@Student101 holy moly this was so friggin helpful I took these notes instead of the 7sage summary

@weaveeth000 no because the point is that you don't have enough information, so none of the inferences you can draw are "must be true" or valid. If you look back to the explanation in the professional athletes question the same reason applies: sure most of the potions in the witch's hut are poisonous but even if that's 51/100 potions in her hut, we don't know for sure that she has 51% or more of all possible potions that have some beneficial effects. All of her "most poisonous" potions could come from the 49% of all the possible potions that don't have any poisonous effects. But because it's a possibility and not a fact of the claims we are given, we don't have the information to draw that conclusion validly.

And then go back to 4. Question 4 tells you that every potion has some beneficial effects. That right there is a rule that you can apply to all the potions that have ever existed and will exist, including the ones in the witch's hut, which is why you can draw a conclusion from the two statements in Q4. The claims put them in a logical relationship where there is overlap we can make inferences from.

Another thing with your question that I want to address that feel like nitpicking but are important details:

1. it's not that the potions are beneficial but they have some beneficial effects

2. You can't draw an inference because there's nothing connecting the two statements besides that they both talk about potions. There is no common trait that links them together and draws them into a Venn diagram situation.

3. Just a general note on inferences: any time that you feel like you can possibly draw two opposing inferences (meaning it could go either way), then you don't have a "must be true" inference to draw and you are going to be relying on assumptions to make your inference, rather than relying on the logical relationship.

I hope this helps! and please anyone, if I said something wrong correct me. I feel like answering these peer questions helps me think through and solidify my own reasoning! We got this!

@AmariWilson I tried answering your question in @jaydenca 's question below!

@jaydenca I'm thinking about it this way: I need to know how to take the contrapositive so that I can recognize an alternative version of a claim. So let's say a conclusion in a stimulus is "If it's a dog, then it's a mammal" and the question is to identify what is the conclusion. Most likely they are going to rephrase it to disguise the conclusion using a logical trick, and this is where it's useful to employ the contrapositive. Why? Because it preserves the logical meaning of the conclusion and is just rephrasing it. So I could be faced with the following choice:

A. If it is not a mammal, then it is not a dog.

And I know that that's my answer bc it contraposes the statement: "if it's a dog, then it's a mammal."

But then when do you use the negation? One example is on a question where they ask "which statement, if true, weakens the argument," you can start by finding a negation to the conditional claim so you can deny the conditional relationship and therefore weaken the argument. Remember, a negation is all about destroying the relationship and a contrapositive is about rephrasing and preserving the validity of a logical relationship.

So let's turn the Jedi example into a question stimulus: To be a Jedi, one must be able to use the Force. After all, the Force is the only known source of power for Jedis in the galaxy.

So if I want to weaken this argument and its conclusion, I need a statement that helps me to achieve its negation, and a possible valid negation is: "Being a Jedi does not require being able to use the Force."

Then I take that negation and I look at my answer choices and find the one that, if true, destroys that conditional relationship by helping me fulfill the negation I came up with. So lets say an answer choice they give me is the following:

D. Instead of the Force, Anakin, a Jedi, has discovered and harnessed the power of the Blob, a new source of power in the galaxy.

This is your correct answer. Why? Because if it's true, it supports the statement (our negation) "Being a Jedi does not require being able to use the Force." Now that Anakin has harnessed the Blob, it's not required for him to use the Force. Boom, conditional relationship negated and destroyed.

TL;DR--finding the negation helps you use it as a metric for questions where you are asked to weaken the argument, because you need to weaken the logical relationship of the conditional. You take the negation of the claim and hold it up to your answer choices and ask "does this answer choice give me the negation?"

A contrapositive helps you rephrase and recognize your claim in other answer choices.

I hope this helps! And if I got something wrong, someone please correct me, I don't want to confuse people.

@rcardona22 i'm rooting for us too!!! We got this!!!!

@mostxareyallyarezthusmostxarez SAME AHHHHH

@NoNamed92 this is reassuring and makes complete sense, thank you!!

@D.K._DANDY this is a really helpful explanation

Any tips on timing? I'm happy with my results on these adaptive drills, but I'm often several minutes over the target time. Is this just something that will come with practice over time?

I'm 29 and the last time I took the lsat I was 24 and I did terribly. I've since worked for a nonprofit for the last 5 years and I think staying at a job I no longer enjoy might be the hardest thing I've done (harder than knitting a sweater, which I'm doing for the first time atm). So if I can stay at a job where I am miserable, I can definitely stick it out and study for the LSAT, and we ALL can !!!! we got this