but learnt that in this case words like "beings" and "those" have an implicit “all” at the beginning of the sentence. Sooooo when you read it as “all beings” or “all those” it actually makes sense lol
Stay focused folks! I view the challenging skill builders as "Brain Boosters" that will strengthen our thought process on how we think about LR questions to improve our overall confidence and understanding by the time we take the real test! Remember we're only going to have roughly 1 min and 27 seconds to read the prompt and make a decision! These more difficult Skill Builders at the minimum puts us in great shape to make an accurate educated guess if all else fails while trying to beat the clock! Lol
So, 0/5, and just trying to wrap my mind around chaining them. So, as I’m trying to understand this more, should I refer to the wording for sufficient and necessary first? And the different groups explained at the top—is that always the order we need to follow when reading these statements?
Like, do all of the sentences need to be broken down and put in order based on the grouping standards? Like, is it always either Group 1, 2, 3, or 4? Or how should I best understand breaking this down from Steps 1–4 and then Group 1–4?
Basically, I’m just lost on where to start with understanding this, because the wording is getting lost in translation for me. Is there a guide someone typically uses when reading these, or a system you’d recommend I follow?
See, something that really annoys me is how much you can assume two things are the same or different in sentences.
For example, in Question 4 its answer says: "It’s not clear whether being “expected to make tough decisions” implies having the ability to make tough decisions. Maybe you can be expected to make tough decisions, but you’re not actually able to make those decisions." Therefore the two are not chained.
But for Question 1, I originally thought "Clever velociraptors..." and "When a raptor..." might not be the same. Like, someone might say, "It's not clear whether the second sentence specifically talks about "The Clever Velociraptor", because if so, it should say "When THE raptor finds". We might just be talking about any raptors including the stupid ones"
In the same way, Question 5 treats "9th level Wizards command Magical Energy" and "Wizards with training can control magical energy" as a chain. If a reasoning in Question 4 is permitted, then shouldn't it say, "It's not clear whether they are the same. A wizard who can just command an energy may not be equally adept at controlling it".
@kazuhiro35 For the raptor question, "When a raptor..." encompasses all raptors -- that's why it applies to clever velociraptors." "a raptor" doesn't refer to a specific raptor; it's referring generally to raptors.
For #5, the issue is whether the ability to "command" energy implies that you have the ability to "control" it. I think it does, and we can look up definitions to debate about this. But in any case, I don't consider that the point of this exercise. It's about putting you on notice that we are expected to investigate the meanings and implications of concepts. Connections between statements are not always going to stay at "word-matching" level, where you connect if the words are the same, and you don't connect when the words aren't the same. That's what I'd focus on.
@Kevin_Lin That's fair, thanks for your advice. Question 1 was completely my misunderstanding. For Question 5, yes surely the definitions can be debated and as you say, the "word-matching" is not the real focus on the LSAT. I think I was just frustrated by how I failed so much on the "word-matching" specifically in this exercise. Because I was able to do diagrams perfectly in most questions, but Question 5 told me I was wrong solely for the "word-matching" mistake :)
I keep getting the relationships right but then mess up the order of the chain or miss out on the full meaning of the relationship (or its inverse) by trying to break things down as much as possible. For example, here are all my answers:
Q1
Raptor finds weakness -> Breaks through -> Everyone runs OR
/Everyone runs -> /Breaks through -> /Raptor finds weakness
I missed the 1st chain of Clever velociraptor -> Finds Weakness
Q2
Pokemon evolves -> Gets Stronger -> Well Trained -> Full Potential OR
I missed that getting stronger is irrelevant to the chain. Here my logic was: If A then B and If A then C, so B is sufficient for C but I guess we can't draw that relationship or maybe I'm still missing something
Q3
Pure of heart -> Lift hammer -> Worthy of power -> Wield power w/o corruption
/Wield power w/o corruption -> /Worthy of power -> /Lift hammer -> /Pure of heart
