Inf and MBT

Patterns in the stimulus

- Review Formal/Casual logic

- Chain ideas to make inferences

- Kick ideas up into the domain

- Keep track of the sets and be careful about sliding across superset and subset

- New terms / Unfamiliar concept -> translate

- Info. might not be presented in the intuitive order, so piecing it together

- Translating into logical notation is a tool—don't force it if you don't need it

- Understand grammar thoroughly

Patterns in wrong answers

- Sufficient/necessity confusion

- Stating a necessary condition doesn't mean there aren't others.

- Stating a sufficient condition doesn't mean there aren't others

- Keep the distinction clear between the rule itself

- Causal logic baits

- Identifying a causal factor doesn't preclude other causal factors.

- Identifying a causal pathway doesn't preclude other causal pathways.

Patterns in the right answers

- Contrapositive/logically equivalent formulations

- Right answers are often predictable

- Be pragmatic: ideal answers are often not the most ideal

Hello SashaSevy,

I'm using this excerpt from Profits of Downtown Business

a sufficiency-necessity relationship: X guarantees Y. How do we translate this? Is it “X → Y” or “Y → X”? It’s the former; X → Y. If X happens, then Y is definitely going to happen as well. X guarantees Y, not Y guarantees X.

I think this is what JY is trying to explain. I could be wrong though.

No worries! I'm glad I could be of help :)

Point At Issue (PAI)

Patterns in wrong answers

- Merely consistent with (they can't agree or disagree)

- At least one has no opinion

- Bait you to make an unwarranted assumption

- Appeal to biases

- Push answers over to agree / disagree side

Patterns in the right answers

- Right answers are not ideal answers! Look for the best answers

- Choose the answer that both speakers agree / disagree with

- Often their agreement / disagreement for a certain answer choice could be weakly implied; however, that can be right as long as they're relatively stronger than others

Information in the stimulus

→ May not be presented in a clear order: piece the information together & translate.

Support

→ To read between the lines.

→ Drawing out inferences using the support; find the hidden claims that receive support from the stimulus (which could be found among answer choices.)

Patterns in wrong answers

! Wrong answers make you rely on deriving support from outside of the stimulus

→ Merely consistent with

Could be true or wrong. We don't know.

→ Unwarranted assumption & appeal to your common sense intuition

Bait you to push over wrong answers to the supported spectrum

→ Appeal to the biases

- Prescriptive, normative, value-laden claims

- Might be biased towards (or against) them / might agree (or disagree) with them

→ Anti-supported & straight-up contradiction

Hello Tisha, 

I believe it's because of the strength of the wording of the answer choice.

If you look at the stimulus:

Yet an acceleration of technological change can cause suppliers as well as

buyers of new technologies to fail. 

In other words, both suppliers could or could not fail, which implies possibility. 

However, if you look at E, it states that economic growth increases business failures, which implies certainty. 

The author suggests the possibility of failure, whereas the answer choice E is certain to fail. Therefore, it is not the most strongly supported answer.

I hope this helps!

Edit: typo

I would love to have one if anyone finds it!

Main Conclusion: foundation of the LR

Not identifying the conclusion of the argument → can't do any kind of analysis of the argument

=> forces you to practice fundamental

Context could be others' hypothesis or not, but regardless, the author provides their hypothesis.

Context → Could be a phenomenon but doesn't have to be

When there's a context, the conclusion tends to be present right after the context.

Arguments → Made by analogy

Made with premises that work or independent premises

Predictive (conclusion is the prediction of the future)

Lay out a general principle / rule + apply that to a specific case to arrive at

a specific conclusion

Patterns in the

Stimulus

→ Tends to contain contextual information

→ Conclusion can be short, containing a referential that points to something in the context

→ Can contain within the

main argument + sub-argument

with its own minor premise supporting its sub-conclusion

then goes on to function as a major premise supporting the main conclusion

Right Answer

→ Fills out the referential phrase (make sure it's done correctly!)

→ Make sure it's correct by double-checking the referential phrase in the stimulus

→ Doesn't have to be an ideal answer—could be more general than the conclusion

> Appeal what lies on a reasonable spectrum

Wrong Answer

→ Stating a context / other people's position

→ An assumption of an argument

→ Sub-conclusion / main premises

→ Leveraging various potential grammar / logical confusion to make the answer stem

sounds like a statement made in the stimulus

This is so interesting! Thank you for your insight

Thank you!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think some is included since the range is none to half and the upper bound of some is all!

Something that helped me understand:

"Some" refers to 1-100. To deny the existence of "some", it has to be something that is not 1-100, which means 0. Therefore, the negation of some is none.

Hope this helps :)

Having an example clarifies the application of logic to LSAT questions. Thank you so much!

I think the order disregards the overlapping bounds of some of the quantifiers.

For instance, some and few have the same lower bound, and some, most, many, overwhelmingly majority have the same upper bound.

#help

Is the range of few 1 ≤ Few < Most?

Thank you!

#help

Can we conclude it to Some < Many < Most?

Thank you!

I think the logical definition of some differs from the colloquial use of language.

Some are "an indeterminate amount", which means it can be all.

Source:https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/28041/does-some-necessarily-imply-not-all

Hope this helps!

Q3 & Q4 as well!

#feedback

I think there's a typo in #2? others cats > other cats

Domain: The kingdoms in Westeros

Sufficient: [whose economies rely predominantly on trade] = Econ. trade

Necessary: [support foreign policies that aim to secure peace.] = Supp. f.p.

Econ. trade → Supp. f.p.

Domain: A kingdom

Sufficient: [will not support peaceable foreign policies] = /Supp. f.p.

unless (group 3 indicator)

Necessary: [it stands to benefit from the absence of war.] = Stands benefit

Since unless is a group 3 indicator, we should negate the sufficient condition.

/(/Supp. f.p) → Stands benefit

> negatives cancel out

Supp. f.p. → Stands benefit

Econ. trade → Supp. f.p. → Stands benefit

/Stands benefit → Supp. f.p. → Econ. trade

Hope this helps!

I got the same answer first, but then I thought of it this way:

[In Westeros], every cooperative [farm in the Reach that is not under the direct control of the Tyrell]

ChatGPT: The scope of what "every" applies to can vary. For instance, saying "every student passed the exam" implies all students in a specific group passed, but it doesn't include students who didn't take the exam or weren't part of that group.

In this case, therefore, every can function as a group 1 modifier (sufficient condition.)

I hope this helps!

Same here! I'm not quite understanding this one fully :(

Edit: I rephrased the sentence, and it helped me a lot!

Those who did not RSVP did not attend

/RSVP > /Attend

Attend > RSVP

Hope this helps!

Hello there,

The statement says: If he doesn't kill Arya, he cannot kill Robb

In this case, "cannot" is used as a negation of kill.

Therefore, /A→/R

Hope this helps!

not all heroes wear capes!! thank you

#help

I don't quite understand why the rephrasing for the if/then statement does not include "must be" but the verbs used in the sentence. When I checked the answers for the previous drill, most of them were conjugated to "must be."

e.g., If a game is fun, then the rules are fair. > If a game is fun, then the rules must be fair.

Is there a reason why? Thank you!