If I remove the modifiers and go through the steps, would I need to add those some modifiers back during the test, or can I move forward answering to save time?
Ancient remedial herbs that combine a large variety of different compounds are much more likely to retain their effectiveness against new, resistant strains of bacteria than are modern standard synthetic antibiotics that have been overprescribed for the last several decades.
A vs. B
Ancient remedial herbs vs. Modern standard synthetic antibiotics
What is the relationship we are comparing?
Which medicine is much more likely to retain their effectiveness against new, resistant strains of bacteria.
Winner?
Ancient Remedial Herbs.
Ancient Remedial Herbs are much more likely to retain their effectiveness against new, resistant strains of bacteria than are modern standard synthetic antibiotics.
Short version: Herbs are more effective than antibiotics.
Is it absolutely necessary to add the modifiers back in once you know who the winner is? Would it really ever change the answer or is it more like checking your work? I'm a little worried that I'll take too much time going through taking them away just to add them back in again.. advice?
@KathrynKvasnak The questions on the LSAT are likely to trip us up about the modifiers, which are extremely likely to be twisted around in the wrong answers. So, we need to add them back in so we can answer exactly the way the question wants us to
When you are actually studying or testing, how can you realistically break down sentences quickly enough so that you understand them and don’t get caught up by the complicated modifiers?
@Calibjamess I'm late to this but I think reading the news and nonfiction every day has genuinely helped me so much! I'm able to parse this sort of stuff almost instinctually because of how much I take in. That may be a more long-term thing though?
"I’m curious if anyone uses the highlighter feature to simplify sentences (after removing modifiers), similar to what Jay does in the video (starting at 1:00/3:45). I know there are three colors for highlighting. If you use this method, how effective has it been for you? Do you have a specific strategy for simplifying sentences? I’m a visual learner and like to be strategic, so any suggestions or insights would be appreciated. Thanks!
Im struggling identifying the "winner" cause, to me, ancient remedial herbs are not more likely to retain effectiveness against resistant strains of bacteria than standard antibiotics. Are these assumptions we are suppose to make? How do we know which is the winner?
@Nickgigs I felt the same. My assumption, derived from a previous lesson, is that questions on the LSAT are best answered without any 'background knowledge'. If you try to forget any previous schema and focus solely on the content of the prompt many questions are easier to digest.
I did this without removing every modifier. I chose a middle ground. I only added the modifiers that seemed pertinent. In my mind, everything after "that" was too much information to process, so I removed it.
E.G.
1: Ancient Remedial Herbs v. Modern Synthetic Antibiotics
2: Retain effectiveness against new, resistant strains of bacteria
What can be helpful is using ChatGPT or writing up your own comparative sentence examples that have modifiers (which are lots of descriptions around subjects, verbs, and objects); then practice diagraming those sentences until you feel comfortable with them. It definitely took me a few practice runs!
I understand how the breaking down of the components of grammatical structure creates clarity. The video does what it is intended to communicate.
But, as an aside, you automatically state that herbs are the winner of this comparison. Isn't this conclusion riddled with assumptions and therefore a weak argument?
Eh, I think this is more for sheer comprehension of dense text in the LSAT RC portion. Yes, it does make for a weaker argument when stripped down, but you're getting the gist of something wordy and pedantic without wasting much time.
I understand why dropping the modifiers is valuable to help unpack complex text, but in terms of efficiency and pace on the LSAT, is this the most efficient way to understand complex text? Or should we be able to read the sentence and instantly understand its meaning without dissecting it? I wonder if there is a correlation between what level of text requires a student to dissect in order to understand, as opposed to just instantly understanding it, and one's score on the LSAT.
How can we differentiate understanding what “that” means for comparatives that we’re looking at now, vs the lesson when we were determining the predicate object “that”. In this examples it suggests a modifier so I’m just confused at deciding what “that” means.
The previous object 'that' example was "Scientists discovered that the sky is blue", which we can see that it "that" isn't modifying anything earlier in the sentence, it's not modifying scientists, or how they discovered something. It's the object of the sentence, or WHAT the scientists discovered. In this example above, it is "modern standard synthetic antibiotics THAT have been overprescribed for the last several decades", which we can see is a modifier because it is modifying what kind of antibiotics. Are we talking about every kind of modern standard synthetic antibiotic? No. We go further into the subset. We are talking about the modern standard synthetic antibiotics that have been overprescribed for the last several decades. I hope that helps clear things up a bit!