I missed that being worthy of power is the SUFFICIENT here for purity. I thought it was the necessary
Q4
/never accept leadership (aka accept leadership) -> truly confident -> makes tough decisions OR
/makes tough decisions -> /truly confident -> never accept leadership
Even though I got this chain right, I still made the mistake of saying 'makes tough decisions' for brevity/speed sake, but this still kind of defeats the true understanding of the relationship because the whole key is "EXPECTED TO"
Q5
9th level wiz -> great magical energy -> extensive training
more to learn -> /extensive training -> /great magical energy -> /9th level wiz
Here I kind of have the ideas right, but my order is a bit off. This is because when first breaking down each sentence into lawgic I did:
9th level wiz -> great magical energy
Great magical energy -> Extensive training
/9th level wiz -> more to learn OR 9th level wiz -> /more to learn (but now I realize here it can only be /A -> B OR /B -> A
Maybe I'm reading it wrong but for the last sentence of Q5, why doesn't the word "can't" trigger a necessary negation for "still have much to learn"? We were taught to pick a clause negate it in the necessary condition, but he didn't do that in the problem (unless I missed it). Just looking for clarity on this :/
@MelHart "Spellcasters can't..." is different from "Spellcasters WHO can't..."
When "can't" is part of a modifier, it's not being used in the same way as it is when it's the predicate verb of the whole statement. It doesn't provide the conditional structure to the whole statement anymore. Does that make sense?
"Spellcasters WHO can't..." just spells out the specific group of spellcasters we're getting a fact about.
#5, I did not want to assume spellcasters means wizards, so I decided not to include this one as part of the chain. My chain ignored "9th level → more to learn" but otherwise was mostly correct. I wonder if anyone else felt the same way?
@rdpitkajr Yes, I felt the same way. It was hard to make an inference but after some thought I decided to equate the two for the problem based on inference. Not sure that's the best way to go about it.
Looking for a bit of clarification in #2 on seeing why "Any Pokémon that doesn’t reach its full potential must have avoided training" doesn't mean, to reach full potential --> training (as in this is a requirement for full potential).
Is it that we can't say that because we can only conclude something about those that didn't reach full potential? So: /full potential --> /trained, if you are trained --> you've reached your potential? And then that allows us to draw the conditional chain
@Kevin_Lin Thank you! So is it also that we have to draw the conditional out with what it gives us, i.e., any/sufficient here is "doesn't reach full potential," so it would be wrong of me to conclude something about those that Did reach full potential?
@businessgoose Right. It might be that it sounds a bit weird because you'd naturally think that to reach one's potential you have to train. So you want to think of it as "if reached full potential --> trained". But this is just an instance of needing to follow what the language actually says, not our own real-life associations between the concepts involved.
im still having a hard time determining which is the sufficient claim and which is the necessary claim. I know in a previous lesson he said that the necessary claim comes after the indicator... am i right?
Is it safe to always interpret "can/capable of" and "~actually~ do/done" as synonymous for the purpose of chaining conditional arguments? (from Pokemon question). In any other context, I would assume that being capable of evolving and actually evolving are two different stories.
@DeliaCanDoIt! They're not synonymous. However, if something is actually done, that implies it's possible.
The relationship doesn't work the other way around -- the fact something is possible doesn't imply that it is actually done. That's why they're not synonymous.
"Whenever a Pokémon evolves, it becomes stronger in battle. This possibility is exciting to trainers, but only well-trained Pokémon are capable of evolving. Any Pokémon that doesn’t reach its full potential must have avoided training."
I tried to fit the idea that when it evolves it becomes stronger, but that didn't fit in the chain. Moving forward I have to be careful about not trying to fit everything in a chain, cause some premises wont.
Q3. I originally parsed "without" in the 2nd sentence as a group 3 indicator, thinking it was a conditional rather than descriptive. But it chained up the same. Hmmm....
