Group 1 Indicators If, When, Where, All, Any, Every
Rule: Whatever immediately follows the word goes on the LEFT side of the arrow
Group 2 Indicators Only, Only if, Only when, Only where
Rule: Whatever immediately follows the word goes on the RIGHT side of the arrow
Group 3 Indicators Or, Unless, Until, Without, Except
Rule: Whatever immediately follows the word goes on the RIGHT side. Take the other part of the sentence, NEGATE it, and put it on the LEFT side.
Group 4 Indicators No, None, Never
Rule: Whatever immediately follows the word goes on the LEFT side. Take the other part of the sentence, NEGATE it, and put it on the RIGHT side.
This cheat sheet rlly helped me for these :) I'm hoping using this will help me eventually memorize them. Its here for anybody else. Whoever is reading ily have a great day!
In Q2, I took issue with the idea that "not avoiding training" meant the same as "well-trained" (after all, you can train at something and still not be well-trained). But when the two concepts were equated in the explanation, I figured they were close enough that I should just equate them when the question is clearly asking for chained conditionals.
But then, in Q4, "being expected to take the final call on tough decisions" was distinguished from "makes tough decisions"??? I see how those are distinct concepts, but I'm not sure why that small distinction was made when a similarly marginal distinction wasn't made in the Q2.
We're told that "No" is an indicator word (Negate, necessary). So in Question #3 when it says "No one can be worthy of power without being pure of heart", shouldn't it be:
I came back to this after a long break. I am definitely more comfortable with chaining conditionals like this but it is still hard. This is worth spending time on because this is often how conditionals look on the test: convoluted.
I think I can get so caught up trying to make the indicator words work that I end up not looking at the problem as a whole and I get stuff wrong because I'm not reading close enough.
In examples like #3 are there good ways to decipher what isn't relevant to the chain? I am struggling because I assume it is, and then I get stuck trying to make the rest of the chain work. I get all of the other portions of the chain correct though.
I love these skill builders, anyone else feel like its helping a lot. If only I was able to remember which indicator is in which group I feel like I would fully understand it. But I definitely see progress everyday, I love it !
@Imtryingggggg So yes, “ Unless” is a group 3 indicator. If you negate accept it would be Accept-confident since it has the word “never” which is already a negation of “accept”. So the original would already be /accept. You’d then change it to accept. Hope this helps!
Man how are you supposed to accurately know when to use a CONDITIONAL INDICATOR as its purpose or as a statement being used in a conditional chain??? That makes absolutely no sense at all. This is driving me insane :-(
@JamesFoleno Yes. That confused me too. But rememeber context matters. Just because there is a indicator doesn't mean its rule will be used. This one is a example of that. It's confusing but it's just one of those things that eventually come intuitively with practice.
How come sometimes it's okay to make an inference on conditional reasoning and sometimes it's not? For example, question two inferred that "avoided training" implies "NOT well-trained" but "reach full potential" does not imply "Pokemon evolved"? I saw the video explanation that "avoided training" suggests /training --> /well-trained, but doesn't that make exactly the sort of assumption we're asked to spot on other types of questions?
Q2 has to be the most poorly worded question in all of the examples I've seen so far. (Despite having already been taken aback by Q1 because I had to assume clear velociraptors are in fact a subset of raptors... when that is definitely not clear. e.g. koala bears aren't bears.) Question 2: inappropriately assumes that "not well-trained" means "avoided training." And it doesn't stop there, it also assumes evolution means the Pokémon reaches its full potential which is not explicitly written in the stimulus. (e.g. Ashe's pikachu never evolved, but has arguably reached the pinnacle of his potential) To correct this, the stimulus should have read "Any Pokémon that has not evolved must have not have been well-trained" I know that it makes the question way easier without the addition of new language, but the law is very litigious... and so is this exam.
@dplsawyers 2 doesn't require the idea that "not well-trained" means "avoided training." It does require the undrestanding that "avoided training" implies "not well-trained." If you avoided training, then you are not well-trained.
That's different from saying the two concepts mean the same thing or are equal to each other.
See my take in the video at about 5:20 for more on this.
@Kevin_Lin I went over the video, and unfortunately still didn't understand the logic here. Avoided is the operative word here that is necessary for this logic. Unfortunately, there is a world where the intersection of avoiding training and being well-trained exists. Well-trained just means completed satisfactory training, not all of the training. For example, a doctor can be well-trained because they went through years of medical school and residency, but they avoided doing additional training through fellowships because they did not want to spend the extra time doing so. If the stimulus had said "must not have trained at all" or even "must have avoided training altogether" then the idea of not training at all would definitely imply not well trained, and there would be no room for misinterpretation.
@MarcosGuzman415 Those threw me through a loop! It was good practice to see when to use discretion regarding indicator words because my first instinct was to treat line 2 in question 3 like an if/then statement. He says in the lesson that we'll have to think about if the indicator words are denoting something necessary/sufficient. I will definitely need more practice though!
im only able to make the symbols make sense to the context of the question but im confused on what im supposed to be doing with the chain, i feel like the examples and ''lawgic'' dont make sense because its not specific to what real lsat questions will be asking, can someone explain why use lawgic if I dont even know what a real lsat question could be asking
Okay, I have a question. So the same way it was implied in the 5th stimulus that controlling is the same as commanding, then why can't we infer that lack of extensive training, which is the negation of extensive training, means that you have more to learn?
