#help for Q1, is it correct to go about it this way?

The statement reads, "Unless we drive out the poachers, none of the pandas that relocated to this part of the forest will prosper."

Since "unless" is a Group 3 Indicator, I identified two groups ("drive out poachers" and "relocated pandas will prosper") and negated one of them (I negated "drive out poachers" below") and made that the "sufficient condition" to get the following conditional relationship:

Relationship: /Drive out poachers ---> /Relocated pandas will prosper (if we do not drive out the poachers, then the pandas related to this part of the forest will not prosper)

Contrapositive: Relocated pandas will prosper ---> Drive out poachers (if relocated pandas do prosper, then we have driven out the poachers)

Is this correct? :'(

#help What even is 18...? This is the logic I followed:

Statement reads : "If something is necessary for human health, then it should be provided by an organization whose primary purpose is the promotion of health."

It is an "if...then..." statement and since "if" introduces the sufficient condition, I said that the relationship would be as follows:

Relationship: necessary ---> provided

Contrapositive: /provided ---> /necessary (If it is not provided by an organization whose primary purpose is the promotion of health, then it is not something that is necessary for human health)

Am I wrong in going about it this way...? I feel like the explanation that was offered under the "Answer" tab confused me even more

#help I'm super confused with #9 and this was my logic...

Domain: In surrounding counties

Remaining clause: "...where hunting is permitted, the size of the deer population has not increased in the last eight years."

Since "where" is a Group 1 Indicator (which introduces sufficient), I did the following:

Conditional: Hunting Permitted ---> /Size Increased (if hunting is permitted in these countries, then the size of the deer has not increased in the last eight years)

Contrapositive: Size Increased ---> /Hunting Permitted (if the size of the deer has increased in the last eight years, then hunting is not permitted in these counties).

So how would this not be a conditional?

Hey there! No, this would be wrong because you are making the oldest mistake in the book...confusing sufficient for necessary.

The statement says "....an action is morally good only if it benefits another person and was performed with that intention."

The "only if" in the clause is a Group 2 Indicator which means that it introduces the necessary condition. So whatever immediately follows the "only if" would be the necessary condition:

action morally good ---> beneficial to others AND performed with that intention

But in your statement, you have confused the sufficient condition for the necessary condition and vice versa.

Hope that helps!

My apologies in advance for the super long explanation!

Statement 1: Joffrey must kill Bran or Robb

This statement uses "or" which we know is a Group 3 Conditional Indicator. Now if you recall, the LSAT often uses "or" in an inclusive sense, which in this case means that Joffrey must kill Bran, or Joffrey must kill Robb, or he can kill both. Can he get away with killing neither Bran or Robb? Nope, because that goes against what the statement is saying.

Since "or" is a Group 3 Conditional Indicator, we have to negate one of the ideas/groups and make that our sufficient condition. Therefore, the relationship would be:

Relationship: /B --> R

Contrapositive: /R ---> B

Statement 2: If he doesn't kill Arya, he cannot kill Robb.

This statement uses "if...then..." and we know that "if/then" statements, or the word "if" are part of the Group 1 Sufficient Condition Indicator, meaning that the idea immediately following "if" is the sufficient condition. Therefore, the relationship would be:

Relationship: /A --> /R

Contrapositive: /R --> /A

Statement 3: He cannot kill both Arya and Sansa.

This statement uses "cannot...both" which we know is part of the Group 4 Conditional Indicators, meaning that we have to negate one of the ideas/groups and make that our necessary condition. The statement also specifically says that he CANNOT kill BOTH of them, meaning he has to pick between one or the other, but not both. Therefore, the relationship would be:

Relationship: A --> /S

Contrapositive: S --> /A

Statement 4: If he doesn't kill Robb, he must kill Jon.

This statement uses "if...then..." and we know that "if/then" statements, or the word "if" are part of the Group 1 Sufficient Condition Indicator, meaning that the idea immediately following "if" is the sufficient condition. Therefore, the relationship would be:

Relationship: /R --> J

Contrapositive: /J --> R

So if we were to chain these relationships together it would be as follows (I used the relationships/contrapositives bolded to make this chaining conditional):

S --> /A --> /R --> B

/R --> J

If I were to translate the aforementioned chaining conditional into English, it would read as follows: If Joffrey kills Sansa, then he cannot kill Arya and Robb, but he must kill Bran and Jon.

If we take the contrapositive of the chaining conditional above, it would be as follows:

/B --> R --> A --> /S

/J --> R

If I were to translate the aforementioned chaining conditional into English, it would read as follows: If Joffrey does not kill Bran and Jon, he must kill Robb and Arya, but he cannot kill Sansa.

Now, if we look at the question again, it tells us that Joffrey kills Robb. Referring back to our chaining conditional, we now follow the sequence of events that would occur if Joffrey kills Robb (which I have bolded above in the chaining conditional). Therefore, we can draw a valid conclusion that if Joffrey kills Robb, then he must kill Arya but he cannot kill Sansa. But what about Bran or Jon? Well, we don't know about their fate because as you can see from the bolded chaining conditional above, there is no indication of what happens to Bran or Job if Joffrey kills Robb. So therefore, we cannot make any valid conclusions about their fate.

