The answer choices in weakening questions can afford to include new information not stated in the stimulus because they enjoy the presumption of truth. Note that the question stem says "if true," meaning if one takes the given answer choice to be factual, how does it affect the argument? This is in contrast to an MSS or Inference question in which we can afford to be more ruthless in our elimination if an answer choice introduces information that we cannot deduce or gather from what has been stated in the stimulus.

The stimulus mentions harm, but not as it relates to George and others. It's unclear that making the will public will harm some simply because it doesn't benefit George or anyone else. That's why C is wrong.

What I think J.Y. means when he says the "original bit doesn't matter" is that the fact that B stipulates that the art is "original" serves no purpose in helping us achieve our goal of finding an argument in the answer choice that conforms to the principle laid out in the stimulus.

Our principle is: TG --> O and F. In the context of B, knowing that the art is "original" doesn't allow us to conclude anything about whether it is truly great. Being original is necessary but not sufficient for being truly great. In other words, a work of art could be original and yet a terrible work of art. In that sense, the information provided by B about the work of art being original doesn't matter.

This response by LSAC is absurd. There are plenty of arguments on the LSAT, of which intermediate conclusions are still considered intermediate conclusions even though the premise supporting them doesn't allow one to infer the intermediate conclusion properly. For instance, any flawed argument with a complex reasoning structure on the LSAT.

For anyone still confused about C, another way to think about it is that our argument concerns individuals who work "exceptionally long hours." The argument is not primarily about the total number of hours worked in a week and its relationship to satisfaction. Instead, it focuses on how many hours are worked in one continuous sitting. This means that while working 40 hours a week compared to 80 hours might lead to less satisfactory performance, the key issue here is the length of each individual shift, rather than the total hours worked in the entire week. This is why the truth of C isn't necessary for the argument to follow.

So when we are doing questions that play on our understanding of embedded conditionals, what exactly will suggest being inside or outside the exception. Will the answer choices set up a scenario where the exception is either met or not, or will the stimulus suggest this? Or maybe sometimes the answer choices will but other times the stimulus will? #feedback

I have the same question #feedback #help

Why did JY translate the clause "Manufacturers of writing paper need to add mineral "filler" to paper pulp IF the paper made from the pulp is to look white," as:

"filler-->white" and not "white-->filler"? I took "if" to be the conditional indicator and as is stated in the syllabus what follows "if" is sufficient. #feedback

The use of "likely" in the necessary condition of the rule premise means that it is possible for someone's first child to be premature while their second child is not. This is because it is a statement based on probability. We are uncertain about how probable it is for the second child to be premature – is it a 55% chance, 65%, 80%, etc.? Due to this uncertainty, we cannot infer from the fact that the second child was not premature that the first child was also not premature.

I initially chose answer choice D based on the same reasoning. However, realizing the distinction between "knowing" and "reasonably expecting" helped me eliminate D and choose A in blind review.

Let's flesh this out.

Answer choice D states, "Mrs. Sandstrom knew that her column could incite trespassing that could result in damage to the Mendels' farm."

The crucial point here is that this statement doesn't trigger our sufficient condition—Mrs. Sandstrom reasonably expecting that her column would lead people to damage Mendels' farm—because knowing something only sometimes implies reasonably expecting it.

For example, I know that a light bulb can burn out. It's always a possibility. Now say my lightbulb in my room has been flickering for days. Based on this, I might reasonably expect it will burn out soon.

In this case, knowing the light bulb can burn out is understanding that it’s always a potential event. Reasonably expecting it to burn out is based on the specific signs that it is about to happen.

@elwoods24 Don't forget to change the "or" to an "and" when taking the contrapostives of conditional claims with disjunctions or conjuctions in them.

Why is it that when JY discusses how to map out the conditionality in answer choices A and C, he conceives of "intentionality" and "acting in a way that harms/injures another" as one sufficient condition, but earlier on in his analysis of answer choice B, for instance, he conceives of both conditions as separate? #feedback #help

We aren't necessarily trying to prove that the premises are false. Rather, we are trying to make it less likely to be true that the premises are supportive of the conclusion. In other words, we are weakening the relationship between the premises and the conclusion.

Paraphrase of the stimulus: Travaillier Corporation trying to break into a new travel market (the tour bus industry), despite their customer's existing travel preference (planes), must be evidence of its attempt to enlarge its customer base BY attracting new customers.

