Kaplan vs 7sage logical indicators approach

wnivabyfdlj

I started this LSAT journey with a quick pass through of the Kaplan logical reasoning approach and, honestly, there were still some pretty gaping holes in my comfort with logical reasoning translation. At first, I felt like the 7sage approach helped a lot... it is much more mechanical and requires memorization of those four groups and the translation strategy. This worked well for me while going through the initial lessons, but now that it's all mixed together, I am realizing that it's just not intuitive for me to translate the group 3 and 4 words so mechanically.

For example, I find it much easier to treat UNLESS as a logical indicator for the necessary term. Then, I simply replace the word "unless" with my arrow and negate the sufficient term (this was the part I often forgot while doing the Kaplan practice problems). However, Kaplan's way definitely made things easier when the sentence also contains a negative, so a group 4 word. In that case, it means what it is... that term is just a negative term. I don't have to flip things or rearrange the sentence to translate it.

My question is, if I treat "unless" and "without" in the way that Kaplan explained it to me, do I need to ignore the whole entire 7sage translation system? Or, I guess to say that differently, I am specifically wondering about translating in groups 3 and 4. Has anyone else found these two approaches conflicting or am I just looking at it the wrong way?

wnivabyfdlj

So, I do think the 7sage method will ultimately work best. I realized the Kaplan method only works that way I described when the unless is positioned in the middle of the sentence. That means there are actually two rules for one word -- jeesh.

Once I committed to studying the groups and learning the 7sage translations in and out, it works every time. I have to prioritize the group 3 indicators over group 4 when they are both present, but that is an easy trick to keep it all straight in my mind.

Sure, it bothers me that I cannot intuitively understand the reason that the translation works every time, but at least I can trust myself to translate it correctly, quickly, which I think is key to getting through the LSAT.

Also, I tried to delete this discussion but I don't think I can. Oh well, maybe it will help someone else.

Jonathan Wang

Sure, it bothers me that I cannot intuitively understand the reason that the translation works every time, but at least I can trust myself to translate it correctly, quickly, which I think is key to getting through the LSAT.

Not being able to intuitively understand the reason a translation works a certain way means you don't really understand what those words mean, and I don't think that's a good place to be. It's like a kid who memorizes his times tables versus a kid who understands how multiplication works. Sure, both of them can probably tell you that 5x5 is 25 pretty fast, but put 32 x 11 in front of both of those kids and you tell me who's going to do better - the kid who memorized the grid or the kid who learned the theory? (I suppose this technically depends on whether the memorized grid in question extended out to 32x32 or not, but let's just assume it did not).

I have to prioritize the group 3 indicators over group 4 when they are both present, but that is an easy trick to keep it all straight in my mind.

I'm not sure I like this, either. Why do you prioritize 3 over 4? Why not vice versa? Does 1 prioritize over 2 in the same way? If so, why? How about 1 vs 4? 2 vs 4? 2 vs 3? 1 vs 3? Why do you even need to 'prioritize' anything, aren't indicators supposed to function the same way every time? If not, doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose of an indicator in the first place? In other words, is there sound reasoning behind this 'trick', or is memorizing the trick just a way for you to avoid actually figuring out how the word operates?

It's not impossible to get through the LSAT and even do reasonably well having just memorized some basic rules and not bothering at all with the rationale behind them. But, be cognizant that this approach robs you of your ability to roll with the punches when unfamiliar contexts pop up. Since you have not developed the right tools to properly parse the language, you have zero recourse when the concept comes up in a way that's slightly different than what you explicitly studied. Translated to this test, it means you'll hit a brick wall because you literally do not understand what the words on the page mean.

For me personally, I'd rather not settle for the "just do this and don't think about it" approach when I can just learn the rhyme and the reason and be forever equipped to handle it 'correctly'.