Self-study
We just published this video on strengthening and weakening causal arguments: It'll be a good intro or refresher for our Logic of Causation Module!
@EricB7Sage
147
We just published this video on strengthening and weakening causal arguments: It'll be a good intro or refresher for our Logic of Causation Module!
@EricB7Sage
24 comments
hold my beer moment for @Kevin_Lin
As someone who studied the foundations with another company and came straight here to drill, I appreciate these type of videos/posts. Especially the short length and succinctness.
@NachoAverageGuy I’ve been purely drilling since starting about 9 days ago. Took my first practice LSAT in full yesterday.
I’m starting to realize that u need to do the dang course work before drilling sooner or later. The practice LSAT taught me the reality: this exam is literally one big time restraint.
@JonathanCesari What do you mean by course work? what course work?
Thank you so much for the video — I swear it answered my prayers because I've been struggling with identifying reasoning. This is my first time interecting with the community, and I am hoping to get some help!
First, in the video (hyperlinked with the timestamp here) Kevin notes that an example of eliminating the cause but retaining the effect is not achieved under the scope of "some." Is this the same case with other slightly more proportionally representative words like "many" or "several"?
Along the same vein, would it also be conversely true that when trying to strengthen causal relationships, it is not valid to affirm the cause with the effect under the scope of "some"? In the video's example, if the causal reasoning is plants tend to sleep quality, would it not strengthen if we said some people slept better once they added roses to their home (by affirming the relationship). The root of my question is whether the limits of the "rule of thumb" Kevin references with "some" answer choices apply to both strengthening and weakening questions, or just the latter.
As a final note, I've spent a ton of time trying to identify different reasoning types without success — many times because I'm not sure whether I see a label in the review section on whether a question is causal, inductive, analogous, or deductive. Are there any tips or even videos that can help me further practice? My main issue is that I have a hard time identifying differences between causal and inductive reasoning. Any and all help would mean the world — whether it's from a fellow student, tutor, or anyone else! - Brandon :)
@BrandonLee
Good questions! These are general responses that hold true in most cases. But keep in mind that LSAT arguments can get very nuanced, so the specific way arguments are written is important.
"Many As don't get B" and "Several As don't get B" usually doesn't weaken an argument that A causes B. (That's because if the argument is based on a correlation between A and B, pointing out that there are outliers doesn't change anything about how we understand the correlation or what might explain it.)
"Some people get B after A" usually doesn't strengthen an argument that A causes B. I'd want to know, "But are people who have A more likely to get B than people who don't have A?" ("Some people get B after A" does at least establish that B can occur after A rather than only before it. So arguably it has at least a minimal strengthening impact. Without getting into the idea that Str/Weak do involve comparing strength of answers, it's simpler to just say that this kind of answer doesn't Strengthen.)
If by inductive reasoning you mean reasoning that generalizes from specific examples, I think a good way to get a high # of those questions is to filter for Sampling questions. Keep in mind that argument might have multiple modes of reasoning involved. So it's possible that you're having difficulty identifying differences because you're looking at examples that use both kinds of reasoning.
@Kevin_Lin Thank you so much for your answer! This makes a ton of sense, and I'm excited to keep drilling. You're amazing! :)
@Kevin_Lin Does anyone have any advice on how to work on identifying when I should be making a causal chain from the stimulus? I know what to do once its identified (specifically for strengthen and Weaken Questions types), but in going through the WSE LR lessons, I'm finding the stimulus types to be switching lots, and I worry that during timed practice, I won't know how to identify which strategy to use! Thank you!
if you can create a custom drill and post it here in the comments so that we can practice what we just learned, that would be great!!!!
@OvidiuLungu Try this! https://7sage.com/drills/build/drlt_033KZTkiMTOwTRcOdWZL5K
Kevin, your YouTube videos brought me to 7sage from seeing these visuals. You are heaven-sent, King!
I loved this video!! For the visual learners in the back
YAY thank you
I would like more lessons like this! Thank youuuu
@Aileen agreed. This video gave me a much more clearer understand of the topic.
This helped me today
OMG! Thanks Kevin, this was so helpful! Yep, I am always between two ACs, which were A & D but understood how to rule out D.
Thank you so much for these lessons!!!
Could we have more videos like this for other question types as well? I was just struggling with weakening and strengthening and this video helped a lot! Thank you:)
I love this visual video style! Really makes the content more absorbable.
LOVE this!
This is actually cool lol 😆…I am such a visual learner
Kevin is killing it with these videos!!
@DaisukeKaga The aliens helped with this one.