October 2010 LSAT Section 3 Question 3

Commentator: If a political administration is both economically successful and successful at protecting individual li...

kendalla14 on March 26, 2020

premise = evidence=example=background information?

Hello, on example 2 in the video, I believe you mention that all the answer chocies say that the example is a premise because these answers are all equal premise: "evidence" "background information" and "example." I just want to verify that I understood you correctly. If it is a piece of evidence does that mean that it is always a premise?

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kendalla14 on March 26, 2020

Also, in the next example, you said "phenomenon just means thing" do you say this to mean that the term "phenomenon" may be used by LSAC to be a conclusion, subsidiary conclusion, OR premise?

shunhe on March 27, 2020

Hi @kendalla14,

Thanks for the question! There are really only three kinds of statements in LSAT passages: premises, conclusions, and subsidiary conclusions. A premise on the LSAT is basically just any statement of fact that supports the conclusion. In other words, it could be a statement that provides evidence, background information, or is an example. Any statement that is not a conclusion in the passage will basically be a premise, though some might be subsidiary conclusions—these are premises that are supported by other premises, but which go on to support the main conclusion. So a piece of evidence presented in the passage will always be a premise, yes.

I can’t see where you’re referring to when you say that someone says “phenomenon just means thing,” but I assume that the person was talking about the word “phenomenon” as it appears in a given question and just simplifying that word for the sake of explanation. I can’t really think of any examples where the LSAT would use the word “phenomenon” to refer to conclusion/subsidiary conclusion/premise. Definitely not something I would worry about.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.