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Marcus Tsang

Joined: Jun 2025
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Marcus Tsang

Edited Friday, Oct 31

Welcome to conditional reasoning! Ready to question everything you know about logic and thinking? Excited to feel existential dread and slam your brain cells in the blender of logic? Me too!

Here is my brain-rot explanation!

You will learn later in the course (the lesson is called Groups of Conditional Indicators Summary) about the different words that should turn on alarms in your head, saying HEY THIS IS CONDITIONAL LOGIC!

[If it helps, come back to this comment after that lesson, but here's a quick rundown]

There are 4 groups. Group 1 is called Sufficient Indicators, which means the first part of the logic chain (sufficient condition). This includes words like "if" and "all".

Group 2 is Necessary Indicators. Words like "only" and "only if" show that what follows is the necessary condition.

Example:

"If you are a dog, you are a good dog." = dog -> good dog

"Dogs get treats only if they are good dogs" = get treats -> good dogs

Groups 3 and 4 are negated versions of 1 and 2, respectively. I'm too lazy to describe it, but I really encourage you to take a look at that lesson.

Anywhoozies, The last sentence of the stimulus says, in brain-rot, "the cafe can avoid a decrease only if sales don't decrease," which in Lawgic translates to:

/decrease in overall profitability -> /sales decrease

Take the contrapositive and you get:

Coffee sales decrease -> Decrease in overall profitability

*You can refer to the illustration that the video shows at 10:17 here.

C is correct: "The cafe's overall profitability will decrease if the beans become expenny."

Translated into Lawgic:

Beans more expenny -> Cafe lose profitability

C matches the contrapositive of the last sentence of the stimulus, bingo.

TL;DR: Memorize the Groups of conditional indicators; it helps. Quoting Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in The Game Plan (2007),

Lessons · Referentials

Marcus Tsang

Edited Friday, Oct 31

I originally had confusion with sentence 2, but I realized that I was wrong, and here's my explanation! [For those who find it useful :)]

I thought that "its support base" was referring to society. BUT society itself is modified by "authoritarian regime"

Just think of the kernel: A point came. "Point" is the subject, came is the predicate. "Point" is modified by turning (turning point), and further modified by "in the transition to democracy". So in total:

A turning point in the transition to democracy ...

Dealing with the predicate now came,

"came when privileged people in SOCIETY who had been part of its support base realized that the AUTHORITARIAN REGIME is dispensable."

If you think society is the referent that its support base is referring to, just think about what type of society it is talking about. This passage is talking about the point where society changed from authoritarianism to democracy. So the starting point is authoritarian regime/society.

TLDR; its support base is referring to authoritarian ~~regime~~ society. BUT it doesn't really matter, as long as you get the kernel of the sentence, the modifiers are just details.

You got this!

PrepTests ·

PT106.S2.Q26

Marcus Tsang

Friday, Aug 22

Can someone help me out with my thought process? I feel like B is resting on an assumption that a significant decline in cigarette smoking would lead to a decline in smoking in bed.

The stimulus says that

"Smoking in bed has long been the main cause of home fires."

and

"Despite a significant decline in cigarette smoking..."

Isn't this assumption, the assumption that a significant decline in cigarette smoking is a decline in bed-smoking, a weak one?

Assume that the total number of "smokers" is 100 people. Out of the 100 smokers, 10 smokers smoke in bed, and these 10 smokers cause 90% of the housefires. In this scenario, if a "significant" decline in housefires meant that 50 of the 90 non-bed-smokers quit smoking, the 10 bed-smokers would still be contributing to 90% the housefires.

Doesn't B rely on the assumption that a "significant decline" leads to a decline in "smoking in bed"?

Lessons · YOU TRY: Implied - Other's Perspective Question 2 (Greek Dramas)

Marcus Tsang

Friday, Nov 21

One thing to remember in this question is that "proof" of something does not mean that the "proof" is a causal mechanism. Remember in the garbage can argument, proof that the cat is licking its paw is not proof that the cat knocked the garbage bin over. We need the assumption that licking the paw only happens when he knocks the can over.

C and E are wrong because they introduce the Western World, which leads us to assume a connection between free agency and Western philosophy. A and B are incorrect because they both say that the "proof" did something. So D is and must be correct.

Lessons · You Try - A Just System of Taxation

Marcus Tsang

Thursday, Nov 20

For those interested, here's how I approached the question.

