June 2010 LSAT Section 5 Question 14

The author uses the word "immediacy" (line 39) most likely in order to express

Catherine on December 5 at 05:29PM

Example 3

Hello, Why on Example #3 we automatically should know not to make the first sentence into a premise/conclusion. i understand it doesn't necessarily apply , but when reading it I assume it will be C & G -> HIE. When creating this I did not see to create M->II either. I saw just RAC -> II. Please clarify why/how to more easily and productively look at a question when looking for key chains to create. I understand there are terms we should use like only, always, necessary... but "bring about" didn't make it as clear to be extracted from the question stem.

1 Reply

Ben on December 5 at 07:33PM

Hi CMarr, thanks for the question.

I believe that the issue with including the first sentence as a diagram such as: C and G - > HIE, is that it is not a purely conditional statement.

The thought behind the first sentence is that climate and geology are tools that we can use to determine where human industry is possible to establish. It is not saying that climate and industry always determine where human industry can be established. That is why it was not included in the conditional reasoning diagrams.

Similarly, if we think about scientific research solving everyday problems. We can say scientific research solves everyday problems. This doesn't mean that all scientific research solves everyday problems, it just means that some scientific research can solve everyday problems. Context is important. If we treated this as purely conditional, then we run into the issue of:

NOT solve everyday problems - > NOT scientific research

But just because we didn't solve the problem, doesn't mean that there wasn't research conducted.

"Bring about" isn't a typical indicator that we see. But in this context it is saying that migrations always results in the intermingling of ideas. That is how we were able to make the conditional diagram.

Much of what to diagram and what not to diagram comes through practice and just exposing yourself to a lot of similar problems. So keep drilling similar problems and please feel free to ask any other questions you may have.