Several, Most, Many meanings

[180nce]

Hello guys,

I was wondering if anyone can please give me the correct definition for the following words in the LSAT world

1. Most: (I know this is 51-100; the majority. Correct me if I'm wrong please)
2. Many: (does this equal some? According to the LR Bible it does, again please correct me if I'm wrong)
3. Several: ?
4. Few/A Few
5. Some (1-100)



Thanks so much for the help!

[David Boyle]

Hello guys,

I was wondering if anyone can please give me the correct definition for the following words in the LSAT world

1. Most: (I know this is 51-100; the majority. Correct me if I'm wrong please)
2. Many: (does this equal some? According to the LR Bible it does, again please correct me if I'm wrong)
3. Several: ?
4. Few/A Few
5. Some (1-100)



Thanks so much for the help!

Hello 180nce,

"Most" would be anything above 50%, so could be 50% plus any quantum. Say, 50.00000001. (Which is less than "51")
"Many" is a little vague, but may not always equal "some", since "some" could be "one", whereas "many" seems to mean "plural", among other things.
"Several" is sort of like "many", in that it would have to be more than "one", it seems. "Several" seems to imply that it might be less than "many", though.
"Few" or "a few" might imply "less than 50%", but might not have to. The present author is sitting in a chair right now, and to say "There are few of me in this chair" actually means, in this case, that 100% of me is in this chair. "Few" could actually be zero, maybe, in that there are few presidents of the U.S.A. named Joe Blow. Zero, to be exact.
"Some" is any quantum above 0, up to "all", 100%.

Hope this helps,
David

[180nce]

Thanks David for your help!!

I am going over Weaken questions and I read about a reasoning flaw that occurs when one assume "many...not" is equivalent to "not many."

1) What would "not many" mean?

2) According to the Logical Reasoning Bible's section on Formal Logic, some are not= 0 to 99. So does this mean that if I said. In a group of 100 people, some are not runners. "Some are not" could mean 99 are NOT runners and 1 is a runner?

3) Could "some are not" work the opposite way and mean that 20 people are NOT runners and 80 people are runners?


In short, I'm confused as to what "some are not" means?


Any help would be much appreciated!!

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hi 180nce,

The phrase "some are not" means "not all." For instance, if I told you that "some pencils are not black," this is the same as saying that "not all pencils are black". So, if we have 100 pencils on the table, and some of them aren't black, then at least one of them is some other color. It is possible, also, that none of the pencils are black - we just can't be sure. The number of black pencils is anywhere from 0-99 (i.e. not all). The number of non-black pencils, on the other hand, is anywhere from 1-100 ("some").

Does that make sense? Let me know.

Thanks.

[180nce]

Thank so much for the speedy reply Nikki,

What about "not many" vs. "many are not?"

[Adam Tyson]

The important thing to remember about words like many and few is that they are subjective and relative - you can't put numbers to them, or percentages, with any degree of confidence. Don't get too hung up on finding out exactly what those words mean, because they don't "exactly" mean anything. They require context.

In general, questions that use these terms will not rely on your grasp of the numbers involved. Focus on other things besides the specific numbers.

Having said that, here's a "not many" statement that you might find in an LR question: "Not many of the study participants exercised regularly." What does that mean? Well, clearly they didn't all exercise regularly. Other than that, we really can't know - is half of the group "not many"? Doubtful, but hard to say. Is 25% "not many"? Maybe. Zero is certainly not many. What about 1 participant? That depends - how many participants were there? Maybe only 2? See how hard it can be to deal with numbers here? Instead, focus on what you can say with certainty - statements like "at least one participant did not exercise regularly" seems pretty safe here. How about what cannot be true? "Many of the participants exercised regularly" looks good there. What could be true? Some exercised, one exercised, less than half exercised,5% exercised, etc.

How does that compare to "many did not exercise regularly"? Similar issues here, but not identical. While many did not exercise, could it also be true that many did? I think so - what if it was 50/50? It seems here like at least one did not exercise, and maybe none did. Where do we draw the line on how many is not many? It's subjective, we can't really say, so focus on other things, as above. Don't get too caught up in these phrases - the authors might like you to spend a lot of time thinking about how many is many, but we don't want to do what the authors want us to do - we want to prephrase, sort losers and contenders, pick a winner from among the contenders, and move on to the next question.

Good luck!

[MrBear]

Hi Nikki,

I'm really trying to wrap my mind around the concept of "some pencils are not black" correlating into none of the pencils being black. Is this because there simply isn't enough information given or the lack of indicating that any pencil is in fact black? Don't mean to harp on this haha but I just want to nail this down. Thank you so much. Adam, if you're available to answer this one please feel free

[Dave Killoran]

Hey MrBear,

Thanks for the question! It's not so much that it correlates to it or that they are equivalent, but more that "some pencils are not black" allows for the possibility that "none of the pencils are black." Let's say you have 100 red pencils. Is it the case then that some of those pencils are not black? Yes, most definitely. In fact, while that statement is true, it actually goes even further than that, to none of them are black. Of course, does it have to be that way? No. Let's say you have 50 red pencils and 50 black pencils. Is it the case then that some of those pencils are not black? Yes, 50 of them aren't black, and that qualifies as "some." however, the phrase "none of them are black" doesn't apply because 50 are black. In these two cases, it's pretty easy for us to figure all this out because we know how many pencils we have, and in what colors, before we examine each statement. If you have a situation where someone simply tells you that "some pencils are not black" and doesn't give you any other info, then we have a range of possible results, and one of those is that none of them are black. So, the summary is that unless there is some additional limiting info, "some are not" allows for the possibility of "none." Let me know if that makes sense.

Also, for any other readers of this thread, I wrote a blog some time back that addresses certain quantity terms. Check it out if you're interested: http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/153 ... l-and-many

Thanks!

[MrBear]

Perfect Dave! Thank you! I just smacked myself on the forehead after reading your post. It makes perfect sense now. To think 1 out of the 100 pencils could be black would be exactly that, an "assumption."

Breaking it down into the red and black pencil scenarios truly helped!

[Dave Killoran]

Great, I'm glad that helped out!