Diagramming Questions - II

[voodoochild]

Instructors,

Background:
This post is a continuation of diagramming post @ http://forum.powerscore.com/lsat/viewto ... =12&t=2164

At Steve's request, I am posting a new thread.

We discussed that "A presidential election is an event in which citizens elect the president" can be diagrammed as

"Presidential election citizen elect Mr. President

However, if I say that "a presidential election is any event in which citizens elect the prez", then the diagram would be

citizen elect the president presidential election.

{The key here is to recognize sufficient indicators "any" }
I am good with this.


Question#1 :
Now this one is from PT36 S3 Q17 - The purpose of a GTA is to explain every feature in any of the arts.

I feel that the diagram would be :
Every feature in arts purpose of GTA because "every" is a sufficient condition marker. Hence, it will trump the present tense sufficient indicator "is" (what's present tense sufficient indicator? Example. A robot is a machine. Diagram - robot machine. Here, "is" is a present tense sufficient indicator)

Please correct me if I am wrong.

Question #2:

Let's modify the above sentence. "The purpose of a GTA is to explain features in arts." Here, I have got rid of sufficient indicators "every" and "any of arts".

Hence, the diagram would be purpose of GTA features in arts. Is that correct?

If not, please help me. I am really confused. Thanks in advance.


Please help me.

Thanks
Voodoo Child

[Adam Tyson]

Voodoo,

I think you may be trying to force this argument into a conditional framework where it is not appropriate to do so. This statement doesn't strike me as conditional. It's just a premise, not in any special form like conditional or causal reasoning, so just take it on it's face and don't try to diagram it. "The sky can be blue" isn't really conditional in the traditional sense, nor is "I like ice cream." Those are just premises, or claims.

That said, if I was going to treat the statement you gave as conditional, I would first reword it to make it sound conditional, and then it would be easier to diagram. Here, I would say "If it's a GTA, then it's purpose is to explain every feature in any of the arts", or: GTA PEEF

If I came across something that did not have that purpose, then I could prove, using the contra-positive, that that thing was not a GTA.

Avoid using conditional reasoning where it isn't clearly called for or needed. You'll just tie yourself in knots that way.

Adam

[Dave Killoran]

Hey Voodoo,

Let me jump in here and second Adam's comments. In reading this thread (and the prior one), I'm getting the feeling that you are returning to a mindset you were in a few weeks (months?) ago, where you wanted to take every statement and try to turn it into a black-and-white conditional statement. That will eventually drive you mad, because while many statements can be diagrammed, applying diagramming to all of the statements isn't just fruitless, it's damaging. Typically, on the LSAT, conditionality is presented in a fairly clear manner (not always, but if you know conditionality, you'll be able to see when it is playing a role in the argument). If you seek to see everything in arrow form, you are going to end up wasting a lot of time in that pursuit. Even within these two threads, you're proposing a lot of statements that I wouldn't diagram, nor are the statements presented in language typical of an LSAT conditional problem. An example would be the word "every" or "any." Yes, those are conditional indicators, but I would never diagram every statement that contained those words. Another example would be the use of "is" you cite above--start diagramming that and you'll diagram half the sentences on the LSAT (a side point, almost any statement can be diagrammed in some way, but most of those statements shouldn't be diagrammed, or even thought of in conditional terms).

So much of what is presented on standardized tests is nuanced and not black-and-white; if you keep that in mind I think it will go a long way toward helping you understand what's going on inside of the problems, and it will save you a huge amount of time and frustration from trying to diagram everything you see

Good luck!