Is it possible for the "winner" of the argument to change once you bring the modifiers back in? I fear that I may oversimplify to find the kernal which can result to getting the wrong answer. Thoughts?
I don't think so, modifiers are here to bring complexity and detail, meaning they narrow down the pool of possible subjects - but the original bigger pool does not change. Think about like this, if all red dogs are named Clifford, that means that all red dogs that are at least 10ft tall and live in a tiny NYC apartment are also going to be named Clifford. Also, remember you are looking at the context within the argument - in the LSAT you are only going to work under the assumptions presented in the stimulus.
Let's say now, "Clifford, a big red dog who lives in NYC is bigger than a nasty sewer rat that carries disease."
Modifiers would be in italics: "A big reddogwho lives in NYCis biggerthan a nasty sewerrat that carries disease."
This won't change if you look at it like, dog is bigger than rat - the sentence does not change at all if you say "red dog bigger than nasty rat." You might know in your brain that there might be rats that are bigger than dogs but that's not the point here, you are only using the stimulus to deduce that dogs are bigger than rats.
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48 comments
If I remove the modifiers and go through the steps, would I need to add those some modifiers back during the test, or can I move forward answering to save time?
@MR.Washington the latter.
AVB- ancient remedial herbs that mix alot of compounds v modern synthetic antibiotics
COMPARISON- retaining efectiveness
WINNNER- ancient remedial herbs
REFERENTIALS- their=herbs, that=antibiotics
Simplified version: herbs are more effective than antibiotics
Ancient remedial herbs that combine a large variety of different compounds are much more likely to retain their effectiveness against new, resistant strains of bacteria than are modern standard synthetic antibiotics that have been overprescribed for the last several decades.
A vs. B
Ancient remedial herbs vs. Modern standard synthetic antibiotics
What is the relationship we are comparing?
Which medicine is much more likely to retain their effectiveness against new, resistant strains of bacteria.
Winner?
Ancient Remedial Herbs.
Ancient Remedial Herbs are much more likely to retain their effectiveness against new, resistant strains of bacteria than are modern standard synthetic antibiotics.
Short version: Herbs are more effective than antibiotics.
Things are clicking!!
Is it absolutely necessary to add the modifiers back in once you know who the winner is? Would it really ever change the answer or is it more like checking your work? I'm a little worried that I'll take too much time going through taking them away just to add them back in again.. advice?
@KathrynKvasnak The questions on the LSAT are likely to trip us up about the modifiers, which are extremely likely to be twisted around in the wrong answers. So, we need to add them back in so we can answer exactly the way the question wants us to
When you are actually studying or testing, how can you realistically break down sentences quickly enough so that you understand them and don’t get caught up by the complicated modifiers?
@Calibjamess I'm late to this but I think reading the news and nonfiction every day has genuinely helped me so much! I'm able to parse this sort of stuff almost instinctually because of how much I take in. That may be a more long-term thing though?
"I’m curious if anyone uses the highlighter feature to simplify sentences (after removing modifiers), similar to what Jay does in the video (starting at 1:00/3:45). I know there are three colors for highlighting. If you use this method, how effective has it been for you? Do you have a specific strategy for simplifying sentences? I’m a visual learner and like to be strategic, so any suggestions or insights would be appreciated. Thanks!
@Jaime.vel878 I do and it's so effective
Im struggling identifying the "winner" cause, to me, ancient remedial herbs are not more likely to retain effectiveness against resistant strains of bacteria than standard antibiotics. Are these assumptions we are suppose to make? How do we know which is the winner?
@Nickgigs I felt the same. My assumption, derived from a previous lesson, is that questions on the LSAT are best answered without any 'background knowledge'. If you try to forget any previous schema and focus solely on the content of the prompt many questions are easier to digest.
