Does anyone have any NA advice to make it click

texvd1988

I am scoring somewhere between -4 to -6 on LR now (yesterday I had a -11 but I was frenzied and used the "5" setting on the 7sage proctor when I already have enough distraction). Anyway, I have noticed that what absolutely kills me, regardless of how much I try, is necessary assumption. I know that you are supposed to boil it down to the base necessity for the argument to exist, but my mind trails to the assumption that will often fix it. It's to the point where if I could just sort out NA, my LR would probably give me 2-4 extra points on the test.

Does anyone look at NA in any specific light that gives them clarity when doing these types of questions?

BinghamtonDave

I have spent a considerable amount of time on NA questions. Have you listened to the NA webinar? The third page of the webinar tab, top of the page.

Here are some general tips that have helped me with NAs:
1.Remember what an NA is: something that has to be true for the argument to function. Something that as given must be true and apply to the argument in order for the conclusion to follow from the premises. A world where an NA is not true, is a world where the internal logic of the argument is not coherent. Sometimes these are extremely subtle/obvious assumptions that slip right by us in every day parlance: check out PT 39-4-19 for an example of this phenomena. What a profoundly subtle, yet necessary assumption on that question..

2.Look out for the scope of the conclusion/ any slides in language from the premise to the conclusion. The LSAT writers have a way of disguising these slides in language from the premise to the conclusion in such a way that we barely notice. Be mindful of something called one thing in the premise and another in the conclusion.

3. Sometimes, an argument is going to be so simple that the necessary assumption will be the sufficient assumption. For an example of this: check out PT 27 section 4 Question 20. Here we have a cross-section of several lesson in the core curriculum and therefore a pretty useful lesson. A necessary assumption question that has an assumption that is also sufficient, an application of DeMorgan's Law and several answer choices that are great to write out the logic for.

Hope this helps
David