I am a bit confused on how exactly we are able to tell apart the premise from the conclusion. At the beginning of the lecture, I understood the first sentence to be the premise and the last to be the conclusion but the example with the conclusion first threw me off. Could someone please explain this? Thank you!
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Hi @samlopez19, this is one of the most challenging things the LSAT asks us to do. Generally speaking, the conclusion can come at any point in the argument, although it is somewhat common for the conclusion to be the final sentence.
One tool I like to use to determine if something is a conclusion is to try to see if other parts of the argument could prove it. Let's take an example of a simple argument: the sky is blue, blue things are pretty, so the sky is pretty. If I wasn't to confirm my idea that the last clause is the conclusion, I might try to use the word "because" to check that. In other words, the sky is pretty because it is blue, and blue is pretty. Since this flows logically, It makes sense the last part is the conclusion.
Alternatively, you can check if something is a premise if it makes sense to say "premise therefore conclusion." In our example, this could be "the sky is blue, blue is pretty, therefore the sky is pretty." To generalize this, it should make sense to say "premise therefore conclusion" or "conclusion because premise."
I would also recommend looking at the main point office hours.