The issue I'm trying to figure out is the relationship between "spellcasters" and "wizards". Like sure, I can assume that spellcasters are wizards since the modifying quality of "can't/can cast ninth-level", but is that formal? Without external knowledge of wizards being the same as spellcasters (fireball, clash royale, etc.). The raptor/velociraptor is a lexical relationship, it's literally in the text, but I think it's less clear with wizards/spellcasters, even with the modifiers.
@coochicriminal I was caught up on this too, as well as the "command" = "control", because there are a lot of cases where I can command something but I don't control it.
Again with the wizards are spellcasters, that's somewhat acceptable and probably in the accepted definition of wizard, but it's weird to change it up because that's not an exact subset/superset. If they were switched that definitely wouldn't make sense, because spellcasters could be witches, or warlocks, etc. depending on what culture you're familiar with.
I'm a little confused on the 5th question. How did we decide that controlling great power means extensive training? Couldn't one control great power without training? Is this just one of those cases where we have to use our judgement to make a reasonable assumption?
227 comments
these exercises make me feel really stupid
Group 1 Indicators If, When, Where, All, Any, Every
Rule: Whatever immediately follows the word goes on the LEFT side of the arrow
Group 2 Indicators Only, Only if, Only when, Only where
Rule: Whatever immediately follows the word goes on the RIGHT side of the arrow
Group 3 Indicators Or, Unless, Until, Without, Except
Rule: Whatever immediately follows the word goes on the RIGHT side. Take the other part of the sentence, NEGATE it, and put it on the LEFT side.
Group 4 Indicators No, None, Never
Rule: Whatever immediately follows the word goes on the LEFT side. Take the other part of the sentence, NEGATE it, and put it on the RIGHT side.
This cheat sheet rlly helped me for these :) I'm hoping using this will help me eventually memorize them. Its here for anybody else. Whoever is reading ily have a great day!
In Q2, I took issue with the idea that "not avoiding training" meant the same as "well-trained" (after all, you can train at something and still not be well-trained). But when the two concepts were equated in the explanation, I figured they were close enough that I should just equate them when the question is clearly asking for chained conditionals.
But then, in Q4, "being expected to take the final call on tough decisions" was distinguished from "makes tough decisions"??? I see how those are distinct concepts, but I'm not sure why that small distinction was made when a similarly marginal distinction wasn't made in the Q2.
@TravisSwafford16 It's not that "not avoided training" is equated to well-training. They're not equal.
But if you are "well trained", that implies you "did not avoid training".
This doesn't mean "did not avoid training" implies "well trained."
We're told that "No" is an indicator word (Negate, necessary). So in Question #3 when it says "No one can be worthy of power without being pure of heart", shouldn't it be:
Pure > Worthy???
Why is it flipped in this instance?
@EJay In case anyone is wondering. I figured out the answer - it's because "without" is the indicator, not "no".
@EJay Both are indicator words. But the "without" negates the "no" Essentially it renders the conditional a double negative.
I came back to this after a long break. I am definitely more comfortable with chaining conditionals like this but it is still hard. This is worth spending time on because this is often how conditionals look on the test: convoluted.
I think I can get so caught up trying to make the indicator words work that I end up not looking at the problem as a whole and I get stuff wrong because I'm not reading close enough.
I can do this, the problem is that it takes 10 minutes per question
4.5/5
In examples like #3 are there good ways to decipher what isn't relevant to the chain? I am struggling because I assume it is, and then I get stuck trying to make the rest of the chain work. I get all of the other portions of the chain correct though.
I love these skill builders, anyone else feel like its helping a lot. If only I was able to remember which indicator is in which group I feel like I would fully understand it. But I definitely see progress everyday, I love it !
For question 4, I'm confused about why this is wrong. I negated accept and kept confident positive, which is what I thought Group 3 required.
/Accept - confident - tough decision - responsibility
Im so confused why that is not right
@Imtryingggggg So yes, “ Unless” is a group 3 indicator. If you negate accept it would be Accept-confident since it has the word “never” which is already a negation of “accept”. So the original would already be /accept. You’d then change it to accept. Hope this helps!
Man how are you supposed to accurately know when to use a CONDITIONAL INDICATOR as its purpose or as a statement being used in a conditional chain??? That makes absolutely no sense at all. This is driving me insane :-(
In question 2, why are "Pokemon evolves" and "Pokemon are capable of evolving" equivalent?
In some of the questions, the indicator "can't" was also in the sentences. Does the implied "all" also take precedence over "can't"?
@JamesFoleno Yes. That confused me too. But rememeber context matters. Just because there is a indicator doesn't mean its rule will be used. This one is a example of that. It's confusing but it's just one of those things that eventually come intuitively with practice.
