Chapin: Democracy got me. A looked very good, but so did D. I disagree that D is ruled out by the first sentence since it links back to the evidence directly. It says that moderate parties who consider extremist parties a serious threat, and that links to "won only when moderate parties were preoccupied". So it is not unreasonable to stay that moderate parties who were aware of a threat by extremist would set aside differences to deal with that. The fist sentence of D is perfectly reasonable and does not rule it out as a sufficient condition.
What rules D out, and I did not consider it carefully enough until I saw that I got the choice wrong, so went back with my magnifying glass, is the word Sometimes. If moderate parties only Sometimes set aside differences to deal with a serious threat, then At Least Once they do not, so the claim "pose NO threat" is not satisfied.
And here is the nuance of LSAT choices. They will lead you down the garden path with a perfectly reasonable choice but leave just one little stone in the path, as single word, to trip you up.
It is an interesting skill to apply and for me very hard to apply quickly, probably due to lack of training?? I get more answers wrong due to the single word problem.
If "Sometimes" were removed from D would it be sufficient? Kevin, I think it would. Would it be any less strong than A? I think not. I thought they were both right (due to my word mistake) but reasoned that "the lsat hates a high score so put a very tempting answer in A hoping you'd never get to D. Not a good strategy.
Having dissected this problem it is apparent that it must be one of the easier SA questions, almost a giveaway with A being so obviously correct.
Untimed I cannot keep all those concepts in my head. I had to diagram this one (and others) because the diagram allows me to keep track of the arguments and see the gap. But in Griley there was a new wrinkle if diagraming that threw me off and made it impossible to do a clean diagram.
New idea here, probably obvious to many, but not me when trying to work this out. New Rule: Attributes, once ascribed to entities, follow the entity through the argument and can, and probably should, be restated each time the entity appears in the argument. Here is a simple example:
Jane, who has blond hair but prefers to die it brown...
Then later on,
Jane will not shop at The Corner Salon
And to link them with some other argument about the corner solon you have to rethink that conclusion as..
Jane (who prefers brown hair) will not shop at The Corner Salon.
Cruddy example. I'm not a test writer, but you get the idea. Keep the attribute attached to the entity. Once you consider it, perhaps like me, you will say, 'Of course dummy, that's just how the world works".
But, I've had to train myself to stop injecting the "real world" into LSAT questions because often the writers use our knowledge of the real world to dupe us into a wrong answer. AND in the previous (sports salaries) example Kevin warned agianst bringing in your own ideas. But apparently, as shown by Griley, in the case of attributes, we can keep them attached to the entity to which they were previously attributed.
So
Griley does not believe in Democracy, becomes...
Griley (ArtPopular -> ~Good) -> ~Democracy
That argument link with the conclusion that he does not have a high regard for the wisdom of the masses.
That was my valuable takeaway from this problem...
In Q#7 if you take C to be true then wouldn't that prove and bridge the gap that pluto is not a true planet? Or am I inferring previous understandings of planets vs. moons? Maybe I'm making too many assumptions here like, people thought its a planet because it revolves around the sun, and argument is that it was initially revolved around Neptune, hence if it didn't break that graviational pull from Neptune it would still orbit around it and not the sun?
@Klim1384 C tells us what happens if Pluto had not been ejected. But we know Pluto was ejected. So how does C prove what Pluto should be classified as now?
@Kevin_Lin I'd like to confirm that there is indeed a strong demand! I'll no longer need it by the time it comes out, but I'm sure it'll help many people!
Does anyone know if concession statements and context (including other people’s opinions) are used as support for conclusions? I have been doing better on SA questions by excluding this information. I only use information from context in the premises (as support) if there are referential words or phrases. I eliminated AC D & B from #7 (the Pluto Question) because I assumed it was not support for the argument and therefore not part of the logical reasoning. Is this faulty logic?
@DaveV Your approach is a good one. I wouldn't advise completely ignoring concession/context (as in not even reading it), but you're right that we're trying to connect premises to conclusion, not concession/context.
