If you want a great example of the LSAT asking us to infer positive opinion even when, strictly speaking, the exact same passage seems consistent with a neutral opinion, check out PT48 Passage 2 (Louise Gluck) #12. I think this passage shows that the formal arrangement of the text, as you noted for PT82 Passage A, is something the LSAT wants us to pay attention to.

Before I get into why passage A arguably does provide textual support for the author’s agreement with the duty of judicial sincerity, could you go into why you think PT52 rewards you for not viewing the author as implicitly endorsing the view they are defending from critics? I’m not sure which question you would get wrong if you had that interpretation. In fact, one of the correct answers requires us to view the author as implicitly accepting some of the basic tenets of PA. Why is that answer acceptable if one can discuss defenses of a theory without necessarily commiting oneself in a normative way to any aspect of that theory?

I think you’re right to be cautious about inferring such a normative view, but what other correct answer would there be for #22 in PT52 if we did not think that the author had some normative take on PA? Similarly, let’s say you’re right that PT82 Passage A doesn’t have a normative view on judicial sincerity - what other correct answer would there be to the questions you got wrong? I think LSAT is asking us to recognize that the question of Passage A’s agreement is at least ambiguous - and if one resolution of that ambiguity produces no correct answer, but the other resolution does, then we have to go with the latter.

Ultimately, I think the LSAT would point to the language in the last paragraph of Passage A to support the idea that Passage A supports judicial sincerity. The “problem” with the first defense is that it “fails to acknowledge the normative force” of the duty not to lie in opinions. What do you think about that language? What about the part afterward, where the author says that the duty to tell the truth in other contexts is “justified”, including in cases where it doesn’t produce good outcomes?

I can see a reading of this part that would interpret the “normative force” and the notion that truth-telling is “justified” as not necessarily the opinion of the author, but rather the author’s description of society’s view. Under that reading, the author’s discussion of better and worse ways of defending judicial sincerity is really strategizing on behalf of what society would say, given society’s normative views, and does not necessarily reflect the author’s own opinion. But I wonder if you would agree that although this may be a reasonable interpretation, it’s a bit strained and not clearly the only one.

In addition to the advice above, consider whether you're doing the easy/average games quickly enough. It's normal to feel overwhelmed by game with lots of variables or games that seem to require a lot of brute forcing - it's easier to manage that if you know you have enough time for it. PT68 Game 4, for example, can take up to 14 minutes to complete even for people who are excellent at games. If you didn't have that kind of time, then the issue may lie in the first two games or the third. You may want to drill a lot of basic ordering and grouping games until you can get them done significantly under the recommended time.

@ said:

So last night when I was in bed I randomly thought of a statement and tried to decipher whether or not it could be translated into logic in a traditional LR question.

The statement is: Excessive yelling and/or screeching tends to deteriorate vocal cords.

Could one translate this as (EY/ES-> DVC)?

I'm wondering if the word "tends" works as a sufficiency indicator or if it's more like a way to introduce an implied (probably flawed) correlation, though not definitely sufficient to bring about the condition discussed.

I think the statement itself would likely serve as a conclusion in any or most questions and it seems like it'd fit better as a flawed reasoning or parallel flaw statement. I have trouble thinking of premises that would lead to an arguer in an LR question coming to a conclusion that uses the word "tends" rather than some stronger indicator unless "tends" really is a sufficiency indicator.

Would love to hear thoughts from others!

"Tends" is not a sufficiency indicator, because it's not saying that anything is guaranteed to be the case.

"NBA players tend to be tall." That's not saying that being an NBA player enough to guarantee that the player is tall, because the statement allows for there to be some non-tall NBA players. So I wouldn't think of "tends" to as involving a conditional arrow.

"Tends" also does not, by itself, indicate a correlation. For example,

"People who like mushrooms tend to enjoy watching movies." This is not establishing a correlation between liking mushrooms and enjoying watching movies, because it's entirely possible that people who do not like mushrooms also tend to enjoy watching movies. It could just be that people in general, whether they like mushrooms or not, tend to enjoy watching movies. So that statement, by itself, has not established that there is a correlation. In order to establish a correlation, the statement would need to say something that indicates that people who like mushrooms are more likely to enjoy watching movies than people who don't like mushrooms.

So what does "tends" mean? I translate it to "is likely".

"NBA players tend to be tall." = "NBA players are likely to be tall."

"People who like mushrooms tend to enjoy watching movies." = "People who like mushrooms are likely to enjoy watching movies."

Now you might be thinking that you can recall many examples of statements involving "tends" that did seem to introduce a correlation, or that may have even introduced cause. That may be true - but in those sentences, any correlation or causal meaning came from other language. "Tends" still just meant "is likely".

For example, in the statement you used:

"Excessive yelling tends to deteriorate vocal cords."

That is a causal claim, not because of "tends", but because it asserts that the yelling "deteriorate[s]" vocal cords. "Deteriorates" is a causal verb that is saying that one thing is damaging or reducing another thing.

The "tends" in this sentence clarifies that the yelling is "likely" to deteriorate vocal cords -- in other words, this is something experienced by most people who yell excessively, but not necessarily everyone.

I don't think your translation is incorrect. Those are just two different ways to express the same idea.

"[It is rational not to acquire such information] unless [one expects that the benefit of doing so will outweigh the cost and difficulty of doing so.]"

You take one of the bracketed ideas, negate, and put it on the left.

IF it is NOT rational not to acquire such information--> One expects the benefit to outweigh the cost

What does it mean for it to NOT be "rational not to acquire such info"? You could think of it as either "irrational not to acquire such info" or, by canceling out the double negative, "rational TO acquire such info". It looks like your translation used the latter.

The other way to translate this statement:

IF one does NOT expect the benefit to outweigh the cost --> It is rational not to acquire such info.

