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?
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?
"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?
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
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?
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.
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?
sometimes I hate seeing the estimated lesson time next to the lesson bc not even on mars would I read and retain all this info in 3 min lmfao, but I guess its still helpful. kinda tricks the brain into starting the lesson even if it takes longer
This is very similar to being able to derive the core of a clause (subject and predicate) from all the modifiers. The ability to extract modifiers quickly allows us to save precious time on the LSAT and focus on the core relationships that the LSAT is concerned with.
Let’s look at a basketball example:
Michael Jordan, a 6 time NBA finals MVP that is worth a billion dollars and who played throughout the lates 1980s and into the early 2000s, is better (albeit only slightly) than the man who was born from Akron, Ohio and who was named the “chosen one”by Sports Illustrated at the age of 16, LeBron James.
Strip away the modifiers.
Michael Jordan, a 6 time NBA finals MVP that is worth a billion dollars and who played throughout the late 1980s and into the early 2000s,is better (albeit, only slightly) thanthe man who was born from Akron, Ohio and who was named the “chosen one”by Sports Illustrated at the age of 16,LeBron James.
Michael Jordan is better than LeBron James.
A=MJ
B=LeBron
Point of comparison= who is better
Winner: MJ
Now, let’s imagine for some reason this statement was on the LSAT in a RC passage. The LSAT writers needed to devise some inference questions with this comparison statement for us to work through. How would they do that? Bring in the modifiers.
Let’s take the first few modifier that describes Michael Jordan as a 6 time NBA finals MVP that is worth a billion dollars and who played throughout the late 1980s and early 2000s.
Without even reading the rest of the sentence, we can already make some inferences just based of these modifiers.
1. Some people who have won a NBA championship are worth a billion dollars.
2. A person who has won a finals MVP has won more than 5 championship.
3. Someone who was born before the 1980s is a billionaire.
4. There is a player who played for 10+ years in The NBA.
Now we can also devise fake inferences that would be a trick answer choice.
1. Winning 6 finals MVP causes you to be a billionaire.
2. If you are a billionaire then you win 6 championships.
3. MJ won a NBA championship in the 90s.
Now take the modifiers of LeBron.
The man who born from the Akron, Ohio who was named the “ chosen one” by sports illustrated at the age of 16.
Now we can make some inferences based off the comparison.
1. Being named the chosen one does guarantee you are the best player of all time.
2. There is someone that is a billionaire that is better at basketball than someone who was born in Ohio.
Bad inferences:
1. Sports illustrated doesn’t think MJ is better than LeBron.
2. LeBron is not a billionaire.
3. Michael Jordan was never named the “chosen one”
4. MJ was not born in Ohio.
5. LeBron did not play at the same time as MJ.
Now, some of these might be true in the real world, and some are. But, based off just the statement we are given these are not good inferences.
Notice something here, creating bad inferences is so much easier than creating good ones. So, if you can get good at predicting the few inferences that can be made from a statement(s) then you can easily work through the bad ones.
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42 comments
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?
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?
"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?
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
can we pls go back to the elephants lmao
I still do not understand fully how to pack away all the modifiers... :(
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?
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?
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.
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?
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.
sometimes I hate seeing the estimated lesson time next to the lesson bc not even on mars would I read and retain all this info in 3 min lmfao, but I guess its still helpful. kinda tricks the brain into starting the lesson even if it takes longer
This is very similar to being able to derive the core of a clause (subject and predicate) from all the modifiers. The ability to extract modifiers quickly allows us to save precious time on the LSAT and focus on the core relationships that the LSAT is concerned with.
Let’s look at a basketball example:
Michael Jordan, a 6 time NBA finals MVP that is worth a billion dollars and who played throughout the lates 1980s and into the early 2000s, is better (albeit only slightly) than the man who was born from Akron, Ohio and who was named the “chosen one”by Sports Illustrated at the age of 16, LeBron James.
Strip away the modifiers.
Michael Jordan,
a 6 time NBA finals MVP that is worth a billion dollars and who played throughout the late 1980s and into the early 2000s,is better(albeit, only slightly)thanthe man who was born from Akron, Ohio and who was named the “chosen one”by Sports Illustrated at the age of 16,LeBron James.Michael Jordan is better than LeBron James.
A=MJ
B=LeBron
Point of comparison= who is better
Winner: MJ
Now, let’s imagine for some reason this statement was on the LSAT in a RC passage. The LSAT writers needed to devise some inference questions with this comparison statement for us to work through. How would they do that? Bring in the modifiers.
Let’s take the first few modifier that describes Michael Jordan as a 6 time NBA finals MVP that is worth a billion dollars and who played throughout the late 1980s and early 2000s.
Without even reading the rest of the sentence, we can already make some inferences just based of these modifiers.
1. Some people who have won a NBA championship are worth a billion dollars.
2. A person who has won a finals MVP has won more than 5 championship.
3. Someone who was born before the 1980s is a billionaire.
4. There is a player who played for 10+ years in The NBA.
Now we can also devise fake inferences that would be a trick answer choice.
1. Winning 6 finals MVP causes you to be a billionaire.
2. If you are a billionaire then you win 6 championships.
3. MJ won a NBA championship in the 90s.
Now take the modifiers of LeBron.
The man who born from the Akron, Ohio who was named the “ chosen one” by sports illustrated at the age of 16.
Now we can make some inferences based off the comparison.
1. Being named the chosen one does guarantee you are the best player of all time.
2. There is someone that is a billionaire that is better at basketball than someone who was born in Ohio.
Bad inferences:
1. Sports illustrated doesn’t think MJ is better than LeBron.
2. LeBron is not a billionaire.
3. Michael Jordan was never named the “chosen one”
4. MJ was not born in Ohio.
5. LeBron did not play at the same time as MJ.
Now, some of these might be true in the real world, and some are. But, based off just the statement we are given these are not good inferences.
Notice something here, creating bad inferences is so much easier than creating good ones. So, if you can get good at predicting the few inferences that can be made from a statement(s) then you can easily work through the bad ones.