2nd sentence: Lift → /Corrupt
Chain: Worthy → Pure → Lift → /Corrupt
Question: Does treating "without" as descriptive vs. Group 3 negation change anything here? Video says non‑conditional, but my diagram functionally matched. Thoughts on when to draw the line?
Regarding question 2. "... only well trained pocemon are capable of evolving" (therefore evolve -> well trained. This is very clear). However, "Any pokemon that doesnt reach its full potential must have avoided training." (/full potential -> avoided training). I dont understand why we assume that the negated version of "avoided training" is well trained. After all, the pokemon could be somewhat trained or badly trained. Well trained is not the only option here. I believe the question is confusing negation with opposition: the same error that was highlighted in a previous module. I understand that according to the video explanation this is the most useful way to interpret the conditional, but I just can´t see the logic behind this. Can anyone explain? Thanks
@SamuelBates Nevermind, I think I see my mistake. "... Any pokemon that doesnt reach its full potential must have avoided training". The negation to "avoided training" is simply: "not avoided training". So any amount of training is a sufficient condition for reaching full potential. So we can say that /avoided training = well trained, in this context because being well trained will always result in not having avoided training.
@SamuelBates Right! One small clarification -- I wouldn't say that /avoided training = well-trained in the sense of an equals sign that goes both ways. Rather, well-trained implies /avoided training, because as you note any amount of training will trigger "/avoided training".
Question 3- first conditional. why is it not "if you can lift it, then you are pure of heart." instead of "if pure heart, then can lift" isn't pure heart necessary to lift?
@malop91 "being who are pure of heart can lift it" might sound like it's saying that "pure of heart" is necessary to lift. But that's not actually what the literal words mean.
Consider:
"People who are athletes can be extravagantly wealthy."
That's not saying being an athlete is necessary to be extravagantly wealthy. That's saying if you're an athlete, you have the ability to be extravagantly wealthy.
@malop91 I think when you introduce "can" its easier to imagine a subset superset relationship. Lift (superset) and pure of heart (subset). You can/must lift if you have a pure heart. Similarly to what Kevin said, you can/must be wealthy, if you are an athlete. That's how I see it
@LiviaLSAT "but only well-trained Pokémon are capable of evolving"
That means if you have evolved you must have been well trained. For you to evolve it is necessary for you to have been well-trained. You having evolved is sufficient to say that you must have been well-trained.
For #5, I broke the last sentence down by identifying "can't" as a Group 4 negating necessary implicator. Was that wrong? Technically, the Group 4 indicators are "none", "both", "not both", and cannot", so I wonder if my mistake was assuming "can't" and "cannot" were the same.
The video says there is an implicit "all" before spellcasters, but that is not something I thought about when working this question out.
In question 5, I'm confused why we should assume there is an "all" in front of spellcasters (making it group 1) instead of translating with "can't" and using group 4.
@dani26lovio There's a difference between "Spellcasters can't..." and "Spellcasters who can't..."
When "can't" is part of a modifier of the subject, it's just a description. It's not the predicate verb of the sentence and so doesn't contribute to the conditional structure of the statement.
I understand it when I watch the video, but when I attempt to do it by myself I always get stuck when trying to chain concepts together. Does anyone maybe have a trick they use? Especially if the statement has a lot of negate statements, I get lost when doing it on my own.
@HelainaLaCoste The way 7Sage taught in the last lesson was when given a sentence with both indicators “No” and “unless” only focus on “unless” and use no as a negation. I find this to be a bit hard to process easily though and it throws my mind through a loop.
Alternatively since “No” is a negate necessary and “Unless” is a negate sufficient you can just negate both clauses and flip them around as if making a contrapositive. That way every time you get a confusing statement with negate clauses for both sufficient and necessary you can easily do it.
Could also just negate the already negated sufficient clause (negated because of "no") as it is and that makes it all non negated statement (not sure if that makes sense.)
