<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" > <channel> <title>Principle Support – LSAT</title> <atom:link href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/blog/tag/principle-support/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /> <link>https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat</link> <description>LSAT Course Offerings, LSAT Prep Courses, Tutoring & LSAT Practice Resources | Manhattan LSAT Prep</description> <lastBuildDate>Fri, 30 Aug 2019 17:07:18 +0000</lastBuildDate> <language>en-US</language> <sy:updatePeriod> hourly </sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency> 1 </sy:updateFrequency> <generator>https://wordpress.org/?v=6.3.2</generator> <item> <title>LSAT Sufficient Assumption Questions: Be the D.A. for the Day!</title> <link>https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/blog/lsat-sufficient-assumption-questions/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Patrick Tyrrell]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 30 Apr 2018 16:48:10 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[How To Study]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Just for Fun]]></category> <category><![CDATA[LSAT Strategies]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Study Tips]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Assumption Family]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Principle Support]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Sufficient Assumption]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Sufficient Assumption Questions]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Sufficient Assumptions]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/?p=8067</guid> <description><![CDATA[<p>Ready to study the right way? We incorporate the latest discoveries in learning science into our LSAT course to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of your prep. Want to see? Try the first session of any of our upcoming courses for free. Congratulations, you are the District Attorney… til about 5:45 or 6:00 p.m. Thanks to […]</p> <p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/blog/lsat-sufficient-assumption-questions/">LSAT Sufficient Assumption Questions: Be the D.A. for the Day!</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat">LSAT</a>.</p> ]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img decoding="async" fetchpriority="high" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-8070" src="https://cdn2.manhattanprep.com/lsat/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/04/lsat-sufficient-assumption-questions-da-patrick-tyrrell.png" alt="Manhattan Prep LSAT Blog - LSAT Sufficient Assumption Questions: Be the D.A. for the Day! by Patrick Tyrrell" width="1200" height="628" srcset="https://cdn2.manhattanprep.com/lsat/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/04/lsat-sufficient-assumption-questions-da-patrick-tyrrell.png 1200w, https://cdn2.manhattanprep.com/lsat/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/04/lsat-sufficient-assumption-questions-da-patrick-tyrrell-300x157.png 300w, https://cdn2.manhattanprep.com/lsat/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/04/lsat-sufficient-assumption-questions-da-patrick-tyrrell-768x402.png 768w, https://cdn2.manhattanprep.com/lsat/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/04/lsat-sufficient-assumption-questions-da-patrick-tyrrell-1024x536.png 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" /></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><b><i>Ready to study the right way? We incorporate the latest discoveries in learning science into our LSAT course to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of your prep. Want to see? </i></b><a id="bloglink" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/classes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><b><i>Try the first session of any of our upcoming courses for free</i></b></a><b><i>.</i></b></span></p> <hr /> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Congratulations, you are the District Attorney… til about 5:45 or 6:00 p.m. Thanks to a new law that voters moronically passed via referendum last April, the role of District Attorney will cycle through local citizens, much as it does with jury duty. Today, it’s </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">your</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> turn to try to win some convictions.</span><span id="more-8067"></span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In a sense, that should be our mentality when we do LSAT Sufficient Assumption questions (or Principle Support questions). The other questions in the Assumption Family (Necessary Assumption, Flaw, Strengthen, Weaken, Evaluate) are more about playing Opposing Counsel, hearing the author’s argument and thinking about how we would respond.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">LSAT Sufficient Assumption questions and Principle Support questions assign us a more proactive task: </span><b>Win the Case,</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> i.e., </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">prove the Conclusion</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /> </span></p> <h4><b>LSAT Sufficient Assumption Questions</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /> </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Which answer, if assumed, would allow the conclusion to follow logically / be properly drawn / properly inferred?</span></h4> <h4><b>Principle Support Questions</b><b><br /> </b><span style="font-weight: 400;">Which answer, if valid, would most justify the conclusion?</span></h4> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Principle Support doesn’t actually require that we </span><b>prove </b><span style="font-weight: 400;">the conclusion, but most correct answers nonetheless do prove it. For both question types, we are looking for an answer choice that would combine with the evidence the author presented and allow us to derive the author’s conclusion.