First, look at the conclusion of the stimulus, and then match it with a conclusion in the answer choices. We see that the stimulus concludes prescriptively that there is only one option (that people be taxed according to their income). So then I look for the answer choices that have a matching conclusion that says something is the ONLY way of solving a problem. A is the only one that matches.

Diving deeper, we can look at the rest of the stimulus. The structure presents what is "most objective" and draws a conclusive conclusion.

I initially got confused because acceleration doesn't equal speed. In my head, a car can accelerate 0 to 10 in 0.01 seconds, but still have a top speed of 20 miles per hour. Not very fast.

BUT the question asks which one is MOST similar. A beats the rest of the questions by a long shot, even though there is a flaw. If the question read "Which one of the following is analogous to the reasoning in the argument?", then I feel like there wouldn't be a correct answer. BUT because it asks "most similar", I needed to be more lenient with my answer choices.

TLDR: Be extra sensitive to the question stem.

PrepTests ·

PT110.S3.Q23

Marcus Tsang

Friday, Nov 14

What helped me in this question was the grammar parsing, and stripping down to the kernel of the stimulus

(money measures value) -> fragment

Non-ind-societies = /(money measures value)

---

/fragment

After it took me longer than usual to parse the stimulus, I got the pattern down and realized that the stimulus was just sufficient-necessary confusion. Denying the sufficient (which is money measuring value) does not lead to a valid conclusion about fragmentation.

After I realized this flaw, went looking for the right answer.

A is wrong, since it doesn't deny the sufficient and draw a conclusion

B is wrong, but I left it as a possibility. It was attractive but looking back it doesn't make sense that it was. The stimulus is not a comparative passage, and B actually makes sense (which is maybe why my outside intuition made this look attractive.)

C is wrong, wrong flaw. Remember that if A -> B and A -> C, then only Some B are C. This answer says all B are C, which is invalid.

D is correct. Fits denying the sufficient to draw a denied necessary conclusion.

E is wrong, comparative.

PrepTests ·

PT106.S2.Q19

Marcus Tsang

Monday, Aug 11

I am confused with this question. I understand that:

Most correctly addressed mail arrives within 2 days
[Since MOST correctly addressed mail arrives within 2 days], FEW correctly addressed mail is damage and takes longer than 2 days
Most mail (overall) takes longer than 3 days

So by the stimulus, D is the correct answer in that the assumption is that a large proportion of mail is incorrectly addressed. But isn't that an assumption that there are only two outcomes, that either mail is addressed correctly or incorrectly?

Consider if answer choice F was hypothetically

"All mail only comes circulates through one office, and that office does not delay mailing only if they are bribed."

In Lawgic

/delay -> bribed

Wouldn't answer choice F show another alternative explanation aside from answer choice D? Instead of mail either being correctly or incorrectly addressed, now it introduces considering bribery? So now it is possible that most mail arrives 3 business days or more after being sent, not necessarily because of a large portion of mail is incorrectly addressed, but because most mail is not expedited through bribes? Therefore, D is not a MBT but more like a can be true?

TLDR; I feel like D is not necessarily MBT, as it rests on the assumption that the only factor in considering whether mail arrives within 2 days or longer is whether or not the mail is correctly or incorrectly addressed. If there was another factor which would also lead to the conclusion of mail arriving longer than 2 days, wouldn't that weaken answer choice D?

General

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Thursday, Jul 03

Marcus Tsang

😖 Frustrated

Bugs in taking PTs and Drills

Hi guys! Is anyone else experiencing the bug I'm currently seeing in the New 7Sage? I'm presently taking PrepTest 126 and am in the second section of the PT; the stimulus periodically scrolls up automatically.

Additionally, sometimes when I'm doing drills, my webpage will automatically refresh and force me to look at the first question, regardless of which question I'm on.

If anyone has any advice, please don't hesitate to let me know. This is my first time making a discussion post, so please be nice haha :)

Lessons · Skill Builder - Kick it Up to the Domain

Marcus Tsang

Sunday, Nov 02

I originally translated the phrase into

NHH -> SPOPPPH

And then I kicked up NHH up to the domain

Domain: NHH

Now we are left with "it should be provided by an organization whose primary purpose is the promotion of health." What is the rule of this sentence? I read it as "if something is to be provided, it should be from an OPPPH.

So in conclusion,

Domain: Things necessary for human health

Rule: If provided -> Should be from an organization whose primary purpose is the promotion of health.