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July 2, 2009 -
10:18 AM
To Diagram or Not to Diagram? That is the (LSAT) Question.
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Matt,
After reading the question prompt for a Must Be True or a Soft Must Be True, should you be asking yourself after reading the stimulus was this conditional or situational?
Thanks !!
Guy
P.S. I’m taking your on-line course and just watch you go over converse and inverse problems
Guy,
That’s precisely right. In fact, even as you’re reading the stimulus, you should be asking whether these seem like the sort of conditional claims that would tend to justify a formal deduction.
In many Soft Must Be True questions, the stimulus is simply describing a situation you’re supposed to evaluate and these (as you suggest) are not helpful to diagram.
Anticipating which type of question you’re dealing with is crucial in determining an approach to take.
Trent
Guy:
It is much more likely that you will diagram a MBT question as opposed to a ~MBT question. So you do want to ask yourself that question after both types, but there is about a 50% chance on a MBT and only about a 10% chance on a ~MBT.
As you work through the course, you will find that certain question types are much more likely to be diagrammed. It is important to keep a mental note of these.
Good luck-
Matt
OK… I am killing myself over these and/or contrapositive statements. PLEASE HELP!
conditional: if both A + B, then C
contrapositive: if NOT C, then NOT A +/or B
question: Why the heck does this contrapositive contain “or”!?
Thanks
Nevermind, I got it.
Can you please help me with determining what is necessary and what is sufficient?
“the only students with special educational needs are students with learning disabilities”
Thanks!
and actually, is there a difference between the statement “the only students with special educational needs are students with learning disabilities” vs. “only student with special educations are students with learning disabilities”
Thanks
Hi Alice,
A good rule of thumb with “only” vs. “the only” is that whatever follows “the only” is always going to be the sufficient condition. In “The only students with special educational needs are students with learning disabilities” it would be properly diagrammed as SE–>LD. With “only”, as long as it doesn’t say “only if”, the second condition will be the sufficient condition. So in this case, where it says “Only students with special education are students with learning disabilities” can be diagrammed LD–>SE. That’s the best shorthand for understanding it. Let me know if you have any other questions.
-Dave Woods