In this case, the "not" in the necessary condition is applying to "acquiring such info". We're talking about the action of "not acquiring such info".

Can you let me know if there is something I'm missing about your question?

@ said:

For conclusions that are along the lines of "this theory/explanation is wrong", I have a tough time keeping the entire idea in my head. For most questions, I will highlight just the conclusion. However, when I just highlight "this is wrong", I cannot reference the idea quickly enough. Are there any helpful tips to overcome this issue?

OP, I think one issue might be that you're just highlighting the conclusion, but not actually putting the substance of it into your own words. When you see a conclusion like "This is wrong", you have to immediately take the time to identify the "this", and then you have to negate the idea.

If the "this" was the view that "Some entrepreneurs can be successful without hard work", then when you see "This is wrong", you have to take the time to say "Ok, so the conclusion is that NO entrepreneurs can be successful without hard work. Or, in other words, that hard work is required for entrepreneurs to be successful."

And, ideally you would do that translation before you even read the next line, if there's any line that follows it. If you do this, then you don't need to reference anything later because you already understood the conclusion and know what it means. Whether you highlight the line or not isn't really important to the process of taking the time to break down the "this" and negate it once you see it.

(By the way, as other commenters have pointed out, be careful about conclusions that just say "This is unpersuasive" or "This is unfounded", as they are not exactly the same as saying "This is false" or "This is wrong".)

I think it's important to distinguish between the "view" and the "argument [the stimulus] cites" in answer choice (D).

What is the "argument it cites"? Well, do you notice that PT76 S2 Q19's conclusion is "We should reject this argument."? That argument is in the first sentence, which describes something the union leaders "argue" - "increases in multinational control of manufacturing have shifted labor to nations without strong worker protections, resulting in a corresponding global decrease in workers' average wages."

So if that's the "argument" cited by the stimulus, what is the "view" of the union leaders that this argument was supporting? It's mentioned in the second to last sentence - the union leaders want to "oppose multinational control".

Now, look back at the conclusion. Did it say that we should reject the union leader's "view"? That we should not oppose multinational control? No - it just says that we should reject the argument described in the first sentence.

This is why (D) is wrong. The author's conclusion was merely that we should reject one particular argument the union leaders gave in support of their view that we should oppose multinational control. But even if there were other arguments the union leaders had available in support of their view, the stimulus's conclusion had nothing to do with those arguments. The possibility of other arguments has no impact on whether the particular argument described in the stimulus should be rejected.

I suspect you were interpreting the author's argument as something like this:

Premise: The union leader's argument that legislators should oppose multinational control is based on their own self-interest.

Conclusion: Thus, legislators should not oppose multinational control.

But the argument was actually like this:

Premise: The union leader's argument that legislators should oppose multinational control is based on their own self-interest.

Conclusion: Thus, that argument is not persuasive and should not be considered.

Under this interpretation, the author has no opinion on whether legislators should or should not oppose multinational control. The author might actually agree with the union leaders' ultimate view - but the author is trying to criticize the support that the leaders offered for that view.

@ said:

Can someone please explain this to me: “‘or’ does not, in and of itself, exclude the possibility of ‘both.’ Thus, if a rule states, ‘F or G will be assigned to Y,’ it is entirely possible that both F and G can be assigned to Y.”

How???

"I will go to the gym on Monday or Tuesday this week."

"My mom or dad will be home to supervise the party."

"Do you want milk or sugar in your coffee?"

Do you interpret these as allowing only 1 of the "or" options, and excluding the possibility of both? If not, why not?

Ultimately it may just be a language issue you'll have to train and get used to. I like to mentally add "at least 1 of" in connection with the use of "or", unless the rule explicitly precludes both. So I would read the rule you presented as "[At least one of] F or G will be assigned to Y." And I would read the other examples I used like this:'

"I will go to the gym on [at least one of] Monday or Tuesday this week."

"[At least one of] my mom or dad will be home to supervise the party."

"Do you want [at least one of] milk or sugar in your coffee?"

@ One thing you might not have focused on is that in PT73.4.11, the second sentence, which describes the view of other people, refers to the entire first sentence with the language "this problem". So the other people's view is a comment on the problem presented in the first sentence. That's one signal that can help us understand that the first sentence is not the author's point of view that the other people are going against, but a fact that the other people actually agree with. They just have an opinion about the significance of that fact.

Compare that with PT85.2.10. Here, the first sentence is a comment on what created the network of tracks. The next sentence then refers to another explanation for "the tracks". Notice that the researcher's view does not refer to the entirety of the first sentence, unlike with PT73.4.11. And, the second sentence does counter the view in the first sentence.

Here's a comparison of the 2 structures (but note that I've simplified the arguments a bit in a way that doesn't capture them precisely):

PT73.4.11

X is true.

Some people say X isn't important.

But actually X is important.

PT85.2.10

Z is the best explanation for X.

Some people say W is a better explanation for X.

However, here's a reason to think Z makes more sense as the explanation.

This isn't the first time we've seen that kind of question stem! Check out PT35 Game 1.

I like these for science:

Quanta Magazine - https://www.quantamagazine.org/

Nautilus _ https://nautil.us/

Could you describe a bit more your own process for reviewing logic games? Exactly what do you do when you sit down to study/practice logic games? Do you re-do games that you've found confusing or solved inefficiently?

Also, can you write more about what you find difficult about games? Are you having a hard time recognize what setup to use? Forgetting or misinterpreting rules? Do you find yourself using "brute force" to test answers too much?

As you've seen, there are different styles of doing games, but it's tough to advise you on what direction to take without knowing more about how you've studied and about what you find difficult to understand/implement.