How come sometimes it's okay to make an inference on conditional reasoning and sometimes it's not? For example, question two inferred that "avoided training" implies "NOT well-trained" but "reach full potential" does not imply "Pokemon evolved"? I saw the video explanation that "avoided training" suggests /training --> /well-trained, but doesn't that make exactly the sort of assumption we're asked to spot on other types of questions?
If anyone is struggling like me, copy and paste this page into chatgpt (etc.) to get more practice questions like this. Really helps!
im so lost lol again
Can we get more of these?
Q2 has to be the most poorly worded question in all of the examples I've seen so far. (Despite having already been taken aback by Q1 because I had to assume clear velociraptors are in fact a subset of raptors... when that is definitely not clear. e.g. koala bears aren't bears.) Question 2: inappropriately assumes that "not well-trained" means "avoided training." And it doesn't stop there, it also assumes evolution means the Pokémon reaches its full potential which is not explicitly written in the stimulus. (e.g. Ashe's pikachu never evolved, but has arguably reached the pinnacle of his potential) To correct this, the stimulus should have read "Any Pokémon that has not evolved must have not have been well-trained" I know that it makes the question way easier without the addition of new language, but the law is very litigious... and so is this exam.
@dplsawyers 2 doesn't require the idea that "not well-trained" means "avoided training." It does require the undrestanding that "avoided training" implies "not well-trained." If you avoided training, then you are not well-trained.
That's different from saying the two concepts mean the same thing or are equal to each other.
See my take in the video at about 5:20 for more on this.
@Kevin_Lin I went over the video, and unfortunately still didn't understand the logic here. Avoided is the operative word here that is necessary for this logic. Unfortunately, there is a world where the intersection of avoiding training and being well-trained exists. Well-trained just means completed satisfactory training, not all of the training. For example, a doctor can be well-trained because they went through years of medical school and residency, but they avoided doing additional training through fellowships because they did not want to spend the extra time doing so. If the stimulus had said "must not have trained at all" or even "must have avoided training altogether" then the idea of not training at all would definitely imply not well trained, and there would be no room for misinterpretation.
@dplsawyers im not gonna lie, you have a point, but unfortunately, the lsat does not care about being sound lol.
just assume that being well-trained does actually mean that you didn't avoid training and its still logically valid.
Number 3 killed me what happened to group 3 and 4 rules?
@MarcosGuzman415 Those threw me through a loop! It was good practice to see when to use discretion regarding indicator words because my first instinct was to treat line 2 in question 3 like an if/then statement. He says in the lesson that we'll have to think about if the indicator words are denoting something necessary/sufficient. I will definitely need more practice though!
im only able to make the symbols make sense to the context of the question but im confused on what im supposed to be doing with the chain, i feel like the examples and ''lawgic'' dont make sense because its not specific to what real lsat questions will be asking, can someone explain why use lawgic if I dont even know what a real lsat question could be asking
@LilyMelendez Have you seen these questions in this module?
https://7sage.com/lessons/foundations/conditional-and-set-logic/intro-youtry-1-pt123-s3-q22
https://7sage.com/lessons/foundations/conditional-and-set-logic/conditional-youtry-1-pt111-s3-q18
https://7sage.com/lessons/foundations/conditional-and-set-logic/conditional-youtry-pta-s3-q10
https://7sage.com/lessons/foundations/conditional-and-set-logic/conditional-youtry-pt21-s3-q22
https://7sage.com/lessons/foundations/conditional-and-set-logic/drill-pt124-s3-q19-pt110-s2-q23-pt112-s1-q14
4/5 :)
Okay, I have a question. So the same way it was implied in the 5th stimulus that controlling is the same as commanding, then why can't we infer that lack of extensive training, which is the negation of extensive training, means that you have more to learn?
The issue I'm trying to figure out is the relationship between "spellcasters" and "wizards". Like sure, I can assume that spellcasters are wizards since the modifying quality of "can't/can cast ninth-level", but is that formal? Without external knowledge of wizards being the same as spellcasters (fireball, clash royale, etc.). The raptor/velociraptor is a lexical relationship, it's literally in the text, but I think it's less clear with wizards/spellcasters, even with the modifiers.
@coochicriminal I was caught up on this too, as well as the "command" = "control", because there are a lot of cases where I can command something but I don't control it.
Again with the wizards are spellcasters, that's somewhat acceptable and probably in the accepted definition of wizard, but it's weird to change it up because that's not an exact subset/superset. If they were switched that definitely wouldn't make sense, because spellcasters could be witches, or warlocks, etc. depending on what culture you're familiar with.
I'm a little confused on the 5th question. How did we decide that controlling great power means extensive training? Couldn't one control great power without training? Is this just one of those cases where we have to use our judgement to make a reasonable assumption?
@LaneyWilliams What about the second sentence?
"Only wizards who possess extensive training in the arcane can control such magical energy."
@Kevin_Lin In the explanation video, we created the following conditional statements:
9th level --> magical energy
can control --> ext. training, and in the video, we said that commanding magical energy is the same thing as controlling magical energy.
Is this because command and control practically mean the same thing?