When it comes to chaining the conditions together I think the grammar lessons and getting down to the bare bones of the clauses is really helpful. That way you can focus on just the specific aspect of the sentence that lines up with other sentences. Like Q5 I saw magical energy mentioned in both and so I did the abbreviation ME for both and was able to link them up and chain the conditional. But doing something too simplified like that may miss some nuance like in Q4 I linked all of the clauses together including expected to make tough decisions with making tough decisions as the same clause. But expected to make tough decisions is not entirely the same as actually MAKING the tough decisions. So that could end up being wrong on the LSAT. They said it isn't necessarily wrong though so there's some ambiguity with it.
My confusion is where the line is drawn. Take Question 4 where being expected to make tough decisions is different from making them. That logic lead me, in Question 5, to believe that commanding magical energy is different from CONTROLing it. But that's not the case. Determining what can be grouped together seems subjective and where errors will occur.
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172 comments
If you’re not ninth level, you still have more to learn. I understand the contrapositive is if you don’t have more to learn then you are ninth level.
Tripping me up that you could in reality have more to learn if you aren’t ninth level and also have more to learn if you are ninth level.
Why does having more to learn mean you aren’t ninth level if all the question addresses is that those who aren’t ninth level have more to learn?
You must learn to ignore normal rational thinking in order to complete lsat tasks successfully.
@Hnelson88 "if you're not 9th level, you still have more to learn" does not mean that if you ARE 9th level, you don't have more to learn.
"If A, then B" does not imply "If not A, then not B."
"If not X, then Y" does not imply "If you are X, then you're not Y".
For Question 4's last setence, @Kevin_Lin says that there is no explicit conditional indicator, but what about " can't" ?
Isn't that a group 4 conditional indicator?
I know the can't here means the ability to make tough decisions, but isn't it also suggesting a conditional concept?
q3 was a headache :(
but learnt that in this case words like "beings" and "those" have an implicit “all” at the beginning of the sentence. Sooooo when you read it as “all beings” or “all those” it actually makes sense lol
Stay focused folks! I view the challenging skill builders as "Brain Boosters" that will strengthen our thought process on how we think about LR questions to improve our overall confidence and understanding by the time we take the real test! Remember we're only going to have roughly 1 min and 27 seconds to read the prompt and make a decision! These more difficult Skill Builders at the minimum puts us in great shape to make an accurate educated guess if all else fails while trying to beat the clock! Lol
Goodluck and stay positive!
So, 0/5, and just trying to wrap my mind around chaining them. So, as I’m trying to understand this more, should I refer to the wording for sufficient and necessary first? And the different groups explained at the top—is that always the order we need to follow when reading these statements?
Like, do all of the sentences need to be broken down and put in order based on the grouping standards? Like, is it always either Group 1, 2, 3, or 4? Or how should I best understand breaking this down from Steps 1–4 and then Group 1–4?
Basically, I’m just lost on where to start with understanding this, because the wording is getting lost in translation for me. Is there a guide someone typically uses when reading these, or a system you’d recommend I follow?
See, something that really annoys me is how much you can assume two things are the same or different in sentences.
For example, in Question 4 its answer says: "It’s not clear whether being “expected to make tough decisions” implies having the ability to make tough decisions. Maybe you can be expected to make tough decisions, but you’re not actually able to make those decisions." Therefore the two are not chained.
But for Question 1, I originally thought "Clever velociraptors..." and "When a raptor..." might not be the same. Like, someone might say, "It's not clear whether the second sentence specifically talks about "The Clever Velociraptor", because if so, it should say "When THE raptor finds". We might just be talking about any raptors including the stupid ones"
In the same way, Question 5 treats "9th level Wizards command Magical Energy" and "Wizards with training can control magical energy" as a chain. If a reasoning in Question 4 is permitted, then shouldn't it say, "It's not clear whether they are the same. A wizard who can just command an energy may not be equally adept at controlling it".