Have you tried coming up with parallel arguments and parallel correct/trap answers for the questions that you got wrong or flagged? That can be a great way to solidify your understanding of the exact issue in the argument/answers that the LSAT was testing.

In addition, make sure you regularly return to questions that you had trouble with to walk through the ideal thought process. You could try creating a problem set of all the LR/RC that you got wrong in the past few months and work through them again. It doesn't matter if you remember the correct answer - work through each problem and make sure to follow the ideal thought process from start to finish. This also gives you a chance to notice common issues that have arisen in the mistakes you've made. When you make so few, it can be difficult to notice any patterns from exam to exam. But when you collect dozens of problems you've gotten wrong over the past few months, you'll start to see some recurring issues.

Solely does mean only. But the issue is a single statement can express more than just a conditional relationship. The statement is saying (1) he got sick due to peppers; and (2) there was nothing else besides peppers that made him sick. You're focused on (2), but not noticing (1).

In addition there's a difference between saying

He got sick solely due to peppers.

One can get sick solely through peppers.

The second statement is saying that peppers are necessary for getting sick -- without peppers, you won't get sick. This might be what you have in mind when you write "Sick -> peppers".

The first is saying that peppers were the only thing that made someone sick. But it's not saying that peppers were necessary for getting sick. If you want to think of the first as a conditional, where you reduce it to "sick -> peppers", you have to keep in mind that that would mean "If something made him sick, then it had to be peppers", but it's not saying something universal about what is required for anyone to become sick. (And, the conditional doesn't capture the fact that he did get sick.) So "Sick -> peppers" means something different in each sentence.

This is a good reminder that the practice of diagramming statements into conditional logic is not solely formulaic (see what I did there?) -- you also have to understand and keep in mind the underlying meaning of the statements.

@ said:

Hi everyone,

I just took LSAT 57 - Section 3 - Question 23 about "brushless car wash" and I really don't understand how C can be correct. To me all of the answer choices were wrong and C seemed to me like a big inference (i.e. both brush and brushless car wash could leave a visible scratches on new and old cars, but "brushless" could leave less).

Any tips on how to answer this type of questions?#help

Admin Note: Edited title. Please use the format: "PT#.S#.Q# - brief description of the question."

I agree that (C) is not as supported as the correct answer usually is on an MSS question. But it's a good reminder that they really are asking which answer is the most strongly supported. For the vast majority of questions (including MSS and all other LR questions), we can usually decide whether an answer is correct or wrong without caring about what the other answers say. But not always. In these cases, we have to rely on process of elimination.

There's a difference between answers that have no evidence, or contrary evidence, and answers that have some evidence, but require a stretch.

The stimulus tells us

(1) mitters are easier on most cars' finishes than brushes (easier meaning less rough or damaging)

(2) being easier on a finish is important with new clear-coat finishes found on many cars, because those cars are more easily scratched than those with older finishes

I don't think the stimulus is set up in a way that allows us to have a strong anticipation.

But since both of these facts are about scratching or roughness on a finish, I would expect the answer to be related to this. And both facts are comparisons -- one is about mitters vs. brushes, and another is about clear-coat vs. older finishes. So the answer might involve one or both of these comparisons.

(A) has two problems. Even though brushes are rougher, we know that finishes of the past were less easily scratched. So, without more, we have no basis for thinking that cars were more likely to be scratched in the past. This isn't an example of taking something that is supported, but stretching it too far. There isn't any support at all -- or to put it more precisely, we have one fact that would suggest scratches were more likely in the past (brushes are rougher) and one fact that would suggest scratches were less likely in the past (older finishes are less prone to scratching). There is no basis for deciding which one carries more weight. Nor do we have any basis for speculating about the time frames in a way that might support (A) (Ex.: "What if car washes all used brushes around the same time that many clear coat finishes were around?")

In any case, this answer is actually about the number of scratched cars. Even if we were to grant the unsupported assumption that scratches were more likely in the past, that doesn't support a claim about the comparative number of cars. It's a % (or rate) vs. amount issue. An increase in the overall number of cars on the road could easily mean that there are more scratched cars now, even if cars now are less likely to be scratched.

(B) is about the the cause of the modern car washes. We don't know why they came about. There's no statement in the stimulus that suggests a reason they were developed.

(D) involves a comparison of cleaning effectiveness. We have no support for a statement about effectiveness at cleaning.

(E) is about the comparative number of clear-coat vs. older finishes. We have no support for this. We know that there are "many" cars with clear-coat finishes, but we don't know whether that's a higher number than the number of cars with older finishes.

So that leaves us with (C). (C) would have been easier to pick if it said "Modern brushless car washes sometimes do not produce scratches on cars with older finishes." Are we OK with it saying "usually do not produce visible scratches on older finishes"? Not really. We do know from the stimulus that mitters are less likely to scratch than brushes, and that older finishes are more resistant to scratches than clear-coats. In addition, we know that having mitters are "especially important" for the clear-coats -- they're not especially important for the older finishes. So an answer like "modern brushless car washes are less likely to produce visible scratches on cars with older finishes than on cars with clear coats" would be much better. But at least (C) has a shred of support, and no countervailing evidence, unlike the others.

This is not the only time the LSAT will require you to pick the best of 5 bad answers. PT83 LR1 #15 is similar. The correct answer there uses a word that's similar to "usually" even though it's tough to say that the stimulus support that level of certainty. It would have been much easier to pick if it had said "sometimes" or "might" rather than the word it actually used. But the wrong answers have no support at all.

I don't know if this take is one that you've seen in the video explanation or the comments, but I've always viewed this question as centered on the way that the ranking is done. The stimulus states that the World Bank "assesses how difficult it is for a hypothetical business to comply...". That's ambiguous, but I describe one way of looking at it below.