E weakens the idea that Travaillier Corporation is attempting to enlarge its customer base by attracting new customers and instead offers an alternative explanation. Namely, Travaillier Corporation is trying to expand its business NOT BY attracting new customers but by expanding the products and services it offers to its existing customers.

How is the first sentence not an embedded conditional as well?

"Food of a type that does not ordinarily contain fat cannot be labeled "nonfat" unless most people mistakenly believe the food ordinarily contains fat."

Wouldn't the translation be:

/most people mistakenly believe the food ordinary contains fat + /ordinarily contain fat-->/labeled non fat

Exa cap. Kendrick Lamar is the Goat of all time

Subject: Kendrick Lamar

Predicate: is the Goat

Modifier: of all time

Jung Su's claim that abstract art is part of the artistic mainstream does not commit him to disagreeing with the claim in answer choice D that "abstract art will be seen as an aberration." To support answer choice D as the correct answer, you are assuming that being a part of the artistic mainstream precludes abstract art from being an aberration (mainstream --> /aberration). Abstract art very well could be a part of the artistic mainstream, yet still be an aberration.

I hope this helps.

As you correctly quoted, the stimulus says, “However, the principles fish use to navigate in schools ensure that these problems are much less common within schools of fish than among cars on the road.” From this statement all we can gather is that fish use principles of navigation that ensure problems like crashes and congestion are less common within their schools of fish than among cars on the road. We don't know how these fish navigating principles apply to car navigation, so we can't conclude that these principles DON'T help navigation of cars.

"Conclusions" are parts of an argument. An argument is only an argument insofar as it is composed of a premise and a conclusion. A conclusion is only a conclusion insofar as it is being supported by another statement, i.e., the premise.

I'm a little confused on how we determine if we are inside or outside the exception. #help#feedback

What requires explanation is the nature of the causal relationship itself, namely the relationship between the cause and the effect, and whether we can rightfully say that any such relationship exists. Many philosophers have been skeptical of the existence of causal relationships, particularly David Hume. Hume thought that claims about causality (i.e. A causes B) weren't necessarily empirically sound and thus couldn’t be proven. He had his reasons for thinking this, but it's too lengthy to go into, and I don't want to misrepresent him, granted I don't entirely understand his position 🤣

Ok, let's start from the top.

In the sentence "He cannot kill both Arya and Sansa," we know that "cannot" is a group 4 logical indicator. Further, we know that according to the group 4 translation rule, we must choose one idea, negate it, and make it the necessary condition. Keeping this in mind, we take the idea of Joffrey killing Sansa, represented by the letter "S" or the idea of Joffrey killing Arya, represented by the letter "A," and we make one the necessary condition, negate it, and the other idea is the sufficient condition.

Got it! great. Let's translate into Lawgic:

Let's take "A," make it the necessary and negate it. S is the sufficient.

S-->/A, in other words, If Joffrey kills Sansa, then he does not kill Arya.

Contrapositive? Remember, flip and negate :

A-->/S, in other words, If Joffrey kills Arya, then he does not kill Sansa.

Now let's discuss your question. "Why can’t we draw any conclusions about Sansa? I thought he cannot kill both Arya and Sansa, so if he doesn’t kill Arya, doesn’t that mean he could’ve then killed Sansa?

If Joffrey doesn't kill Arya, we cannot conclude what course of action he takes with respect to Sansa. Our conditional only tells us that if it is the case that Joffrey kills Sansa, then he must not have killed Arya. The conditional arrow cannot go backwards, only forwards. If Joffrey doesn't kill Arya, we don't know if he killed Sansa. He could have, he could have not. The information we have is silent on that.

You are correct that "only" is a group 2 necessary condition indicator. However, whenever we see "the only" (as per our group 1 list of indicators) we know it's a sufficient condition indicator, and therefore uses group 1 rules.

Some detachment from the ACTUAL world you know of to be true can be of great benefit in assessing the validity of arguments. When analyzing the validity or invalidity of an argument you need to sideline what you might know to be true about a particular statement within that argument and ask yourself "IF it were the case in some POSSIBLE world that the premises that support this conclusion were true, would the conclusion follow necessarily?" If it would then the argument is valid if it wouldn't then its invalid.

Also, in some of the questions the same phrase is label subject-verb and predicate-verb. For instance, in the explanation of 1.1( "Rumors suggest that cells have the ability to heal themselves."), "suggest" is labeled as the predicate-verb, and then later "rumors suggest" is labeled as the subject-verb. Just a little confused here.