Am I slow or is this reasonable?
@kazuhiro35 For the raptor question, "When a raptor..." encompasses all raptors -- that's why it applies to clever velociraptors." "a raptor" doesn't refer to a specific raptor; it's referring generally to raptors.
For #5, the issue is whether the ability to "command" energy implies that you have the ability to "control" it. I think it does, and we can look up definitions to debate about this. But in any case, I don't consider that the point of this exercise. It's about putting you on notice that we are expected to investigate the meanings and implications of concepts. Connections between statements are not always going to stay at "word-matching" level, where you connect if the words are the same, and you don't connect when the words aren't the same. That's what I'd focus on.
@Kevin_Lin That's fair, thanks for your advice. Question 1 was completely my misunderstanding. For Question 5, yes surely the definitions can be debated and as you say, the "word-matching" is not the real focus on the LSAT. I think I was just frustrated by how I failed so much on the "word-matching" specifically in this exercise. Because I was able to do diagrams perfectly in most questions, but Question 5 told me I was wrong solely for the "word-matching" mistake :)
2 and 3 were rough
I keep getting the relationships right but then mess up the order of the chain or miss out on the full meaning of the relationship (or its inverse) by trying to break things down as much as possible. For example, here are all my answers:
Q1
Raptor finds weakness -> Breaks through -> Everyone runs OR
/Everyone runs -> /Breaks through -> /Raptor finds weakness
I missed the 1st chain of Clever velociraptor -> Finds Weakness
Q2
Pokemon evolves -> Gets Stronger -> Well Trained -> Full Potential OR
/Full potential -> /Training -> /Get Stronger -> /Evolve
I missed that getting stronger is irrelevant to the chain. Here my logic was: If A then B and If A then C, so B is sufficient for C but I guess we can't draw that relationship or maybe I'm still missing something
Q3
Pure of heart -> Lift hammer -> Worthy of power -> Wield power w/o corruption
/Wield power w/o corruption -> /Worthy of power -> /Lift hammer -> /Pure of heart
I missed that being worthy of power is the SUFFICIENT here for purity. I thought it was the necessary
Q4
/never accept leadership (aka accept leadership) -> truly confident -> makes tough decisions OR
/makes tough decisions -> /truly confident -> never accept leadership
Even though I got this chain right, I still made the mistake of saying 'makes tough decisions' for brevity/speed sake, but this still kind of defeats the true understanding of the relationship because the whole key is "EXPECTED TO"
Q5
9th level wiz -> great magical energy -> extensive training
more to learn -> /extensive training -> /great magical energy -> /9th level wiz
Here I kind of have the ideas right, but my order is a bit off. This is because when first breaking down each sentence into lawgic I did:
9th level wiz -> great magical energy
Great magical energy -> Extensive training
/9th level wiz -> more to learn OR 9th level wiz -> /more to learn (but now I realize here it can only be /A -> B OR /B -> A
NOT /A -> B OR A -> /B)
Maybe I'm reading it wrong but for the last sentence of Q5, why doesn't the word "can't" trigger a necessary negation for "still have much to learn"? We were taught to pick a clause negate it in the necessary condition, but he didn't do that in the problem (unless I missed it). Just looking for clarity on this :/
@MelHart "Spellcasters can't..." is different from "Spellcasters WHO can't..."
When "can't" is part of a modifier, it's not being used in the same way as it is when it's the predicate verb of the whole statement. It doesn't provide the conditional structure to the whole statement anymore. Does that make sense?
"Spellcasters WHO can't..." just spells out the specific group of spellcasters we're getting a fact about.
#5, I did not want to assume spellcasters means wizards, so I decided not to include this one as part of the chain. My chain ignored "
9th level→ more to learn" but otherwise was mostly correct. I wonder if anyone else felt the same way?@rdpitkajr Yes, I felt the same way. It was hard to make an inference but after some thought I decided to equate the two for the problem based on inference. Not sure that's the best way to go about it.
