September 2007 LSAT Section 3 Question 14

Early urban societies could not have been maintained without large–scale farming nearby. This is because other method...

RC on September 4 at 03:50PM

Please break this down into S and N and indicate the conditionals

Wondering if there is a way to break this down from the "word salad" that is it. Also, how is the sentence "Large-scale farming requires irrigation," broken down and then play into the the logical chain?

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Emil-Kunkin on September 10 at 11:48PM

I think the critics thing for SN is to remember it's just a guarantee: a sufficient condition guarantees the necessary condition is also true, so let's look for those relationships.

The first sentence tells us that large cities needed large farms nearby. So,
If LC then LF

The second tells us that foraging and other methods of food production can't support cities. This means that if we have cities, it's guaranteed we don't only have foraging. This is just restating the first idea, that if cities then farming.

Next we are told that large farms require irrigation, so
If LF then I.

Finally we are told that this isn't possible in arid areas until recently so in premodern times
If I then near water source

Or
If large cities then large farms, then Irrigation, then near rivers or lakes (if not modern times).