Can any research be found to validate the contention that those who spend time plucking out their gray hairs have mor...
Julie-VJune 5, 2019
Finding Main Point
Hi LSAT Max!
I was wondering if I could get help understanding the "conclusion BECAUSE premise" method. I have a hard time telling myself that if it's in the "premise because conclusion" order, it's incorrect. For Q2 from the Reading Comprehension section, for example, I read the discussion board and for some reason both ways that the two sentences were written out in the "sentence BECAUSE sentence" method made sense to me. If you could clear up my confusion and help me tackle this it would be greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance!
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This is definitely a skill that will come with practice. As you work your way through practice questions, make sure that you have a complete understanding of the passage before approaching the question stem; i.e. ensure that you understand (a) whether the passage is presenting a fact or an argument and (b) if the passage is presenting an argument, what its overall conclusion is and what the premises are that are presented to support this conclusion. If you map out the premises and conclusion before attacking the question itself, it will be harder to make this error as you will have a visual diagram of how the argument proceeds.
A simple example of the difference between "conclusion because premise" vs. "premise because conclusion" can be found in our Logical Reasoning video's section on Valid Arguments (around 33 minutes into the video).
Premise: All carrots are vegetables
Premise: X is a carrot
Conclusion: X is a vegetable
We can conclude that X is a vegetable because all carrots are vegetables and X is a carrot.
We cannot conclude that all carrots are vegetables or that X is a carrot from the conclusion that X is a vegetable. Just because X is a vegetable, this does not mean that X is necessarily a carrot. X could be a broccoli or a cauliflower etc. We also cannot conclude that carrots are vegetables based on the conclusion that X is a vegetable. The fact that X is a vegetable says nothing about carrots being vegetables.
Your question here is not posted on the specific Reading Comprehension question which you are referencing. If you comment on the discussion board for that particular question, someone from our team would be happy to use that example to help you understand why one of the sentences is correct over the other.
Hope this is helpful! Please don't hesitate to let us know if you have any further questions.