The closest comparison that sticks out in my own experience are those power rankings that sports publications often produce before a new season begins. Consider this argument, which is meant to be similar, but not exactly parallel:

Every October, BasketballNuts.com issues a report ranking teams in the NBA on how likely they are to win the championship in the upcoming season. In producing the rankings, BasketballNuts.com assesses quality of trades, free agency signings, coaching staff changes, and projected player development. Since the last set of rankings came out, our team has signed last year's MVP and last year's Rookie of the Year. So, our BasketballNuts.com ranking will probably improve.

Is the following issue relevant to the argument?

"Is the team actually better than it was last year because of the signings?"

I don't think so - whether they are actually better at basketball was not an input in the rankings. BasketballNuts.com's ranking was based on trades, free agency signings, coaching changes, and projected player development. They're trying to predict how good the team will be compared to other teams based on those factors, but the actual quality of the team is not something the ranking was evaluating. If you say, "Our team is actually a lot worse this year", that doesn't register to the rankings because on paper the team looks a lot better.

Now let's go back to the World Bank problem. It doesn't say exactly what the ranking is based on, unlike the sample argument above, but it does say the World Bank "assesses how difficult it is for a hypothetical business to comply with regulations and pay taxes."

Is this ranking about actual, realized, on-the-grounds difficulty in the sense of "Is the basketball team actually better?" Or is it about a more theoretical, hypothetical assessment of difficulty based on looking at the legal regulations of different countries? For example, I could say that since Country X requires a certified accountant to prepare a business's taxes, whereas Country Y does not, that means it's more difficult to pay taxes in X. Whether a higher % of businesses actually paid taxes compared to country Y is not relevant to that measure.

For you to pick answer choice (B), you have to believe that the ranking is not being done in the theoretical, hypothetical sense. Let's say compliance with regulations has increased - I agree with you that this would be a reason to think that ease of compliance may have improved. But this would only impact the World Bank's ranking if rate of compliance were one of the factors they were evaluating in determining the difficulty of compliance. Remember, the conclusion is not about how how easy/difficult compliance is in our country compared to others. It's about whether our ranking will improve, which depends on how that ranking is done.

For (D), if the kind of business that the minister had in mind was smaller than the hypothetical business used to produce the report, then that means the simplified laws the minister referred to are not necessarily relevant to how the rankings are done. The World Bank is ranking how difficult it is for Business Z to comply. If the laws the minister referred to do not apply to Business Z, then they give no reason to think that the country's ranking will improve.

The best way to improve at your level in LR and RC is to teach the exam. Perhaps you could start offering tutoring or find study buddies whose weaknesses are your strengths and try to answer every point of confusion they ask you about. Through teaching the exam, you'll be forced to articulate your own system for approaching the questions and you'll start to notice areas where your understanding is shaky or seemingly inconsistent with your reasoning in other contexts. I think being forced to resolve those inconsistencies and smooth out the shaky areas should help address at least some of your mistakes in LR and RC.

Another thing that should help is regularly revisiting problems that you've gotten wrong or had trouble with and walking through the exact thought process that would get you to the correct answer efficiently. Think of it like "foolproofing" those problems. It doesn't matter whether you already reviewed the problem, think you understand it perfectly now, and remember the answer. The point of revisiting the problems is to try to make the kind of thinking required on that problem more natural and automatic. Oftentimes the reason you got something wrong is that you were interpreting something in a slightly different way than the LSAT wanted you to or were just not as precise as you needed to be in breaking the stimulus or answer choices down. Although you might understand the problem well upon review, that doesn't mean that the correct reading/thought process would come easily to you if you saw it again. Regularly revisiting problems you've gotten wrong/had trouble with can help reinforce the right reading and thought processes that once escaped you.

For games, assuming that you're already in the habit of re-doing any games that gave you any amount of trouble, I'd suggest a couple of things. First, make sure you re-do games in different ways. Can you try the game again with a handicap? If you hadn't made this inference, would your approach to the game still allow you to solve the game well without too much lost time? If you didn't split the game up front, how could you still confidently work through the game? And if you didn't split originally, could you solve the game with a split? The point of this is not to show that every way of solving the game can work, but it's to help you see what kinds of inferences or approaches are absolutely critical to your way of doing games and to explore what processes you need to add or emphasize in order to notice those inferences or approaches.

In addition, make sure to keep doing games by type. Sometimes people start studying LG just by doing LG sections. But it absolutely helps to have a rock solid system in place for all of the standard game types. Have you done all of the "pure sequencing" games in a row? All games involving "or, but not both" ordering rules or conditional ordering rules? What about all In/Out games involving subgroups? If you don't think you can reel off a complete lesson on each kind of game, general approaches, common inferences tested, then you can definitely benefit from focused practice. In fact, ideally you'd get to a point where you could write your own game that involves the rules, inferences, and tricks that are typically presented in that type.

@ said:

@ said:

Can you elaborate? My view is that a particular statement can be necessary for the argument to be valid, sufficient for it to be valid, or both. But the word "assumption" has a particular definition that is in line with what we traditionally think of as "necessary assumptions". This means that there are some things that LSAT teachers/students might call a "sufficient assumption" that are actually not assumptions of the argument.

For example,

Gary is 7 feet and 2 inches tall. So, he must be good at basketball.

The following would be identified as a "sufficient assumption" in the LSAT community:

"Anyone who is over 6 feet and 6 inches tall must be good at basketball."

But you would agree that this is not actually something the argument assumes, right? So in that sense, we call it a "sufficient assumption", but the word "assumption" in that usage is really just a stand-in for the idea of "statement". It's a statement that, if true, is sufficient to make the argument valid.

