How to find the core for convoluted LR q's?

leelisee

I just realized that the reason why I have trouble with suff assumption questions is because I have difficulty finding the core for difficult LRs. PT 63, S3 #17 is a prime example. I don't want to copy the prompt here for fear of getting 7Sage in trouble (copyright issues?). Can anyone take a look at it and give some advice as to how to de-clutter the stimulus? I don't want to spoil it so I won't yet say why it's a more difficult prompt. Thank you in advance!

cmb_1992

Hey! Hopefully I can assist with understanding this question. I hung up on it the first time that I saw it. I agree that it is convoluted. So as the 7sage curriculum helps us to understand, the word "because" is a good indicator word to identify premises and conclusions. For this passage, the part of the sentence before the "because" is the conclusion. You can write it out like this: (Traditional classroom environment) TCE -> /E (not effective)

So lets move past the "because." "In such an environment..." uses referential phrasing. What environment? The traditional classroom environment. Okay, so... a traditional classroom environment is not a social process. Let's diagram that: (Traditional classroom environment) TCE -> /SP (Not a social process). The rest of that sentence says that only SP can help give students insight (I paraphrase to avoid copying verbatim). Let's diagram the part that says "only," since "only" is a logical indicator. As we have learned, "only" indicates necessary condition. So we have: DSI -> SP (develop students' insights). The last sentence of the passage is PURE FLUFF. It does nothing for the argument here. So let's break down what we have:

P1: TCE -> /SP
P2: DSI -> SP ------- Let's contrapose this to line it up with the first premise. So we flip and negate.

Now:

P1: TCE -> /SP
P2: /SP -> /DSI

Link them:

P: TCE -> /SP -> /DSI (now add the conclusion)

C: TCE -> /E

So what's the missing link here? TCE -> /SP -> /DSI -> /E
The missing link is the /DSI -> /E. So the answer should come out to say that if something doesn't develop student insight, then it is ineffective OR it should say if it is effective, then it develops students' insight.

Answer choice D does this. "Unless" indicates negate sufficient. So negate the first part and make it sufficient, leave the second part alone and as the necessary. You get E -> DSI or contraposed to /DSI -> /E.

I know that this is a long reply, and your main point was learning how to break down convoluted LR stimuli, but I hope that this helps. You just have to find the conclusion, which is helped by using the indicator word like "because." You also have to be able to distinguish that the last sentence is purely fluff. It just describes how teachers act in traditional classrooms. It serves no real purpose. Once you can realize that, you can break it down into formal logic and find the missing link. Let me know if this helps or if you have any more questions.

leelisee

Wow, thank you so much for taking the time to write out an in-depth explanation!

My issue with this question was identifying the fluff, something you so effortlessly knew what to do with. I've only seen one other LR question (about a farmer being rich, poor and honest) where one of the sentences was fluff so I'm rusty