The author uses the word "immediacy" (line 39) most likely in order to express
bcrosson May 28, 2020
Example 5 choice C
In choice c of example 5 from the lecture it says the electorate is not moral and intelligent. I thought this meant it was both not moral nor intelligent? How do you know that the answer is saying only morality is in question and not intelligence? The wording seems ambiguous.
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In this case, the correct wording is affected by our diagram. We know that if democracy functions well then the electorate must be moral and they must be intelligent.
To properly conclude that democracy is not functioning well, it is sufficient that either the electorate is not moral, or that they are not intelligent. In this way, it doesn't matter how you read this sentence because immorality alone is sufficient for democracy to become dysfunctional. If the electorate were both immoral and unintelligent, we could also conclude that democracy would become dysfunctional. But it is important to note that for this example it doesn't need to be both.
While it may be irrelevant for this specific example, it is generally helpful to assume for S&N questions that 'not' only modifies the word it is directly next to. To make it more specific, the LSAT would usually write "not moral and/or not intelligent" to indicate that both words are negated.
Focus on building your S&N diagramming skills for now. You'll get better at recognizing patterns and become more familiar with the wording used by different question types to indicate different things the more that you practice.
Hope this is helpful! Keep up the good work and please let us know if you have any further questions.
Code2200on June 19, 2020
Example 5 surprised me, too. I crossed out C because it used "Moral AND Intelligent", while the contrapositive was "Moral OR Intelligent." I'm not sure why we changed the AND to OR if it doesn't seem to matter in the answer choice? A bit confused in how it plays together in practice.
Arashon August 21, 2021
I agree with Codie and Brittany. The earlier lecture notes indicated that the contrapositive for (A AND B) would be (A OR B). In the case of, Moral AND Intelligent the contrapositive would be: Moral OR Intelligent. The answer choice C would have been easier to pick if it were written as not moral and/or not intelligent.