But they are assumptions, it's just a question of how they're applied. An assumption--sufficient or necessary--does not mean something someone making an argument is assuming. There is that application, but it's not the way we apply it in the study of conditional logic. A necessary assumption is one which must be true if the argument is going to have any chance of being validated. But it may just be a flawed argument. Similarly, a sufficient assumption is one which, if assumed true, would validate the argument. Just like with necessary assumptions, the argument need not assume it. We're not trying to identify assumptions the author is actually making. Our task is a more formal, objective assessment. If we were to assume that anyone over 6'6" must be good at basketball, then we would validate the argument. The assumption is one that we ourselves are extending to the argument, not one we are identifying the argument to have actually made.

I get the sense that you're using "assumption" to refer to the way in which we assume that a statement is true and then evaluate the impact of that statement's truth on the argument; if it's sufficient to make the argument valid, then it's a "sufficient assumption". I don't think that's any different from how I think of the situation, except that I think using the word "assumption" in that context is liable to confuse given that the word "assumption" also has another meaning referring to unstated premises of the argument, which is what I think you're referring to when you mention "identifying [assumptions] the argument [] actually made". And to me this latter definition is what I think most would have in mind when it comes to the topic of assumptions, which is why I think it makes sense to drop usage of the word "assumption" when it comes to sufficient assumptions. What is lost by thinking of them as "statements", that if true, make the argument valid? (I wouldn't actually drop this usage given how ingrained it is; it may be more confusing not to call something SA now that people accept that terminology.)

What's interesting to me is that, if I'm understanding your use of "assumption" here, then under that approach wouldn't you also think of Weaken questions as "Weaken Assumption" questions and Strengthen questions as "Strengthen Assumption" questions and Resolve/Explain questions as "Resolve/Explain Assumption" questions? After all, in all of those problems, we're being asked to assume that the answers are true - which answer, if assumed true, has the appropriate effect on the argument or situation? In the same way that you noted with SA we are evaluating the impact of "assumptions ... that we ourselves are extending to the argument", in a Weaken question, wouldn't we be evaluating the impact of "assumptions" (called such by virtue of our assuming the truth of the statement) that we ourselves extend to the argument? Only that with Weaken we're looking for an "assumption" that weakens?

@ said:

I’m not getting all the hating on sufficient assumptions. They are totally real assumptions which were identified as far back as Aristotle. They are a staple of formal logic, and necessary assumptions rely on their relationship to a sufficient assumption to exist. For every necessary assumption that exists, a sufficient assumption must also exist.

Can you elaborate? My view is that a particular statement can be necessary for the argument to be valid, sufficient for it to be valid, or both. But the word "assumption" has a particular definition that is in line with what we traditionally think of as "necessary assumptions". This means that there are some things that LSAT teachers/students might call a "sufficient assumption" that are actually not assumptions of the argument.

For example,

Gary is 7 feet and 2 inches tall. So, he must be good at basketball.

The following would be identified as a "sufficient assumption" in the LSAT community:

"Anyone who is over 6 feet and 6 inches tall must be good at basketball."

But you would agree that this is not actually something the argument assumes, right? So in that sense, we call it a "sufficient assumption", but the word "assumption" in that usage is really just a stand-in for the idea of "statement". It's a statement that, if true, is sufficient to make the argument valid.

@ said:

Thank you for the detailed response @. If you could further spare some time to answer a couple more questions, I'd be very grateful.

Unless directly specified, shouldn't we always assume that a particular claim about a group doesn't apply to every single member in it? I'm fairly certain that that's a flaw seen on the test. For example, in the example you've provided, "Humans are cruel. Thus, Paxton is cruel," wouldn't it be incorrect to conclude that unless we were explicitly told that cruelty is a trait of every human? Therefore, whenever we see an unspecified plural subject, shouldn't we treat it as meaning the group "in general?"

Is this a rule? I'm not saying you're wrong, but we can come up with some examples that seem to also refer to every single member.

"Spelling bee winners are excellent at memorization." Is this saying every spelling bee winner is good at memorization? Or is it just referring to the group of spelling bee winners generally and allows for some exceptions?

"Green vegetables have lots of fiber." Is this saying that every green vegetable has a lot of fiber, or just generally they have lots of fiber but there could be exceptions?

"Humans need water to survive." This means every human needs water to survive right? Is this because the word "need" would only make sense if applied to every single human rather than human generally but allowing for exceptions?

"Bullies should be avoided." Is this saying every bully should be avoided or is it referring just generally to bullies and that some may not be ones that are to be avoided?

My honest answer is that I think this depends on the concepts involved as well as the context provided by the other statements. That may be wrong, but I hesitate about using a rule. In practice I think I find myself adding an implicit "all" to many plural subjects on the LSAT, but not always.

I'm not sure I quite follow what you're saying about the bi-conditionals. If we apply what you said to the stimulus, I believe we'd get "pizzerias-->routinely record etc." So, if we link everything up, it would be:

Pizzeria-->Routinely record-->Utilize direct-mail marketing more effectively

Pizzerias utilize direct-mail marketing more effectively

And it's because everything links up cleaner this way that you suggest that this would clear OP's confusion right?

Yes, that's right. That strikes me as what the LSAT intended, rather than merely reading the conclusion as about "some pizzerias".

Regarding your example about Taiwan, I assume that it's because the vaccination itself is a requirement to enter Taiwan. Therefore, you can transform the first sentence to be COVID vaccination-->Requirement to enter Taiwan because the vaccination functions both as a sufficient item to conclude requirement for entry and also as a necessary for entry in Taiwan. Due to your earlier comments about bi-conditionals concerning "is," I think we're looking at specifically the "COVID vaccination is required" of the first sentence, which should work out to COVID vaccination (--) Requirement for entry. However, what I'm not understanding is, that given how it's currently written, don't the sentences already flow to mean "the COVID vaccination should be prioritized?" The umbrella of "anything that is required to enter Taiwan" would include the "COVID vaccination" since we already know that the vaccination is necessary for entry. Therefore, just adding in the vaccination for "anything that's required" would allow you to draw that conclusion.