Very good tip here: Plural subjects imply the presence of an ALL or ANY statement in front of it, making it a sufficient condition.
"Barbies who do A do B" = "All Barbies who do A do B" = A---->B
Looking for a bit of clarification in #2 on seeing why "Any Pokémon that doesn’t reach its full potential must have avoided training" doesn't mean, to reach full potential --> training (as in this is a requirement for full potential).
Is it that we can't say that because we can only conclude something about those that didn't reach full potential? So: /full potential --> /trained, if you are trained --> you've reached your potential? And then that allows us to draw the conditional chain
@businessgoose "Any X is Y". This structure tells us things that fall into group X must be Y. But that doesn't mean things that fall into Y must be X.
That's why it becomes:
doesn't reach full potential --> avoided training
NOT avoided training (meaning, got training) --> reach full potential
@Kevin_Lin Thank you! So is it also that we have to draw the conditional out with what it gives us, i.e., any/sufficient here is "doesn't reach full potential," so it would be wrong of me to conclude something about those that Did reach full potential?
@businessgoose Right. It might be that it sounds a bit weird because you'd naturally think that to reach one's potential you have to train. So you want to think of it as "if reached full potential --> trained". But this is just an instance of needing to follow what the language actually says, not our own real-life associations between the concepts involved.
@Kevin_Lin Thank you!
im still having a hard time determining which is the sufficient claim and which is the necessary claim. I know in a previous lesson he said that the necessary claim comes after the indicator... am i right?
Is it safe to always interpret "can/capable of" and "~actually~ do/done" as synonymous for the purpose of chaining conditional arguments? (from Pokemon question). In any other context, I would assume that being capable of evolving and actually evolving are two different stories.
@DeliaCanDoIt! They're not synonymous. However, if something is actually done, that implies it's possible.
The relationship doesn't work the other way around -- the fact something is possible doesn't imply that it is actually done. That's why they're not synonymous.
4/5 I got question 2 wrong:
"Whenever a Pokémon evolves, it becomes stronger in battle. This possibility is exciting to trainers, but only well-trained Pokémon are capable of evolving. Any Pokémon that doesn’t reach its full potential must have avoided training."
I tried to fit the idea that when it evolves it becomes stronger, but that didn't fit in the chain. Moving forward I have to be careful about not trying to fit everything in a chain, cause some premises wont.
@SohaS same
Q3. I originally parsed "without" in the 2nd sentence as a group 3 indicator, thinking it was a conditional rather than descriptive. But it chained up the same. Hmmm....
2nd sentence: Lift → /Corrupt
Chain: Worthy → Pure → Lift → /Corrupt
Question: Does treating "without" as descriptive vs. Group 3 negation change anything here? Video says non‑conditional, but my diagram functionally matched. Thoughts on when to draw the line?
wouldn't question #2 be:
capable of evolving -> well trained -> reach potential
I feel like 'evolve' and 'capable of evolving' are completely different.
Regarding question 2. "... only well trained pocemon are capable of evolving" (therefore evolve -> well trained. This is very clear). However, "Any pokemon that doesnt reach its full potential must have avoided training." (/full potential -> avoided training). I dont understand why we assume that the negated version of "avoided training" is well trained. After all, the pokemon could be somewhat trained or badly trained. Well trained is not the only option here. I believe the question is confusing negation with opposition: the same error that was highlighted in a previous module. I understand that according to the video explanation this is the most useful way to interpret the conditional, but I just can´t see the logic behind this. Can anyone explain? Thanks
@SamuelBates Nevermind, I think I see my mistake. "... Any pokemon that doesnt reach its full potential must have avoided training". The negation to "avoided training" is simply: "not avoided training". So any amount of training is a sufficient condition for reaching full potential. So we can say that /avoided training = well trained, in this context because being well trained will always result in not having avoided training.
