might be a dumb question...

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• NotMyName Alum Member Sage ⭐

  May 2017 5320 karma

  Question types in LR which commonly use formal logic include: MBT/F, (F)PR, SA, PSA, and NA.

  I suppose Flaw could be tossed in there too but formal logic isn't as common within that type as the sort listed above.
• 1 Like

  Alex Alum Member ⭐

  May 2017 edited May 2017 23929 karma

  Not a stupid question at all!

  Actually tons of question types will play on your understanding of necessity and sufficiency.

  I think the most common questions that may require us to map out the conditional logic on the LR section are: MBT and Parallel reasoning and Parallel flaw questions. (Though when learning you may practice mapping out for other types)

  You'll need a good understanding of conditional logic to do well on most LR questions, because you just never know how a question might be worded. Understanding the logic behind every question is super important. Here are some examples of question types where understanding the necessary and sufficient assumptions are important, even if you don't have to map them out:
  Assumption Family questions (Sufficient Assumption, Necessary assumption), Inference/MBT, Parallel Reasoning, and Parallel Flaw questions. These are the most common, but certainly not an exhaustive list.
• extramedium Alum Member

  May 2017 edited May 2017 419 karma

  @LSATcantwin

  @jkatz1488 said:
  Question types in LR which commonly use formal logic include: MBT/F, (F)PR, SA, PSA, and NA.

  I suppose Flaw could be tossed in there too but formal logic isn't as common within that type as the sort listed above.

  I'd throw MSS into this as well, though it is less common. I have noticed that they occasionally throw one conditional statement into a stimulus where all of the other sentences are not.

  Definitely get familiar with takes sufficient for necessary and takes necessary for sufficient. Those come up a lot on flaw and parallel flaw.

  In my experience, I've found conditional statements to be most common on flaw, MBT and parallel flaw and reasoning. Sufficient assumption are usually conditional, though the wording can be very hard to parse through sometimes. Necessary assumptions are more subtle, and I find they are blockers rather than bridges more often than not.

  In short, I would go through the quizzes on the different groups of indicators, and the quizzes at the beginning of the SA curriculum are helpful as well.

  Another big breakthrough I had a couple weeks back was that sentences with no conditional indicators are not conditional statements. However, they can contain elements that are referred to in conditional statements elsewhere in the stimulus, and they might be reworded.

  Also, there are no dumb questions here
• JustDoIt Alum Member ⭐

  May 2017 3112 karma

  Surprisingly, I would also loop flaw questions in here as well. Not on a universal basis, but there are sometimes where an understanding of conditional logic and what is really occurring is immensely helpful. For example, yes there is you basic sufficiency necessity flaws, but there are also instances where they go something like this. X --> Y. Therefore, if we have Y, we know that X must have happened. This is inherently a sufficiency necessity flaw dressed up differently because we know that we have Y, but does that mean that X must have happened? They are confusing one possible explanation for the only explanation and that is really bad. Granted, things like this don’t come up incredibly often, but I find if you know the logic, you put yourself in a great position to get this question right. PT63-S3-Q16 is a great example of this, and a pretty hard one to see if you don’t already know this or what you are looking for IMO.

  Hope this helps!