If you climb mountains, you will not live to a ripe old age. But you will be bored unless you climb mountains. Theref...

Ariz January 12, 2021

Tips on categorizing and timing:

I am finding that I do well on the questions, but I am also taking way longer than I probably should. I take a while finding the best way to title sufficient and necessary conditions without writing out entire titles. Do you have any tips on how to take less time with the smaller things such as the acronyms of the conditions? Perhaps a lot of practice will ease the need to write everything out for both the S & N conditions in the argument (or set of facts) and the answer choices. Can you provide any advice?

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shunhe January 13, 2021

Hi @AriAre,

Thanks for the question! So with the acronyms, it’s whatever works best for you, but generally speaking, taking the first letters of all of the “important” words in the phrase makes sense. “Important words” includes the main verbs and nouns, sometimes adjectives if they matter, and you can usually leave out prepositions like “about” or “of,” as well as articles like “the” and “a/an.” Make sure that if the same concept is referred to two different ways, you diagram it the same way. I also like to use a squiggly tilde for “not,” though some people draw lines or other things. It’s helpful also to draw something indicating your conclusion. When I’m writing on paper, I like to use the three dots for “therefore” used in math proofs. Again, it’s whatever works for you.

So take this question you commented on. I’d probably diagram it

CM = climb mountains
LROA = live to a ripe old age
(I wouldn’t write out this key, this is for pedagogical purposes)

CM —> ~LROA
~CM —> B
C: LROA —> B
(Since I’m typing, I used “C:” to signify the conclusion instead of the dots)

You also don’t need to diagram everything you come across. For example, again for this question, you should be able to eliminate answer choices before diagramming them, which saves you time diagramming them. For example, take (A). Its conclusion isn’t a conditional, but our stimulus has a conditional for its conclusion. So you can eliminate (A) without diagramming it.

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

Ariz February 11, 2021

Thank you. I think what I am really having trouble with is differentiating main points (conclusions) and principles. Could you help me understand key differences?

JakeS May 4, 2021

For answer choice E, I mixed up the second premise with Not Being Hungry ---> Spending all your money but apparently it's the opposite (Not spend all your money ---> Hungry). I can't for the life of me understand why this is. Can you please explain how the "unless" statement rules go again?