I think what helped me the most was the technique of identifying the cause and effect. For example:
Q1 states that all the people who ate the day old sushi suffered from poisoning .
This question is telling you a result... in essence an effect, but it is not giving you the actual cause of HOW they got sick. This stumped me because I used my 'real world' thinking and not logic.
@Kevin_Lin I'm a little stuck on the "tend to", so I want to know if there are ways to change Q1 into a causal statement? or Q2 into a non-causal sentence?
E.g., On every high school basketball team, the best players tend to become the most popular people at school.
Children that are given everything they ask for tend to be individuals who are unable to cope with life's challenges?
@joshuali I still wouldn't read those as causal because they don't assert that X actually produces Y.
"People who are X tend to become Y." Ok, but is it the X that is a causal factor in leading to Y? Or is this just a coincidence? Or is there something else associated with being X that is the cause of Y?
"People who grow up rich tend to become well-mannered adults."
Does that mean growing up rich causes well-mannered? Or is it that people who grow up rich are likely to grow up in environments that teach them to be well-mannered?
I think this lesson would be helpful if each question came with an example of how to make the claim causal or non-casual. I think seeing what would make it meet the standards would help understand why it doesn't.
@mibuch Just want to be clear here in case others are confused. The explanation for #1 does not say that it's not causal because it uses the phrase "tends to be." The explanation says that "tends to be" does not indicate cause; that means you can't look at the phrase "tends to be" and know whether the claim is causal or not. That doesn't mean that "tends to be" shows that a claim is NOT causal.
I find this section challenging, because I am taking more of a practical approach.
If I am sticking to the rules, Question 2 has a trigger "tends to"; which infers correlation. However, it is causal because of the "to produce" that follows.
Therefore, I got 2 wrong for picking correlation not causation.
Questions 3/5 are also taken from a more practical manner because you are not using the language presented, rather inferring that exterior metrics influenced the effect.
There needs to be more lessons regarding the diffrence between causation and correlation.
While the list of indicator words was helpful, it was sparse. There were indicator words - yet they don't imply a causal relationship. There are Non-causal indicator words that imply causal relationships.
@CMas One issue is that there's no way to give you an exhaustive list. I recommend studying the language that throws you off in any case where you thought something was causal but it wasn't, or vice versa. Then you can build a personal list of language that you've missed before. It's not practical to list out every single word or phrase that the LSAT could present that means there's a causal relationship.
Can you let me know which indicator words sometimes don't indicate cause, and which words you thought don't indicate cause, but sometimes they do?
Q5 uses "Decreased," which is an indicator word for causal language, but it isn't causal. It's not the verb, yes, but the former lesson implies that Decreased = Causal. And that lesson wasn't there a few months ago.
That's why I think there should be more lessons inolving causal indicators that don't imply causal language. It teaches students not to rely on the list, and to look for the underlining structure.
@JRamirez They aren't saying the sushi caused the food poisoning, just pointing out the relationship between those who did and those who got food poisoning
@JRamirez yes, but that's the whole point of the exercise. Correlation =/= causation. Just because they all ate the sushi, that doesn't mean the sushi caused it
@RyanAlexander You are absolutely correct. I have been thinking about this for days and with some other lessons out of the way it all came together. The sentence is a trap, as long as I stick to the rules of the LSAT world, I will get the correct answer. It took so long for me to see it. Thank Ryan
This really confused me. Nothing about indicators such as the verb "decreases" and the term "tend to" were mentioned, then used in the explanation as if it were common knowledge.
Additionally, I feel like I understood all of the lessons, but then got all of these questions wrong. For #2 and #3, I am extremely confused how we can be certain that giving children everything directly causes adults who are not able to cope, but then for number 3, we are supposed to pick out that there could have been something else that caused the food poisoning, and not sushi.
Could there not be something else that caused the adults to not be able to cope?
Edit: I think I now understand that it all boils down to language. In the second question, the term "produces" implies causation. This is missing from the third question. The word "suffered" is used to describe the food poisoning, which could have come from elsewhere. There needs to be more sections on this before a skill builder.
@RichardSanta-Cruz I also got #3 wrong the first time around.
A few things that helped me to understand why:
Conditional relationships are different than Causal relationships. In my mind I was operating under the assumption that
a --> b = a -c-> b
and this is not the case. So getting that clarity was helpful.
I re-phrased the question as
A group of people ate day-old sushi.
All of the people in this group also had food poisoning the next day.
By phrasing the question as two separate ideas it helped me to see that while two events happened to the same group of people, we can't see from the language that one event definitively caused the other. For me, the word 'also' represents two ideas that might be connected but are still separate.
As others have mentioned below, this exercise was not previously taught and is a curveball. Please create a lesson that explains this concept in detail prior to this drill.
This had nothing to do with causal relationships and the hypothesis content we just learned. The first question could have been another learning section itself, discussing language and grammar identifiers.
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65 comments
5/5 for me also, not bad honestly
I need some more skillbuilders.
Dang I thought I understood the concepts. Keep practicing
I was so confident going into this one... I got humbled
1/5 correct. Drilling in LR and RC improved by 20% after learning this. lol, I'll review this again with a fresh brain.
I think what helped me the most was the technique of identifying the cause and effect. For example:
Q1 states that all the people who ate the day old sushi suffered from poisoning .
This question is telling you a result... in essence an effect, but it is not giving you the actual cause of HOW they got sick. This stumped me because I used my 'real world' thinking and not logic.
4/5... Question 5 tripped me up but after listening to the video I feel it cleared up the confusion!
5/5!
What is Q1 was phrased as "...., the best players are the most popular"? Would it still be not causal?
@joshuali Still not causal, because it doesn't assert why they are the most popular.
Think about it like this:
"All the people named Johnny are the most popular."
