Lesson in vocab in the middle of a lesson on MoR. Nice.

@epayne17

PSA = helps to justify

SA = justifies

PSA strengthens but does not guarantee the conclusions proper inference.

SA guarantees the conclusion is properly inferred.

Seems like the variable for you is testing among others? Maybe you should go to a coffee shop or other busy place with lots of stimuli and do some PTs. Train yourself to get good in any conditions and the test room will feel like nothing.

@Kaileavesley luckily this isn't a final exam! Go back through the modules, drill often, and dig into the specific pieces that don't feel intuitive until they do feel intuitive.

If you feel you're plateauing, take a couple days off! It's amazing how much progress you can make by just stepping away from the work for a short time. Your brain processes information, you come back fresher, and more often than not you'll have breakthroughs.

@Kg7 I almost always watch the videos to internalize the way JY thinks about the questions. I always get something out of it, especially if I'm on an roll answering intuitively. But I do watch them on 1.2 or 1.5x speed.

The thing that takes the most time is analyzing each wrong answer choice and figuring out why exactly it's wrong, but it feels like the most important step in the process.

1. Answer as intuitively and efficiently as I can

2. BR for my explanations and catch any mistakes

3. Watch video sped up

4. Drop in comments. Helping others understand helps me understand even better.

That's the process I'm falling into but it's taking a lot of time per day...

@KevinLin since I'm also a bit stuck on B even though A is clearly the correct choice -

What if we added on to the principle something like "...if the act saved someone's life; but not otherwise." Would that take care of B? Does that give us the flip that if those 3 suff conditions aren't met, then Penn should not be awarded?

I got it down to A vs B but could not for the life of me choose which one was best, so I picked B, then A in BR.

I think in this case, if you start thinking too hard you start making more and more assumptions and it's easier to mix up suff/nec in your head and maybe even interpret the conclusion incorrectly.

IRL, I would argue B would absolutely be correct. Penn should not get the award. He did not exceed. If he made fuss about not getting the award, everyone would ask him to take a deep breath and have a nap.

A is the better and clearer answer, but it's super hard to fully eliminate B because the application of the principle IRL means Penn is not getting that award, try again next year.

BUT my reasoning leads to a different conclusion. The conclusion B is getting at is "Officer Penn DID not receive an award." If he did not receive an award, then he must not have met a sufficient condition for R2.

That's the trick...

Tried hard to trust intuition and move a little faster on this one. B felt correct as soon as I read it, but I kept going and got tricked into D. For some reason B started to feel like it was mixing up conditions. As soon as I got to BR, I realized this is not hard conditional reasoning because of the "likely" aspect, so B is very clearly correct. Need to remember to soften on conditionals when the stim is written in this way.

Without lawgic, just thinking it through.

These are the only two types of tools that are used for etching. All of one type is used for engraving. Some of the other is used for engraving. In order for there to be more used for engraving than not, the two types have to exist in the same quantity or the "some" tools have to be fewer in number.

Scan ACs for one of those two options, looking for -

Pin Tipped more than OR equal to Bladed

AC B. Equal to.

@imbobe29 I think another way to think of it is AC C gives an alt conclusion:

Good Life -> Rule of Law

AC B is the correct sufficient assumption for both of the conclusions. AC C is incorrect because it is not a sufficient assumption for the argument in the stim as written.

Each piece of the stim is the same structure, with the conc as the first claim supported by 2 more starting at "for..."

This not without this. So we negate sufficient each claim the same way.

P: Individual Freedom -> Social Integrity

P: Good Life -> Social Integrity

C: Individual Freedom -> Rule of Law

So we're probably looking for something that gives us:

Individual Freedom -> (Social Integrity) -> Rule of Law

It's also nice that most ACs are negate sufficient as well! This makes the analysis pretty straightforward.

A - suff/nec condition confusion.

B - Social Integrity -> Rule of Law. Correct, as predicted. This fills in the gap perfectly, and even with the same structure as the rest of the argument. Nice.