I don't think there would be biconditional created by this statement - I did not mean to suggest that this example was similar to the pizza examples above.

The statement would mean If enter taiwan -> Covid vaccination.

And, if we're talking about the quality of being required for entry into Taiwan, then you could also say If COVID vaccination -> Is something that is required for entry into Taiwan.

But COVID vaccination (---) Requirement for entry into Taiwan would not be inferrable, because there could be other requirements for entry besides COVID vaccination.

This example was to show that the most basic conditional statement can be framed in another way that's also true, not that it creates a biconditional.

Also, when you say "don't the sentences already flow to mean..." - that's because you're reading the sentences accurately without necessarily resorting to a diagram-type approach. I was trying to show that one who did use a mechanical approach might be confused by the very thing that you're grasping naturally from the flow of the sentences themselves.

@ @

@(tagged for his thoughts on the issue)

Interpreting the conclusion as a statement about "some" pizzerias would solve the OP's issue. But I actually think there's another resolution that's better and addresses multiple points of confusion.

But to get there, I think we have to address 2 issues:

(1) What does a plural subject mean - all, some, or perhaps something else?

(2) Can the statement "the only" ever mean a bi-conditional?

(1) What does a plural subject mean - all, some, or perhaps something else?

As a general matter, we often treat plural subjects as referring to all of the group - that's why OP was interpreting the conclusion as applying to all pizzerias.

Clearly, however, there are cases in which a plural subject may not make sense to interpret as referring to all of the group. If I say, "High school students are better at sports than first graders," is your first reaction really to think that I'm saying every single high school student is better at sports (all sports?) than every single first grader? Probably not. It also doesn't seem to mean only that some high school students are better at sports than some first graders. You'd probably interpret the statement as asserting something a bit stronger - generally, high school students are better at sports than first graders. Of course, it's entirely possible that there are very unathletic or otherwise physically incapable high school students who aren't better, and it's possible that there are supremely talented first graders who could beat most high school students - this wouldn't contradict the initial statement, right? I'm not asking for a certain and definite answer here - just suggesting that there may be a range of interpretations when you have a plural subject. (Notice how this type of plural subject + comparative statement is similar to the statements at issue in the pizzeria problem.)

How about this one? "Humans are cruel."

Is this asserting that every single human being is cruel? That every human, including a newborn baby, is cruel? Maybe. But it might be fair to interpret this as some, many, or most humans are cruel. Perhaps it's not even meant to be a some/most/all type of statement, but a statement about humans as a species. Is it possible that this statement is saying that, collectively, humans in their sense as a species are cruel, but the statement is not committed to saying anything about humans in their individual capacity?

Could it depend on context? What if you saw this:

"Humans are cruel. Thus, Paxton is cruel."

The structure of the logic suggests that the missing piece is that Paxton is a human, and that I'm supposed to interpret the first statement as a conditional claim about all humans.

But what about this:

"Unlike other animals, humans are cruel."

Would you interpret that as saying every single human being, including your grandmother, is cruel?

I suspect you wouldn't - we're talking about humans in their species/group capacity, not as individuals.

And so I suggest that in the pizzeria problem, a similar interpretation is justified. The initial statement about pizzerias is designed to contrast that kind of restaurant with other kinds of restaurants. We're not talking about pizzerias in the sense of "every single pizzeria in the world, including the millions of Dominos, Pizza Huts, Roundtable Pizzas, X-treme Pizzas, etc.". We're talking about pizzerias as opposed to burger joints and sushi bars and steakhouses and korean BBQs, and spicy crawfish shacks and so on. So it makes sense to interpret "pizzerias" in both the first sentence and the conclusion as referring to the kind of restaurant that makes pizzas. The use of "pizzerias" is not meant to refer to every single pizzeria in the world.

I also don't think the "pizzeria" in the conclusion is meant only to mean "some" pizzerias - we're still talking about pizzerias as a contrast to other kinds of restaurants. I do think that a statement about pizzerias as a kind of restaurant probably implies something about at least some pizzerias in their individual capacity, but my point is that the conclusion is not just saying that there's at least 1 pizzeria that uses direct mail marketing more effectively than other restaurants. So this is why I find it to be unsatisfying to resolve OP's question by saying "Just interpret the conclusion as 'some pizzerias'".

In any case, if you're with me so far that "pizzerias" is just about the kind of restaurant, then you could interpret the first sentence as follows: "The kind of restaurant that makes pizzas is the only kind of restaurant that routinely records..." And the conclusion would be "The kind of restaurant that makes pizzas uses direct mail marketing more effectively than any other kind of restaurant." See? The argument doesn't have to be about "all" or "some" or even "most" - it's just about comparing kinds of restaurants to each other.

Now, we still have to deal with the issue of "the only".

(2) Can the statement "the only" ever mean a bi-conditional?

Generally, we're taught to treat "the only" as introducing the sufficient condition (or, that what it's referring to is the necessary condition). For example, "The only people who practice law passed the bar exam." This would be "Practice law -> passed bar." And it'd be wrong to think that this is saying that everyone who passed the bar is practicing law.

Even if you change the order of the sentence, it doesn't change the meaning: "People who passed the bar are the only people who practice law." That means "Practice law -> passed bar." And it's not saying that everyone who passed the bar is practicing law.

But a bit of ambiguity creeps in when we start coming up with examples that are about singular things as opposed to a plural subjects like "people who practice law". For example:

"Vatican City, San Marino, and Lesotho are the only countries that are completely enclosed within another country."