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Argument Core, “</span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Premises</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> —leading-to–> </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Conclusion</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">,” is essentially “</span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Evidence</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> —leading-to–> </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Verdict</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In a court case, the judge is thinking, “Given this evidence, has the prosecutor convinced me of the guilty verdict?” With arguments, LSAT students are thinking, “Given this evidence, has the author convinced me of the conclusion?”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Suppose we had a conclusion that really sounded like a verdict: “Therefore, Gus is guilty of grand larceny.” We are trying to prove that Gus committed grand larceny. If you were the D.A. in charge of prosecuting this case, what’s the first thing you would do or ask?</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">If it were me, I would ask someone (discreetly), “I mean, </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">I </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">know what grand larceny is… obviously… I’m the D.A., no big deal… but just so everyone else here knows what grand larceny is… can you please define grand larceny?”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">[Patrick tabs over to his browser and searches for the definition of grand larceny] Apparently, although it varies from state to state, grand larceny normally means “you stole property that was worth at least $400.”</span></p> <p><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Okay</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">, we think, </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">I’ve got this. Being a District Attorney is easy, and if we’re being honest… I look </span></i><b><i>good </i></b><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">doing it. Now that I’ve looked up the relevant statute, I know that to win this verdict I’ll have to convince the judge that Gus stole something worth at least $400. What kind of evidence do we have?</span></i></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Well,” your paralegal says, “we found this upright piano in the back of Gus’s van.”</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Looking at that evidence, and remembering that the definition of grand larceny is </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">stealing property worth at least $400</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">, what is our job in court? What do we have to establish so that the judge will be convinced that grand larceny is a proper verdict?</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">We need to establish two things:</span></p> <ol> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Gus stole the piano.</span></li> <li><span style="font-weight: 400;"> The piano is worth at least $400.</span></li> </ol> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">If we can establish those facts, then we win the case, because we will have shown that the present situation conforms to the letter of the law.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">If this court case were an LSAT Sufficient Assumption question, the test writers could test us on it in several different ways:</span></p> <p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">In the back of Gus’s van, officers found an upright piano worth about $800.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /> </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Since Gus stole this piano, he is guilty of grand larceny.</span></p> <p><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Which of the following, if assumed, would allow the conclusion to follow logically?</span></i></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">(A) If you steal something worth at least $400 in value, you have committed grand larceny.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Gus is guilty of grand larceny. After all, grand larceny is theft of property worth at least $400 and the piano found in the back of Gus’s van was worth about $800.</span></p> <p><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Which of the following, if assumed, would allow the conclusion to follow logically?</span></i></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">(A) Gus stole the piano in his van.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Grand larceny is defined as the act of stealing property worth at least $400 in value. Thus, Gus is clearly guilty of such a charge, given that late last night, police found in Gus’s van the piano that he had stolen.</span></p> <p><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Which of the following, if assumed, would allow the conclusion to follow logically?</span></i></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">(A) The piano was worth at least $400.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Notice that in the first example, we had all the necessary facts about Gus but lacked the relevant definition of grand larceny. In the second and third example, we had the definition but had still not established one of the definition’s two components.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When I’m doing LSAT Sufficient Assumption questions, my process is usually something like this:</span></p> <h4><b>1. Read the paragraph, primarily for the sake of finding the Conclusion.</b></h4> <p><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">LSAT</span></i> <i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sufficient Assumption questions are great about giving us Conclusion keywords (so, thus, therefore, hence) or Premise keywords (for, after all, because, since) to make it easy to visually find the conclusion.</span></i></p> <h4><b>2. Think about the Conclusion as the verdict I’m trying to prove and ask, “Do I have a legal definition for this idea?”</b></h4> <p><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">f.e. if the conclusion is something like “Thus, Clara’s milk spill is not truly art,” then my first question to myself is, “Do I have a legal definition for what makes something </span></i><b><i>truly art</i></b><i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> or not?”