Okay, the Kumar example broke my brain at first, but I worked it out on paper and I want to share my thought process in case it helps anyone else.

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First, let's break down the problem.

Sufficient Condition = being cited as late

important to note that we are talking about being cited as late, not just being late

Necessary Condition = arriving more than 5 minutes past the last ring of the homeroom bell.

[Late --> 5+]

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I then had to go back to understand If vs Only If theory in super basic terms.

IF indicates the Sufficient Condition. This means that the First Event's occurrence guarantees the Second Event's occurrence.

Ex. If one is a cat [Sufficient Condition] then one is a mammal [Necessary Condition].

Being a cat guarantees being a mammal. It is not possible for one to be a cat without also being a mammal.

ONLY IF indicates the Necessary Condition, meaning that the Second Event's occurrence is required for the First Event's occurrence to be possible.

The occurrence of the Second Event [the Necessary Condition] does NOT GUARANTEE the occurrence of the First Event [the Sufficient Condition].

Ex. If one is a mammal, one is a cat.

[^^^^ This does not make sense. The Necessary Condition (being a mammal) does not guarantee the Sufficient Condition (being a cat). One could be a mammal, and not be a cat.]

What really helped me to understand this aspect of the Necessary Condition is that the Necessary Condition is what makes all Sufficient Conditions possible, but it does not guarantee any particular Specific Condition.

For example, being a mammal means one could be a cat, dog, horse, etc. Being a mammal does not guarantee that one is specifically a cat or specifically a dog or specifically a horse.

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Okay, so back to the Kumar example.

First, I translated the symbolic logic of [Late --> 5+] back into English using the (if A --> then B) format.

"If a student is cited as 'late,' [Sufficient Condition] then they arrived more than five minutes past the last ring of the homeroom bell [Necessary Condition]."

This makes sense, the occurrence of the First Even [Sufficient Condition] guarantees the occurrence of the Second Event [Necessary Condition].

For a student to be cited as 'late' it is guaranteed that they arrived more than 5 minutes past the last ring of the homeroom bell. If a student did not arrive more than 5 minutes past the last ring of the homeroom bell, they would not be cited as late.

But, if we try to switch things around [like I did above with the cat and mammal example] things start to get wonky and do not work.

If a student arrived more than five minutes past the last ring of the homeroom bell [Necessary Condition], then the student is cited as "late." [Sufficient Condition]

This statement is not valid because the Necessary Condition does not guarantee the Sufficient Condition.

The same way that being a mammal does not guarantee being a cat, the behavior of showing up more than 5 minutes past the final ring of the homeroom bell does not guarantee being cited as late. It makes being cited as late a possibility, but it does not guarantee that that event will occur, because there are also many other possibilities that could happen.

I think part of the reason that I struggled so much to wrap my head around this is

1. I confused being "cited as late" with "being late" -- these are 2 very different things!

2. My confusion between "being late" and "being cited" stopped me from understanding the other possibilities of what could happen to Kumar.

The same way that being a mammal opens the possibility for being a cat, whilst also opening the possibility for being a dog, horse, etc.

Kumar being 17 minutes late opens the possibility for him to be 'cited as late' but it also opens the possibility for him to be given a warning, be given detention, for his teacher not to notice and nothing to happen, etc.

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Anyways I know this was very long winded and repetitive, but it was only through thinking out the example in this in-depth way that I was able to understand where I originally went wrong :)

#feedback

It would be great to have the same hi-lite and underline tools available in 7Sage's built in Notes feature that we have when doing the LSAT practice questions and that we will have when taking the actual test.

I'd like to be able to hi-lite and underline in my notes when working through a problem alongside the video, using the same tools that will be on the real-life exam.

Right now the Bold, Italics, Strikethrough, and Quote options do come in handy -- but having Underline and Hi-Lite added would be a huge bonus!!

I'm confused about the diagramming of question #4. I watched the video and the diagram looks incorrect regardless of whether you choose to use the Some Before All or Most Before All structure for the diagram.

In a Most Before All argument the diagram should be as follows:

Premises:      

A -m—> B

B —> C

Conclusion: 

A -m—> C

In a Some Before All argument the diagram should be as follows:

Premises:      

A <—s—> B

B —> C

Conclusion: 

A <—s—> C

The diagram for question #4 ends up looking like this (using the Most Before All format):

Premises:

Potion in Hut -m--> Poisonous

(A) -m--> (B)

Potion in Hut --> Some Benefit

(A) --> (C)

Conclusion:

Poisonous <--s--> Beneficial

(B) <--s--> (C)

We end up with a conclusion that says

Some (Bs) are (Cs) instead of a conclusion that says some (As) are (Cs) -- which is the valid conclusion.

Can anyone #HELP me out here to understand why this is valid?