This does entail the following "Completely enclosed -> Must be one of those 3 countries". But surely you would agree that it's also saying that these three countries are in fact completely enclosed within another country, right? In other words, it's also saying

VC -> Completely enclosed,

SM -> Completely enclosed,

L -> Completely enclosed.

Let's come up with other examples:

"Steak is the only food I plan to eat tomorrow."

This does entail "Food I plan to eat tomorrow -> Steak". But are you really going to deny that this also means that I plan to eat steak tomorrow? If it didn't mean that, then the use of "is" just doesn't make sense in that sentence. You can actually just break this sentence in two:

"Steak is a food I plan to eat tomorrow."

And,

"There is no food that I plan to eat tomorrow besides steak."

The first one would be "Steak -> Food I plan to eat tomorrow"

The second statement would be "Food I plan to eat tomorrow -> Steak"

So technically speaking, it's not the phrase "the only" that's creating a bi-conditional here. Rather, the use of "is" is creating one part of the bi-conditional, and the phrase "the only" is creating the other part.

At this point it's clear that a statement that uses "the only" can involve a bi-conditional. But I do want to address something that might be confusing: How is it that we can see the examples above as biconditionals, but there other uses of "the only", including in connection with singular entities and not plural subjects, where it does not seem to involve a biconditional?

Take this example:

"Hard work is the only way to be successful."

Many of you will say that this clearly means "Successful -> Hard work" and clearly does NOT mean that hard work guarantees success. That's true, it doesn't mean that.

But have you considered that this IS saying "Hard work -> way to be successful". So in that sense, we still have a biconditional. If it is a way to be successful, it must be hard work. And, if it's hard work, it is a way to be successful. The biconditionality does NOT apply when we speak about "being successful", but that's only because something that's a way to be successful does not guarantee success. If you speak about a "way to be successful" however, the meaning of the sentence is clear.

In fact, if you really wanted to be as precise as possible (not that this is recommended), we shouldn't think of the statement as "Successful -> hard work". Instead, it should be this:

"Way to be successful (--bi-conditional-) Hard work."

Then, if someone happens to actually be successful, that would trigger the conditional, because if someone is successful, they must have had a way of being successful, which in turn implies hard work. This is how you get "Successful -> Hard work". Normally our minds just jump to that relationship of "Successful -> Hard work", but that's actually more like an inference based on the statement "Hard work is the only way to be successful" rather than a direct translation of the statement itself. Similarly, we recognize that this sentence does not mean "Hard work -> Must be successful". But many of us would explain the wrongness of that claim as related to a misinterpretation of "the only", when it's actually just an error related to the jump from "way to be successful" to actually being successful. If you said "Hard work -> Way to be successful", then that would be true.

Now I really don't want to scare anyone or further confuse anyone - you shouldn't normally question the general handling of "the only" as presented by 7Sage and other LSAT curricula. I bring up the points above mainly because the pizzeria question the OP identified happens to be one (and perhaps the only one) for which a deeper understanding of "the only" might be necessary to avoid the confusion that OP felt.

CONCLUSION

So far I've established that "pizzerias" is meant in its "kind of restaurant" sense and that "the only" can involve a biconditional when the statement is about a singular entity. These points together can resolve the issue in the original post.

"The kind of restaurant that makes pizza is the only kind of restaurant that routinely records...

Thus, the kind of restaurant that makes pizza utilizes direct mail marketing more effectively than do other kinds of restaurants."

The first statement can be seen as a biconditional:

Kind of restaurant that makes pizza (-----) Routinely records

The second statement would be:

Kind of restaurant that makes pizza -----> Uses direct mail marketing better than other kinds

Answer choice (E) gives us "Routinely records --> Uses direct mail marketing better than other kinds". If added to the argument, that would prove the conclusion.

EPILOGUE

I'm not saying that everything I wrote above is absolutely the one correct way to view things, although I do stand behind my reasoning and I hope it was both persuasive and enlightening. And, this kind of hyper-analysis is not at all recommended in the heat of doing an actual LSAT and struggling with what appears to be a confusing problem. In fact, with reasonable training, you can and should be able to get to (E) as your selection on this pizza problem confidently even if you think it's not perfect. But I think OP's confusion is a good example of what can arise when we're approaching things too mechanically. We shouldn't forget that there are ranges of meaning or ways to frame a particular relationship that can depend on context.

In fact, even what you might call a basic, obvious conditional can be validly interpreted in multiple ways.

In order to enter Taiwan, COVID vaccination is required.

Everyone would say this means "Enter Taiwan -> Must have COVID vaccination", right?

It does. But you can also focus on a different aspect of the statement, depending on context.

"In order to enter Taiwan, COVID vaccination is required.

Anything that is required to enter Taiwan should be prioritized as we plan for our upcoming vacation."

Now the first sentence is better seen as "COVID vaccination -> Required for entering Taiwan" (or, in plain english, COVID vaccination is something that's required to enter Taiwan), which allows us to connect it to the next sentence to reach the conclusion that the COVID vaccination should be prioritized as we plan for our upcoming vacation.

Someone approaching things mechanically might say "How could COVID vaccination be a sufficient condition? We were told it was necessary! I don't see how you can put it on the left side of the arrow." How would you answer that question?

@

Can you go into why you're doing the first sentence as "Restaurants that record -> Pizzeria". This is the underlying issue - there may be an additional meaning contained in this statement that you're overlooking. If you're solely thinking about this in terms of "the only" = sufficient condition, is there another way to view what this sentence is saying?

Jerry is the only person who comes into work on Mondays.

Does that mean only the following: Comes into work on Mondays -> Jerry

Is there anything else that this sentence is conveying?

The state is the only entity that can take private property from someone without their consent.

Is that "Can take private property from someone without consent -> The state"?

Any other meaning that this sentence is conveying?