Hi there! Would you kindly elaborate on question 7 about Pluto not being a planet? I suppose I am unclear on how an answer choice containing a necessary condition meets the criteria for a sufficient assumption question. It would not be sufficient for a celestial body to form an orbit around the sun because then asteroid would be a true planet, so it makes sense that choice E uses language indicating necessity. I'm not sure how this answer choice guarantees the conclusion. The curriculum has discussed how conditions can be both necessary and sufficient, but I do not think this is the case here. Thank you for your help! I might have missed a video that discusses this as well if you happen to know of one :-) All the best!
@Izzy123 This is too big of an issue to explain in a comment. But if-then answer choices are not usually wrong. I'd highly recommend reviewing the conditional logic module from Foundations to study this issue further.
In addition, study this example:
Premise: A
Conclusion: B
This would be a correct answer to a Sufficient Assumption question for the argument above: If A, then B.
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40 comments
I need the link for the The Four Groups of Conditional Indicators. Where do I get it.
@Godfrey https://7sage.com/lessons/foundations/conditional-and-set-logic/4-groups-of-conditional-indicators-summary
I recommend checking out the full module if conditional indicators were new to you in this lesson.
Chapin: Democracy got me. A looked very good, but so did D. I disagree that D is ruled out by the first sentence since it links back to the evidence directly. It says that moderate parties who consider extremist parties a serious threat, and that links to "won only when moderate parties were preoccupied". So it is not unreasonable to stay that moderate parties who were aware of a threat by extremist would set aside differences to deal with that. The fist sentence of D is perfectly reasonable and does not rule it out as a sufficient condition.
What rules D out, and I did not consider it carefully enough until I saw that I got the choice wrong, so went back with my magnifying glass, is the word Sometimes. If moderate parties only Sometimes set aside differences to deal with a serious threat, then At Least Once they do not, so the claim "pose NO threat" is not satisfied.
And here is the nuance of LSAT choices. They will lead you down the garden path with a perfectly reasonable choice but leave just one little stone in the path, as single word, to trip you up.
It is an interesting skill to apply and for me very hard to apply quickly, probably due to lack of training?? I get more answers wrong due to the single word problem.
If "Sometimes" were removed from D would it be sufficient? Kevin, I think it would. Would it be any less strong than A? I think not. I thought they were both right (due to my word mistake) but reasoned that "the lsat hates a high score so put a very tempting answer in A hoping you'd never get to D. Not a good strategy.
Having dissected this problem it is apparent that it must be one of the easier SA questions, almost a giveaway with A being so obviously correct.
Griley:Democracy..
Untimed I cannot keep all those concepts in my head. I had to diagram this one (and others) because the diagram allows me to keep track of the arguments and see the gap. But in Griley there was a new wrinkle if diagraming that threw me off and made it impossible to do a clean diagram.
New idea here, probably obvious to many, but not me when trying to work this out. New Rule: Attributes, once ascribed to entities, follow the entity through the argument and can, and probably should, be restated each time the entity appears in the argument. Here is a simple example:
Jane, who has blond hair but prefers to die it brown...
Then later on,
Jane will not shop at The Corner Salon
And to link them with some other argument about the corner solon you have to rethink that conclusion as..
Jane (who prefers brown hair) will not shop at The Corner Salon.
Cruddy example. I'm not a test writer, but you get the idea. Keep the attribute attached to the entity. Once you consider it, perhaps like me, you will say, 'Of course dummy, that's just how the world works".
But, I've had to train myself to stop injecting the "real world" into LSAT questions because often the writers use our knowledge of the real world to dupe us into a wrong answer. AND in the previous (sports salaries) example Kevin warned agianst bringing in your own ideas. But apparently, as shown by Griley, in the case of attributes, we can keep them attached to the entity to which they were previously attributed.
So
Griley does not believe in Democracy, becomes...
Griley (ArtPopular -> ~Good) -> ~Democracy
That argument link with the conclusion that he does not have a high regard for the wisdom of the masses.
That was my valuable takeaway from this problem...
Trying to diagram this one was futile...