My apologies again for the superrrrr long breakdown but I really hopes that helps :')

#help For #12, since /R ---> B and /R ---> J, why do we conclude that both Bran AND Jon must be killed and not that Bran OR Jon must be killed? In other words, why is that they BOTH must get killed, and not that one OR the other (inclusive OR) must be killed?

Plz let me know if my question doesn't make any sense, I'm running on two hours of sleep :')

Hey there! In that case, A doesn't "win."

So the statement reads "There isn't any scientific data to suggest that practicing yoga is more relaxing than going for a run." I'm sure you know that the bolded clause is the object clause of the whole statement.

If we ONLY look at the object clause (so ignore the unbolded part) of the whole statement which is where the comparative claim is (i.e., ...practicing yoga is more relaxing than going for a run), practicing yoga (A) wins over going for a run (B) in terms of which activity is more relaxing.

But now, let's add back the rest of the statement, which says "there isn't any scientific data to suggest that..." Well now, the statement says that there actually isn't any scientific data/evidence that practicing yoga (A) is more relaxing than going for a run (B). So A doesn't "win."

When we looked at the comparative clause, and only the comparative clause, there was a definitive winner, which is A (practicing yoga). But when we look at the whole statement, there is no winner. (A) could be more relaxing, or (B) could be more relaxing, or they both could be equally relaxing (tie).

Hopefully this helps! :')

Hey thanks for your response! :) However, I am still kind of confused by the way the statement is phrased. How can one not assume that "having glass windows" is the sufficient condition, and "being a member of the Tang dynasty" is the necessary condition based on the wording of the question?

Would it be fair to use "Negate Necessary" translations with these statements?

#help How would I use the Negate Necessary (Group 4) Translation with this statement: "An imperial palace cannot be in the Tang dynasty and not have glass windows"?

#help I know this was already explained in the comments, but I am still not understanding the concept. For this statement, "one cannot become Jedi unless one possesses extraordinary discipline," how would I use "Negate Necessary" (Group 4) Translation since the statement contains the word "cannot"?

A is "right" because you are only looking at the object clause of the comparative claim which is "....practicing yoga is more relaxing than going for a run." If you are just looking at that clause, then practicing yoga (A) is more relaxing than going for a run (B) so A wins (i.e., is right). BUT when we take into consideration the phrase, "There isn't any scientific data to suggest that," now we are saying that actually A can either be true or false, we don't know.

#help Can someone PLZ explain the absolute claim example to me? I'm struggling :')

YOUR EXAMPLE >>>>>>>>

So basically my train of thought was this: for it to be a major premise/sub-conclusion, there needs to be a minor premise. The only information that we were introduced to prior to this statement, "...but this is not a sustainable, long-term solution" was that "the restaurants on the main block are all temporarily storing its food waste in its backyard." I asked myself, well does the latter statement about restaurants temporarily storing its food wastes in its backyard offer support (i.e., act as a minor premise) to the former statement about it not being a sustainable, long-term solution? And the answer is no. All we know is that the restaurants are doing this particular thing (of storing wastes in their backyard) but we don't know WHY doing that is not a sustainable, long-term solution. Therefore, it wouldn't be accurate to say that the statement "...but this is not a sustainable, long-term solution" is a sub-conclusion/major premise because as we learned in our previous lesson, a sub-conclusion/major premise is a statement that both RECEIVES support and GIVES support. The aforementioned statement only GIVES support (i.e. acts as premise) to the conclusion of the argument which is that "...they [the restaurant] should stop producing food waste and shut down operations immediately" along with the other premise of the argument which is "...since none of them have devised a suitable recycling or disposal plan..." I hope that makes sense! :')

So basically my train of thought was this: for it to be a major premise/sub-conclusion, there needs to be a minor premise. The only information that we were introduced to prior to this statement, "...but this is not a sustainable, long-term solution" was that "the restaurants on the main block are all temporarily storing its food waste in its backyard." I asked myself, well does the latter statement about restaurants temporarily storing its food wastes in its backyard offer support (i.e., act as a minor premise) to the former statement about it not being a sustainable, long-term solution? And the answer is no. All we know is that the restaurants are doing this particular thing (of storing wastes in their backyard) but we don't know WHY doing that is not a sustainable, long-term solution. Therefore, it wouldn't be accurate to say that the statement "...but this is not a sustainable, long-term solution" is a sub-conclusion/major premise because as we learned in our previous lesson, a sub-conclusion/major premise is a statement that both RECEIVES support and GIVES support. The aforementioned statement only GIVES support (i.e. acts as premise) to the conclusion of the argument which is that "...they [the restaurant] should stop producing food waste and shut down operations immediately" along with the other premise of the argument which is "...since none of them have devised a suitable recycling or disposal plan..." I hope that makes sense! :')

YES!!!

#help is it fair to assume that the last sentence of the stimulus is a sub-conclusion rather than a conclusion? I interpreted it as that and I stated that the conclusion was the fact that "North Americans were more concerned about their personal finances than about politics," and this made me narrow my answer choice down to E

Personally, the reason why I did not choose C is because the stimulus itself does not tell us what "today's standards" are. So we do not know what standards we are measuring Hypatia's latest novel to. All we know about Hypatia is that her latest work is better than her previous work! I hope that makes sense :)

I believe it is the word "as" in between "dream" and "science" in the last sentence because the word "as" can be easily replaced with either "for," "since," or "because" and even though it might not make grammatical sense it still distinguishes premise vs conclusion

interested!