Problem with conditional reasoning.

foxtrot96

if we are to solve a strengthen, or Sa or PSA type of a question, if we see the word Principle in the Question stem. Are we to assume that that question makes use of conditional Logic necessarily? Also does the SA question always make use of conditional Logic?

Sami

I have never tried to find a pattern like this between question type.

If it's an SA or PSA question then for the most part you are going to chose an answer that ties Premise --->conclusion. So in a way they tend to have conditional logic in there because there is a big gap between premise and conclusion.

But I would be careful with strengthening a principle in a stimulus. For one, the principle could be non-conditional and two, the strengthening answer choices could come from somewhere I did not expect. Instead of trying to find patterns this way, a better form when doing strengthen question is to read stimulus, then consider each answer choice on their own merit and see if they would indeed strengthen that principle in stimulus.

foxtrot96

thank you so much for taking the effort to write this up for me @Sami . I asked because i was going through that part of the curriculum and people had mentioned these things in the comments and i just wanted to make sure if it indeed was the case.

goingfor99th

@foxtrot96 said:
if we are to solve a strengthen, or Sa or PSA type of a question, if we see the word Principle in the Question stem. Are we to assume that that question makes use of conditional Logic necessarily? Also does the SA question always make use of conditional Logic?

Sufficient Assumption questions (is that what you're talking about?) should involve conditional logic, if I'm not mistaken. I think Strengthen/Weaken tend to focus on causal reasoning. I'd need examples of PSA questions (since I don't know what they are) to say for sure whether it's "always" or even "often" the case that they contain conditional logic.

SA questions ask you to form a perfect argument with your answer choice:
P: A->B
P: B->C (you're usually looking for one of the premises, I think)
C: A->C

...or some much more complex, distorted variation of that with LSAT clutter thrown in.

Sami

@foxtrot96 said:
thank you so much for taking the effort to write this up for me @Sami . I asked because i was going through that part of the curriculum and people had mentioned these things in the comments and i just wanted to make sure if it indeed was the case.

Yeah, I have noticed that too . One thing I think that happens when learning the core curriculum is we try to find patterns which is a great thing. But a lot of them tend to be wrong and as you study more you will find yourself forgetting them as they tend to not work.

So definitely don't worry and I am glad you asked this question. You'll do great!