C - Good Life -> Rule of Law. Does not help with the stim's conclusion at all. In fact, it is an alt conclusion for the stim that AC B would make valid. It's a different question altogether.

D - suff/nec confusion. Prevails feels like a weird word choice here as well, but idk.

E - suff/nec confusion. It actually directly contradicts the conclusion in the stim, so it's egregiously wrong.

For answer choice C -

Our stim gives us a conclusion:

Individual Freedom -> Rule of Law

AC C gives an alt conclusion:

Good Life -> Rule of Law

AC B is the correct sufficient assumption for both of these conclusions. AC C is incorrect because it is not a sufficient assumption for the argument in the stim as written.

@JessicaVerdugoLopez You are confusion the suff/nec for social integrity and individual freedom. They run in parallel.

Individual freedom -> social integrity

Good Life -> social integrity

They are 2 separate chains. You just got lucky with your mistake.

@DakshMalik

For the sufficient assumption, we don't need ind freedom because it's already established in the stim. We just need to bridge social integrity to rule of law to complete our chain.

@SantiagoYanez Are you wanting to see the question before watching the video? If that's what you want, you can click on the "show question" button under the lesson title before watching the video.

@AustinSanchez yeah.

IRL analogies make things feel more intuitive, but get used to not thinking in reality as much. Think about what the question is giving you.

Take this as true: If you are in your bedroom, then you must be in your apartment.

Then this is confusing the suff/nec conditions: If you are in your apartment, then you must be in your bedroom.

In the world you made, the only acceptable logic is -

Bedroom -> Apartment

/Apartment -> /Bedroom

Unless you live in NYC, then your apartment is also likely your bedroom. lol

But the stims will not always operate in reality/intuition. You have to live in what the question is telling you is true. If it says that it is true that all bananas are blue, you have to live in that world.

Each piece of the stim is the same structure, with the conc as the first claim supported by 2 more starting at "for..."

This not without this. So we negate sufficient each claim the same way.

P: Individual Freedom -> Social Integrity

P: Good Life -> Social Integrity

C: Individual Freedom -> Rule of Law

So we're probably looking for something that gives us:

Individual Freedom -> (Social Integrity) -> Rule of Law

It's also nice that most ACs are negate sufficient as well! This makes the analysis pretty straightforward.

A - suff/nec condition confusion.

B - Social Integrity -> Rule of Law. Correct, as predicted. This fills in the gap perfectly, and even with the same structure as the rest of the argument. Nice.

C - Good Life -> Rule of Law. Does not help with the stim's conclusion at all. In fact, it is an alt conclusion for the stim that AC B would make valid. It's a different question altogether.

D - suff/nec confusion. Prevails feels like a weird word choice here as well, but idk.

E - suff/nec confusion. It actually directly contradicts the conclusion in the stim, so it's egregiously wrong.

For answer choice C -

Our stim gives us a conclusion:

Individual Freedom -> Rule of Law

AC C gives an alt conclusion:

Good Life -> Rule of Law

AC B is the correct sufficient assumption for both of these conclusions. AC C is incorrect because it is not a sufficient assumption for the argument in the stim as written.

Rewrite - reorganizing the info can emphasize the missing piece in a more obvious way.

Traditional classroom education is ineffective. In the traditional classroom, the teacher acts from outside the group and interaction between teachers and students is rigid and artificial. Education in such an environment is not truly a social process. Only social processes can develop students' insights.

But what does student insights have to do with anything?

Prediction: If education is to be considered effective, it must develop student insights.

Education Effective -> Development of Insight

If education does NOT develop student insights, it is not effective.

/Development of Insight -> /Education Effective

D) Education is not effective unless it leads to the development of insight.

Negate sufficient.

Education Effective -> Development of Insight

Just as predicted.

So when I went into the ACs, I looked for something that said Education Effective and Development of Insight. Only D does that and the conditional relationship is correct.

Answered D...

Before watching the video, I looked at the question again and realized D doesn't actually bridge the gap between pleasure and merit. A does that.