Does that mean being named Johnny causes them to be the most popular? No.
"The best players are the most popular."
Does that mean being the best is what causes them to be the most popular? No.
@Kevin_Lin I'm a little stuck on the "tend to", so I want to know if there are ways to change Q1 into a causal statement? or Q2 into a non-causal sentence?
E.g., On every high school basketball team, the best players tend to become the most popular people at school.
Children that are given everything they ask for tend to be individuals who are unable to cope with life's challenges?
Thanks for the help!
@joshuali I still wouldn't read those as causal because they don't assert that X actually produces Y.
"People who are X tend to become Y." Ok, but is it the X that is a causal factor in leading to Y? Or is this just a coincidence? Or is there something else associated with being X that is the cause of Y?
"People who grow up rich tend to become well-mannered adults."
Does that mean growing up rich causes well-mannered? Or is it that people who grow up rich are likely to grow up in environments that teach them to be well-mannered?
I think this lesson would be helpful if each question came with an example of how to make the claim causal or non-casual. I think seeing what would make it meet the standards would help understand why it doesn't.
#1 says it is not causal because it uses the phrase "tends to be" and then #2 is causal even though it uses "tends to be" ... ok
@mibuch What do you think about the word "produce" in example 2?
@mibuch Just want to be clear here in case others are confused. The explanation for #1 does not say that it's not causal because it uses the phrase "tends to be." The explanation says that "tends to be" does not indicate cause; that means you can't look at the phrase "tends to be" and know whether the claim is causal or not. That doesn't mean that "tends to be" shows that a claim is NOT causal.
Its pretty simple, its only casual if the cause of something is explained. Saying "people who smoke die early" is not saying why they die.
#3 -_-
I find this section challenging, because I am taking more of a practical approach.
If I am sticking to the rules, Question 2 has a trigger "tends to"; which infers correlation. However, it is causal because of the "to produce" that follows.
Therefore, I got 2 wrong for picking correlation not causation.
Questions 3/5 are also taken from a more practical manner because you are not using the language presented, rather inferring that exterior metrics influenced the effect.
Anyone else?
5/5. feelin good
There needs to be more lessons regarding the diffrence between causation and correlation.
While the list of indicator words was helpful, it was sparse. There were indicator words - yet they don't imply a causal relationship. There are Non-causal indicator words that imply causal relationships.
@CMas One issue is that there's no way to give you an exhaustive list. I recommend studying the language that throws you off in any case where you thought something was causal but it wasn't, or vice versa. Then you can build a personal list of language that you've missed before. It's not practical to list out every single word or phrase that the LSAT could present that means there's a causal relationship.
Can you let me know which indicator words sometimes don't indicate cause, and which words you thought don't indicate cause, but sometimes they do?
@Kevin_Lin Thanks for the advice.
Q5 uses "Decreased," which is an indicator word for causal language, but it isn't causal. It's not the verb, yes, but the former lesson implies that Decreased = Causal. And that lesson wasn't there a few months ago.
That's why I think there should be more lessons inolving causal indicators that don't imply causal language. It teaches students not to rely on the list, and to look for the underlining structure.
I'm fricked.
5/5!
#3 was very tricky though lol
#3 seriously? I don't care who you are, you more than likely will get that wrong. The answer makes no sense.
@JRamirez They aren't saying the sushi caused the food poisoning, just pointing out the relationship between those who did and those who got food poisoning
@RyanAlexander I get what you are saying, but the inference here is very strong even in LSAT's own world of make believe.
@JRamirez yes, but that's the whole point of the exercise. Correlation =/= causation. Just because they all ate the sushi, that doesn't mean the sushi caused it
@RyanAlexander You are absolutely correct. I have been thinking about this for days and with some other lessons out of the way it all came together. The sentence is a trap, as long as I stick to the rules of the LSAT world, I will get the correct answer. It took so long for me to see it. Thank Ryan
@JRamirez Glad I was able to help your understanding!
This really confused me. Nothing about indicators such as the verb "decreases" and the term "tend to" were mentioned, then used in the explanation as if it were common knowledge.
Additionally, I feel like I understood all of the lessons, but then got all of these questions wrong. For #2 and #3, I am extremely confused how we can be certain that giving children everything directly causes adults who are not able to cope, but then for number 3, we are supposed to pick out that there could have been something else that caused the food poisoning, and not sushi.
Could there not be something else that caused the adults to not be able to cope?
Edit: I think I now understand that it all boils down to language. In the second question, the term "produces" implies causation. This is missing from the third question. The word "suffered" is used to describe the food poisoning, which could have come from elsewhere. There needs to be more sections on this before a skill builder.
@RichardSanta-Cruz Just added this lesson: Causal Language
@RichardSanta-Cruz I also got #3 wrong the first time around.
A few things that helped me to understand why:
Conditional relationships are different than Causal relationships. In my mind I was operating under the assumption that
and this is not the case. So getting that clarity was helpful.
I re-phrased the question as
By phrasing the question as two separate ideas it helped me to see that while two events happened to the same group of people, we can't see from the language that one event definitively caused the other. For me, the word 'also' represents two ideas that might be connected but are still separate.
Hope that's helpful!
As others have mentioned below, this exercise was not previously taught and is a curveball. Please create a lesson that explains this concept in detail prior to this drill.
@ElleJ Just added this lesson: Causal Language
This had nothing to do with causal relationships and the hypothesis content we just learned. The first question could have been another learning section itself, discussing language and grammar identifiers.
This drill being focused on "causal language," yet having no section explaining this language is definitely odd.
@RaymanMartinez Just added this lesson: Causal Language
What are some important causal words we should recognize, like "produce?"
@ktacklesthelsat Just added this lesson: Causal Language
This drill seems to be better understood at using passive vs. active voice in writing these sentences.