Sufficient Assumption Questions

harrismegan

Hi,

I'm taking the LSAT in December and I have a study schedule mapped out. I'm having a hard time with the sufficient assumption questions. I was doing really well. I understood the reasoning behind all of them, I could anticipate and get the answer when I did the questions before his videos to explain how to do it, but now that I'm on the quizzes I find that I can't even map out the stimulus by myself.

Did anyone else have this problem? What did you do to help yourself start understanding these types of questions?

joegotbored-1

Ha, yes! I was there with you! I even remember reading on some of the later quizzes comments to this effect. I was like, whoa, were those easy questions he was doing in the videos? It gets easier, don't worry. I noticed that JY likes to make us practice on hard ones. Probably a good idea. If you teach on easy stuff, then everyone can figure it out. Then you practice on hard stuff and go, wtf? Then you go back and watch the videos and you're like OOOOO, now I get it. Then do the practice one again and you're like sweet, got it now.

To be more specific, SA questions are asking you to fill the gap with just enough that the argument can be true. This is the opposite of NA questions, where if the answer were not true, you'd be screwed.

SA: All 7Sagers are awesome. Harris is awesome. Answer: Harris is a 7Sager.

NA: Only 7Sagers are awesome. Harris is awesome. Answer: Harris is a 7Sager.

In the first one, being a 7Sager is sufficient to show that you're awesome. It doesn't have to be true, but if it is, then our argument is sound. In the second one, the only way the argument gets to be true is if you are in fact a 7Sager...it's necessary.

Trust in the force.