The best way to learn when and how to split is to try games over again in different ways. Take a game that you solved without splitting and try it again while looking for an opportunity to split. And maybe try it again while splitting based on a different rule. Keep track of when the split allows you to complete the game more quickly and easily (and when it doesn't.) Then see if you can create some personal rules to follow regarding when to split based on your experience.

You'll need to refine those rules as you apply them because sometimes they may be over- or under-inclusive. For example, let's say you think "I'm going to split based on a block whenever I get one in an ordering game." That strategy will work for many games, but you'll no doubt run into some where it's a complete waste of time. Then based on your review of the games where the strategy didn't work, you might say, "Ok, I'm going to split based on the block if it goes in 4 different places. But not if it goes in more than 4 places." Then you may notice that because of this rule you didn't split in a game when it actually would have been very useful to do so. And you'll study why in that particular game splitting even though there were 5 places for a block still would have been a good idea. Over time, you'll have a system of rules that you understand and that you can apply both automatically but also flexibly - you're able to do so because you've put in the work to come up with them and you've seen the results of those rules through experience.

For example, here's a list of rules that I've come to follow based on my own style of doing games. If some of these don't make sense to you, that's OK - the point is not for you to follow exactly what I do, but as a jumping off point for how to think about coming up with your own system.

Ordering

Blocks (variables with a fixed relationship to each other) that fit only in 2 or 3 places -> Almost always split

Blocks that fit in 4 different places -> Split if there's another restrictive rule that's clearly affected by placement of block

"Or, but not both" relative order rule (A is before B or C, but not both) -> Create two ordering chains based on this rule if there are other rules that mention one of the variables in the rule

Variable fits only in two different slots -> Split using this rule if I'm not splitting on a block and if there is another rule that mentions this variable

Slot is limited to only two different variables -> Split using this rule if I'm not splitting on a block and if there is another rule that mentions one of the variables

Biconditional -> Almost always split

Two conditional rules that trigger based on opposite sufficient conditions -> Almost always split

Stand-alone Conditional that's not a biconditional -> Rarely split on this (can be useful if it's a rule that's difficult to visualize/apply and there's no other option for splitting)

Grouping

Two variables that must be in the same group, and they can only go in 2 or 3 groups -> Almost always split

Biconditional or two conditional rules that trigger based on opposite sufficient conditions -> Almost always split

"Or, but not both" -> Usually useful for splitting

Variable fits only in two different groups -> Useful for splitting if there's another rule that's affected

Slot is limited to only two different variables -> Often useful for splitting if there's another rule that's affected

Standalone conditional that's not a biconditional -> Useful to split on if there's no better option (splitting on a stand-alone condition is usually more useful in grouping than in ordering)

In/Out game with categories -> Splitting is usually not a good way to solve the game (except if there's a biconditional). Instead, thinking about the different # distributions is more useful.

I usually don't do "sub-splits" (splitting a game board on a second rule after an initial split on a different rule), but sometimes they can be useful if you can clearly see that an additional split will resolve every rule or would resolve a rule that's difficult to keep track of.

Another thing to keep in mind is that these same strategies apply to individual questions - if a question presents a new condition and it's not clear what happens after inputting that new condition, in many cases the best approach is to then look for a useful way to split the board even if only for that single question.

@ said:

This is a great. Are there any weaken questions you know of throughout our practice where you have seen it be displayed and the correct answer is demonstrating inconsistency as opposed to weakening the support structure?

I view demonstrating an inconsistency as 1 way to weaken the support structure, not as something separate. It's just that many would focus on directly falsifying the core assumption, without realizing that another way to weaken the support is to point out something that leads to an inconsistency in the author's reasoning.

PT38 LR2 #15 (baja turtles)

Rather than directly showing an example of how a 95% DNA match with X doesn't indicate that the origin is X, the correct answer weakens by showing that the author's assumption about what a 95% DNA match shows leads to a contradiction.

PT35 LR2 #20 (projectile in mastodon)

Rather than directly showing that the dissimilarity of a projectile to those found in area X doesn't prove that the first settlers didn't come from X, the correct answer weakens by showing that the author's assumption would go against their own conclusion, too.

PT67 LR2 #24 (nightbird)

Rather than directly showing that Larocque could still be the original author despite the lack of known orpiment use, the correct answer weakens by showing that the author's assumption would go against their own conclusion, too.

One thing I'll note is that you could interpret the correct answer in all of these as falsifying an assumption, not necessarily as demonstrating an inconsistency. For example, in the Baja turtle problem, you could say that the argument is assuming both that a 95% DNA match indicates the origin of the turtles AND that the turtles don't have a 95% DNA match to any other location besides Japan. That's a fair way to view it, in which case the correct answer is just falsifying the second assumption. But I still think the notion of weakening by inconsistency is relevant here in that it's the entire reason one can say that the argument must assume there's no 95% DNA match to another location. If there were such a match, then the author's other assumption (that 95% DNA match indicates origin) would lead to an incoherent position (that the turtles came from both Japan and the other location).

@ said:

The thing that always gets me is that for weakening questions I remember seeing that we shouldn't attack the premise / conclusion but for this example I feel like it's doing just that in a way. Can anybody please clarify this for me :)

Can you elaborate on which example you feel involves attacking the premise? Or attacking the conclusion directly?

(Just as a side note, if an answer choice does in fact falsify a premise, it does weaken the argument. Similarly, if an answer choice does in fact show that the conclusion is false, I'd have to pick that as a weaken answer. So there's no rule against weakening in this fashion, even if these kinds of correct answers don't appear very often. In practice I'd have to say that I don't really think about this distinction between attacking the premise vs. attacking the assumption vs. attacking the conclusion, as there is no problem in which we have to decide between two answers, one of which validly attacks the premise or conclusion directly, and one of which attacks the assumption.)