure why it is so important to understand what kind of reasoning we are using. I havent found that very helpful in "lighting the way to the right answer choice". Could someone let me know what kind of method they are using in regards to what they do once they ID the reasoning??
Understanding the reasoning will basically allow you to understand the type of answer to expect, and help steer you away from trap answers.
Thank you! So you are saying if i understand that it is using causal reasoning, then i would make sure to look for an answer that uses causal language as opposed to conditional reasoning that would lead me to chose potentially an answer that is more definitive/valid? Any other examples?
I get all of the "you try" questions right then usually struggle with the drill questions at the end :/
HOW DO U KNOW whether to map or not? Bc the previous one u don’t map? HELP
I feel as though most of the time it is an intuition thing - depends on how many factors involved.
I AM CONFUSED ON THAT TOO maybe it could be conditions argument vs causal argument #help
I was missing SO many of these SA and NA questions before I just started attempting to predict what the correct answer would say. Figuring out the missing link and then finding an answer that resembled my phrasing has worked for the last 7 questions (and the drilling portion). I haven't missed a question since (but now I'm jinxing myself)
I keep getting these right but I actually have no idea how because I am thinking them through way less lol... I think overthinking these questions makes them wayyy harder
I agree- I was surprised the level of difficulty for this question as it felt like a level one. Anyone else understand why this is the case?
I think means your intuition is getting stronger, I'm noticing the same thing
That means you're getting better at them!
I got caught up in the language of "seen all of the recommendations". Isn't it possible that he just didn't show it to her at all? So it is not necessary that it is the case that he didn't include all of the recommendations? Couldn't it be either? Either he didn't show it to her at all or he showed her only partial recommendations. I may be overthinking the language in the question but I thought both possibilities were true. This is ultimately why I didn't pick AC E because I thought it would include both options. Is it just implied that he had to show her at least something for it to be misleading?
hi!!! we need the answer choice that is required for this logical relationship to work. we have to assume he did not show her everything. if he didn't show her everything then perhaps he showed her one thing or two things or a few things or most things or everything except for one thing. the extent to which james did not show the chair the proposals is not that relevant except when understanding he did not show everything he was supposed to. so yeah it could be either, but i don't think it necessarily impacts the relationship. you could also think of it conditionally:
chair endorses proposal → james includes everything
since it was misleading for james to claim the proposal was endorsed, that means the chair didn't truly endorse, which is the contrapositive of the above. if james does NOT include everything then the chair does NOT approve. the contrapositive of all is not none! it's just "not all" aka some. i hope this helps!!
Even just the language of the wrong answers were a signal. POE helped alot here. The argument is that it was MISLEADING, no one cares what he "thought" or what "would" happen. That's what helped me here.
Confused at the initial setup where JY fails the sufficient condition and then goes hunting for an answer that fails the necessary. Is this because we are looking for an answer that forces the sufficient to fail? Maybe I just answered my own question?
For this question, the conclusion is that James failed the sufficient condition.
Logically, in order to draw that conclusion, all you need is the contrapositive. Hence why he went hunting for answers that failed the necessary condition.
Sick answer thanks.
This question really helped me understand how to answer this questions. I hope it sticks throughout the remainder of the questions going forward
Would it be accurate to say this stimulus was a biconditional rule? That is: endorsement ↔ certain conditions
It seems like the phrasing would imply that, and J.Y.'s explanation that it is both necessary and sufficient makes me think of biconditional rules from logic games. #help
no, the term for a biconditional is "if and only if". there may by other terms that also conclude a biconditional: if they exist, i'm not aware of them.
"only if" can be translated into "then." So, the sentence could read as "if james had an endorsement, then he included all the recommendations by the chair."
The correct answer is an exact negation of the necessary condition that I just wrote out.