</span></i></p> <h4><b>3a. If I don’t have the definition, then I know that the correct answer needs to provide me with the definition</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></h4> <p><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">The correct answer needs to be a law that lets me prove that something is </span></i><b><i>not </i></b><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">truly art, so I would consider answers that translate into “if _____, then not truly art,” and I would immediately reject answers that translate into “if ____, then truly art,” as well as reject any answers that don’t mention the term “truly art.”</span></i></p> <h4><b>3b. If I do have a definition, then I re-read the Evidence and think, “What part of this definition have we failed to trigger so far, with the provided facts?”</b></h4> <p><b></b><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">In the 2</span></i><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">nd</span></i><i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and 3</span></i><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">rd</span></i><i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> grand larceny examples above, we had a definition for grand larceny that required establishing two ideas, so we were reading the evidence asking, “Have I definitively established that Gus </span></i><b><i>stole </i></b><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">this piano and that this piano was </span></i><b><i>worth at least $400</i></b><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">?”</span></i><i><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /> </span></i></p> <h4><b>APPLYING THIS TECHNIQUE TO PREP TEST 83</b></h4> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In PT83, Section 1, Q9, we get a Principle Support question and (1) the conclusion we’re trying to prove is “Don’t request a replacement for Ted.” I would ask myself (2), do I have a rule for how I know when I should or shouldn’t request a replacement? I don’t (3a), so the correct answer needs to give me a rule that translates into “if ___, then don’t request a replacement.” That eliminates choices (B), (D), and (E) very easily, since none of them deal with whether or not we should request a replacement.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /> </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In PT83, Section 1, Q20, we get a Principle Support question and (1) the conclusion we’re trying to prove is that “</span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">we </span></i><b><i>understand X better than Y.” </i></b><i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">I would ask myself (2), do I have a rule for how I know whether we understand one thing better than another? I don’t (3a), so the correct answer needs to give me a rule that translates into “if ___, then I understand X better than Y.” That eliminates choices (A), (C), and (E) very easily (they don’t mention “better understand” at all).</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In PT83, Section 3, Q13, we get an LSAT Sufficient Assumption question and (1) the conclusion we’re trying to prove is that “</span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">something is </span></i><b><i>not physical phenomena.”</i></b> <span style="font-weight: 400;">I would ask myself (2) do I have a rule for how I know whether something is or isn’t a physical phenomenon? I don’t (3a), so the correct answer needs to give me a rule that translates into “if ___, then it’s not a physical phenomena.” That eliminates choices (B) and (C) very quickly, since they don’t even mention ‘physical phenomena.’ (A) and (D) can be eliminated with more scrutiny, since they translate into “if not physical phenomena, then ______.” I need a rule that PROVES something is not a physical phenomenon, so the idea of “not physical phenomena” has to be the right side of the rule.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In PT83, Section 3, Q19, we get a Principle Support question and (1) the conclusion we’re trying to prove is that “</span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">the bill </span></i><b><i>should be rejected.”</i></b> <span style="font-weight: 400;">I would ask myself (2) do I have a rule for how I know whether a bill should or shouldn’t be rejected? I don’t (3a), so the correct answer needs to give me a rule that translates into “if ___, then should be rejected.” These answers aren’t as easy to quickly diagnose, but (C), (D), and (E) give us potentially usable rules.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">(C) “If ______, then don’t implement this proposed solution.” (we should reject this bill)</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /> </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">(D) “If _____, then don’t use this law.” (we should reject this bill)<br /> </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">(E) “If _____, then don’t implement this policy.” (we should reject this bill)</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Happy studying! ?</span></p> <hr /> <p><b><i>Don’t forget that you can attend the first session of any of our online or in-person LSAT courses absolutely free. We’re not kidding! </i></b><a id="bloglink" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/classes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><b><i>Check out our upcoming courses here</i></b></a><b><i>.</i></b></p> <hr /> <p><em><strong><img decoding="async" class="alignleft wp-image-15335 size-thumbnail" src="https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2018/03/patrick-tyrell-150x150.png" alt="patrick-tyrrell" width="150" height="150" /><a id="bloglink" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/instructors/patrick-tyrrell/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Patrick Tyrrell</a> is a Manhattan Prep instructor based in Los Angeles, California.</strong> He has a B.A. in philosophy, a 178 on the LSAT, and relentless enthusiasm for his work. In addition to teaching test prep since 2006, he’s also an avid songwriter/musician. <a id="bloglink" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/classes/#instructor/36" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Check out Patrick’s upcoming LSAT courses here!</a></em></p> <p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/blog/lsat-sufficient-assumption-questions/">LSAT Sufficient Assumption Questions: Be the D.A. for the Day!</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat">LSAT</a>.</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> </channel> </rss>