Answering D means you're still assuming pleasure is bridged to merit without having anything to back it up.

Art critic can affect pleasure of viewing art.

Merit depends on artist and critic.

We need a bridge between pleasure to merit.

@MLugo1998 oh! also -

I just don't understand how using rule 1 we cant reach the conclusion that someone is justified. Especially when it says "One is justified if X".

You've confused the nec/suff condition. It says "One is justified ONLY IF operation of business."

OR the contrapositive would say "One is not justified IF not operation of business."

@MLugo1998 I also got it right by intuition, but not confident I can apply that intuition to other questions like this one...

I got really hung up on the explanation as well, but you have to focus on what the rules say and try to avoid making real world sense of it. It's truly a nec/suff puzzle.

rule 1 -

IF justified in accessing computer without auth, THEN the computer must typically be used in operation of business.

justified -> op biz

/op biz -> /justified

rule 2 -

IF computer used typically in operation of business and reasonable grounds it contains material usable in legal processings against owner, THEN you must have been justified in accessing the computer without auth.

op biz and legal evidence -> justified

/justified -> /op biz or /legal evidence

Here's how I applied that to the ACs -

A - conc. justified. Rule 2. No mention of legal evidence. Wrong.

B - conc. justified. Rule 2. Meets both suff cond. Correct!

C - conc. not justified. Rule 1. Comp used in operations of business. Cannot come to that conclusion. Wrong.

D - conc. justified. Rule 2. Officials beliefs don't meet suff cond. Wrong.

E - conc. not justified. Rule 1. Computer used in operation of business. Fails suff condition. Wrong.

@LaurenBarthel Or even more directly - if we take everything we know to be true, flour can be used for any number of recipes, not just cakes. So it isn't a sufficient condition for baking a cake. Baking a cake is a sufficient condition for flour being needed. Baking a cake lives inside the "flour needed" circle the same way making fried chicken sits inside the "flour needed" circle.

More importantly, focus entirely on the world of the stimulus. You cannot rely on outside knowledge unless it's strongly reasonable to make that assumption. Baking a cake is intuitive, but LSAT questions are often very unintuitive or overly dense.

@LaurenBarthel This is pretty good. I think a sharper way to express the relationship using your analogy is this -

Jane is baking a cake. She has gathered her ingredients and added everything to the bowl, creating a batter. Jane poured the batter into the baking pan before placing it in the oven. Heating the oven prior to putting the filled cake pan in the oven is important for the cake to bake, so she also did that before mixing ingredients. Ovens that are not preheated do not make good cakes. The oven must be preheated if Jane wants to bake a good cake.

1) If Jane wants to bake a good cake, the oven must be preheated.

2) If the oven is preheated, Jane must be baking a good cake.

1 restates the conclusion. Preheating the oven is a necessary condition to bake a good cake. This makes intuitive sense, but also is just a restatement of the relationship found in the argument.

2 confuses the necessary and sufficient conditions. You could be baking anything, it doesn't have to be a cake, or even a good one. So baking a good cake is not a necessary condition for the oven being preheated.

@JoyelleBaek Academic fraud could be included in scientific fraud. But the important thing is that he did not commit fraud at the university, per their investigation. He committed it at his job, which presumably occurred after he received a PhD. The university revoked his PhD because he committed fraud related to his scientific work. Answer D gives us the principle the university invoked to make that decision.

Took me a minute to realize that first sentence is not useful other than to mentally dump things into domain and forget. Once you realize the most before most means nothing, the independently owned portion of the stim pops out and the logic falls into place. And the answer is right there in the ACs.

Curious to see how the intuition develops over time! This takes forever.

Anyone else decide to not diagram the nonsense and simply used POE to get to the right answer?

A - nope, what competitor?

B - sounds about right, I'll come back.

C - this info isn't in the stim. nope.

D - highest budgetary what now? nope.

E - stim says nothing about mayor's motives. nope.

Yep, B must be right.