@SamuelBates Right! One small clarification -- I wouldn't say that /avoided training = well-trained in the sense of an equals sign that goes both ways. Rather, well-trained implies /avoided training, because as you note any amount of training will trigger "/avoided training".
Question 3- first conditional. why is it not "if you can lift it, then you are pure of heart." instead of "if pure heart, then can lift" isn't pure heart necessary to lift?
@malop91 "being who are pure of heart can lift it" might sound like it's saying that "pure of heart" is necessary to lift. But that's not actually what the literal words mean.
Consider:
"People who are athletes can be extravagantly wealthy."
That's not saying being an athlete is necessary to be extravagantly wealthy. That's saying if you're an athlete, you have the ability to be extravagantly wealthy.
@malop91 I think when you introduce "can" its easier to imagine a subset superset relationship. Lift (superset) and pure of heart (subset). You can/must lift if you have a pure heart. Similarly to what Kevin said, you can/must be wealthy, if you are an athlete. That's how I see it
for question two i dont understand how to know to put well trained on the right side of the arrow
@LiviaLSAT "but only well-trained Pokémon are capable of evolving"
That means if you have evolved you must have been well trained. For you to evolve it is necessary for you to have been well-trained. You having evolved is sufficient to say that you must have been well-trained.
Evolve (sufficient)->Well-trained (necessary)
For #5, I broke the last sentence down by identifying "can't" as a Group 4 negating necessary implicator. Was that wrong? Technically, the Group 4 indicators are "none", "both", "not both", and cannot", so I wonder if my mistake was assuming "can't" and "cannot" were the same.
The video says there is an implicit "all" before spellcasters, but that is not something I thought about when working this question out.
In question 5, I'm confused why we should assume there is an "all" in front of spellcasters (making it group 1) instead of translating with "can't" and using group 4.
@dani26lovio There's a difference between "Spellcasters can't..." and "Spellcasters who can't..."
When "can't" is part of a modifier of the subject, it's just a description. It's not the predicate verb of the sentence and so doesn't contribute to the conditional structure of the statement.
"X can't Y" = X --> Not Y
"Xs that can't Y are Z" = (Xs that can't Y) --> Z
I understand it when I watch the video, but when I attempt to do it by myself I always get stuck when trying to chain concepts together. Does anyone maybe have a trick they use? Especially if the statement has a lot of negate statements, I get lost when doing it on my own.
@HelainaLaCoste The way 7Sage taught in the last lesson was when given a sentence with both indicators “No” and “unless” only focus on “unless” and use no as a negation. I find this to be a bit hard to process easily though and it throws my mind through a loop.
Alternatively since “No” is a negate necessary and “Unless” is a negate sufficient you can just negate both clauses and flip them around as if making a contrapositive. That way every time you get a confusing statement with negate clauses for both sufficient and necessary you can easily do it.
Could also just negate the already negated sufficient clause (negated because of "no") as it is and that makes it all non negated statement (not sure if that makes sense.)
When it comes to chaining the conditions together I think the grammar lessons and getting down to the bare bones of the clauses is really helpful. That way you can focus on just the specific aspect of the sentence that lines up with other sentences. Like Q5 I saw magical energy mentioned in both and so I did the abbreviation ME for both and was able to link them up and chain the conditional. But doing something too simplified like that may miss some nuance like in Q4 I linked all of the clauses together including expected to make tough decisions with making tough decisions as the same clause. But expected to make tough decisions is not entirely the same as actually MAKING the tough decisions. So that could end up being wrong on the LSAT. They said it isn't necessarily wrong though so there's some ambiguity with it.
My confusion is where the line is drawn. Take Question 4 where being expected to make tough decisions is different from making them. That logic lead me, in Question 5, to believe that commanding magical energy is different from CONTROLing it. But that's not the case. Determining what can be grouped together seems subjective and where errors will occur.
on q2. how is the capability of evolving the same thing as evolves?