In Q#7 if you take C to be true then wouldn't that prove and bridge the gap that pluto is not a true planet? Or am I inferring previous understandings of planets vs. moons? Maybe I'm making too many assumptions here like, people thought its a planet because it revolves around the sun, and argument is that it was initially revolved around Neptune, hence if it didn't break that graviational pull from Neptune it would still orbit around it and not the sun?
@Klim1384 C tells us what happens if Pluto had not been ejected. But we know Pluto was ejected. So how does C prove what Pluto should be classified as now?
@Kevin_Lin Thanks for that clarification, I see where my mistake was. I used previous knowledge and assumption that was not laid out in the argument.
These explanations were very enlightening this question type should be a lot easier for me from now on
This man is such a great teacher. THANK YOU KEVIN. WE LOVE YOU KEVIN
very helpful video!
I need this cuz i suck with SA questions
Will you upload a fast track video on Reading Comprehension?
@AnthonyTownleyJr Eventually, but probably not for a while, unless there's strong demand.
@Kevin_Lin There is strong demand! It would be super helpful for those going back over the course after having already taken the LSAT once.
@Kevin_Lin Please do, some of us need it. (you now have 1 person demanding it)
@Kevin_Lin Yes Please
@Kevin_Lin Yes please that would be amazing, these fast track lessons are very helpful in assuring that i am understanding the questions and answers.
@Kevin_Lin I'd like to confirm that there is indeed a strong demand! I'll no longer need it by the time it comes out, but I'm sure it'll help many people!
@Kevin_Lin this would be very helpful!
Loved this !!!! literally refreshed my mind on Sufficient Assumption
Does anyone know if concession statements and context (including other people’s opinions) are used as support for conclusions? I have been doing better on SA questions by excluding this information. I only use information from context in the premises (as support) if there are referential words or phrases. I eliminated AC D & B from #7 (the Pluto Question) because I assumed it was not support for the argument and therefore not part of the logical reasoning. Is this faulty logic?
@DaveV Your approach is a good one. I wouldn't advise completely ignoring concession/context (as in not even reading it), but you're right that we're trying to connect premises to conclusion, not concession/context.
Hi there! Would you kindly elaborate on question 7 about Pluto not being a planet? I suppose I am unclear on how an answer choice containing a necessary condition meets the criteria for a sufficient assumption question. It would not be sufficient for a celestial body to form an orbit around the sun because then asteroid would be a true planet, so it makes sense that choice E uses language indicating necessity. I'm not sure how this answer choice guarantees the conclusion. The curriculum has discussed how conditions can be both necessary and sufficient, but I do not think this is the case here. Thank you for your help! I might have missed a video that discusses this as well if you happen to know of one :-) All the best!
@LexLoofah Just to be clear, sufficient and necessary conditions are different from sufficient and necessary assumptions.
Premise: The sky is blue.
Conclusion: I am not happy.
Does it make sense that this is a sufficient assumption for the argument above (it makes the argument valid):
For me to be happy, the sky must be red.
[This comment was deleted.]
@Izzy123 This is too big of an issue to explain in a comment. But if-then answer choices are not usually wrong. I'd highly recommend reviewing the conditional logic module from Foundations to study this issue further.
In addition, study this example:
Premise: A
Conclusion: B
This would be a correct answer to a Sufficient Assumption question for the argument above: If A, then B.
However, this would be wrong: If B, then A.
So very helpful! Thank you!
This is exactly what I needed. Thank you!
Gained so much clarity. TY
These lessons are literally pointing out the simple mistakes I have been making. I am super excited to have used this platform for the past 5 months.
These are so helpful and I am really enjoying this series!!! Would love if you did a weakening question type one!
Amazing lesson with amazing Ohtani example
the face to the name lol
Hi Kevin,
I can't appreciate enough this new approach . Please do more!!
Very helpful, please do more of these
KEVINNNN!!! amazing. didn't even know i needed this!!!
@KevinLin'sOldUserName, this is superb, thank you! It would be great if you do this for all the question types.