@Nickgigs it doesn't need to be actually true. just go based off of whatever is written here
herbs v antibiotics
retaining effectiveness v bacteria
herbs
I did this without removing every modifier. I chose a middle ground. I only added the modifiers that seemed pertinent. In my mind, everything after "that" was too much information to process, so I removed it.
E.G.
1: Ancient Remedial Herbs v. Modern Synthetic Antibiotics
2: Retain effectiveness against new, resistant strains of bacteria
3: Ancient Remedial Herbs
I'm curious to see if anyone else did this.
Ya, I did the same thing.
can we pls go back to the elephants lmao
I still do not understand fully how to pack away all the modifiers... :(
What can be helpful is using ChatGPT or writing up your own comparative sentence examples that have modifiers (which are lots of descriptions around subjects, verbs, and objects); then practice diagraming those sentences until you feel comfortable with them. It definitely took me a few practice runs!
THIS is such a great idea I don't know why I havent thought of it before. Thank you
This is a pretty smart practice. Might start working this into questions I'm struggling with.
On the LSAT exam, what kind of editing/formatting can you do to the text in the passage? I'm guessing you can't highlight, or cross out words?
You can highlight and underline
Wait so the LSAT is on paper, not online?
Nope its online but there is an option to underline and highlight
words make head ouch
I understand how the breaking down of the components of grammatical structure creates clarity. The video does what it is intended to communicate.
But, as an aside, you automatically state that herbs are the winner of this comparison. Isn't this conclusion riddled with assumptions and therefore a weak argument?
Eh, I think this is more for sheer comprehension of dense text in the LSAT RC portion. Yes, it does make for a weaker argument when stripped down, but you're getting the gist of something wordy and pedantic without wasting much time.
Demonstrating how removing modifiers can help us understand a comparative made me understand why we studied Clauses and modifiers
I understand why dropping the modifiers is valuable to help unpack complex text, but in terms of efficiency and pace on the LSAT, is this the most efficient way to understand complex text? Or should we be able to read the sentence and instantly understand its meaning without dissecting it? I wonder if there is a correlation between what level of text requires a student to dissect in order to understand, as opposed to just instantly understanding it, and one's score on the LSAT.
oof that one was hard
Wonderful lesson!!
How can we differentiate understanding what “that” means for comparatives that we’re looking at now, vs the lesson when we were determining the predicate object “that”. In this examples it suggests a modifier so I’m just confused at deciding what “that” means.
The previous object 'that' example was "Scientists discovered that the sky is blue", which we can see that it "that" isn't modifying anything earlier in the sentence, it's not modifying scientists, or how they discovered something. It's the object of the sentence, or WHAT the scientists discovered. In this example above, it is "modern standard synthetic antibiotics THAT have been overprescribed for the last several decades", which we can see is a modifier because it is modifying what kind of antibiotics. Are we talking about every kind of modern standard synthetic antibiotic? No. We go further into the subset. We are talking about the modern standard synthetic antibiotics that have been overprescribed for the last several decades. I hope that helps clear things up a bit!
Is it possible for the "winner" of the argument to change once you bring the modifiers back in? I fear that I may oversimplify to find the kernal which can result to getting the wrong answer. Thoughts?
I don't think so, modifiers are here to bring complexity and detail, meaning they narrow down the pool of possible subjects - but the original bigger pool does not change. Think about like this, if all red dogs are named Clifford, that means that all red dogs that are at least 10ft tall and live in a tiny NYC apartment are also going to be named Clifford. Also, remember you are looking at the context within the argument - in the LSAT you are only going to work under the assumptions presented in the stimulus.
Let's say now, "Clifford, a big red dog who lives in NYC is bigger than a nasty sewer rat that carries disease."
Modifiers would be in italics: "A big red dog who lives in NYC is bigger than a nasty sewer rat that carries disease."
This won't change if you look at it like, dog is bigger than rat - the sentence does not change at all if you say "red dog bigger than nasty rat." You might know in your brain that there might be rats that are bigger than dogs but that's not the point here, you are only using the stimulus to deduce that dogs are bigger than rats.
This is amazing. It helps me get rid of all the modifiers that would otherwise draw me away from the comparative argument.
7sage is so clutch with its grammar lessons
so it's essentially getting to the kernel of the argument and then adding the modifiers to the kernel back in.