To add onto my original response because of the validity part of it. A pure causal argument can never be valid, much like an argument by analogy, and that is yet another critical distinction between a conditional and causal argument.

Understand necessary and sufficient parts of an argument and you will be set for these questions. Understand "some" "most" and words like "can" and you will also be set. Its essentially patterns.

You need to know the difference to be able to effectively solve any question on the LSAT that involves either of these argument types. For example, "if A then B" means that any time you have A you WILL have B. Causal logic will say "A causes B", which means that B occurred as a result of A. The conditional argument above is a sufficient argument, it guarantees B. Causal logic is a necessary argument. Furthermore, conditional arguments are easy to be valid, whereas causal arguments have a much higher bar to make valid because of their necessary nature. Understanding the difference between both of these arguments will help you solve EVERY type of question on the LSAT.

Hey, so D is incorrect because it has to do with time. It is based around time. You can only do something after one year. This can be an attractive choice for testers if you read the answer choices before reading the question stimulus, because they all mention time. But if you look at the question stimulus, there is no mention of time at all, it is only about a trait belonging to everyone, but it is NOT a time related trait. A, although it can be construed as a delay being time related, it would be too far of an assumption to assume this. Another issue with D is in the conclusion, because it is not a "necessary" conclusion. It does not match the conclusion with the question stimulus, which is a hard MUST.

This is by no means a guaranteed process but it may be helpful for certain questions to look at the conclusion. A immediately stands out because of the word MUST, which is hard vocabulary. Because of this we can immediately eliminate B from the choices. C immediately sticks out because of the words decreasing and increasing. D's first premise doesn't equate to the reasoning in the question stimulus because it talks about time. E speaks about competitors, where it isn't mentioned at all in the question stimulus. E might make sense to people who might have taken invariably to be a hostile word.

The list consists of hundreds of members, but the set of premises do not indicate that the list has every member belonging to the group on the list. We cannot confirm that the mentioned organization is not a member of the company based off of an incomplete list. If they indicated that every member was on the list then B would of course be incorrect.

Understanding the conclusion helps with this question. B states that nobody should make promises, whereas the conclusion only states it should not be taken in a certain way, it does not mention not making a promise. C weakens the argument by hurting a premise in the argument, the opposite of what we want to do. We want to guarantee the conclusion, not hurt it.

You need to guarantee the conclusion. Just pointing out the conclusion will most likely not be the correct answer. The premises will generally weakly support the conclusion. By selecting the answer that guarantees the conclusion FROM the premises, you are selecting the sufficient assumption.

The key to this question was the strength of the answers. All of the answers strengthen the argument, but A is the only one that guarantees the conclusion. Not otherwise is synonymous with cannot. It is a solid (necessary) rule that cannot be bypassed. Your answer should "bulletproof" the solid rule to the conclusion. All the other answers can be weakened in various ways. For B, asking yourself what is "going above and beyond". If you have to ask any questions about the authenticity of your assumption, then it cannot "bulletproof" your argument. Answer choice E is can be weakened by the rewarding of an award to someone else, denying the assumption that you have to do something above and beyond, because there is no hard (necessary) standard for receiving an award, only a "should".

B implies that there are candidates working for the company, but Delacruz is the most qualified candidate who is not employed. Delacruz cannot be a qualified candidate if there are other candidates who are employed, because they have first consideration. For the application to occur we cannot have ANYONE working for the company at all. Delacruz could be the most qualified candidate ever seen by the company, but if someone else already works at the company, they will receive priority. If we choose B, the application will be false, therefore "wrecking" the argument.

The stronger the better for SA questions. You want to guarantee the conclusion, which means making the argument valid. Every argument that you will be given will be questionable in terms of strength, but by adding the answer choice assumption to the argument you will create a bulletproof conclusion that cannot be refuted.

#feedback How is this not an sufficient assumption question?