#9 - An easy willingness to tell funny stories or jokes

[kwcflynn]

Hey!

So is "and" the contra-positive of "or" and vice versa?

Thank you!

[Dave Killoran]

Hey!

So is "and" the contra-positive of "or" and vice versa?

Thank you!

Yes, or becomes and, and and becomes or when taking the contrapositive. All terms are negated as well. This is covered starting on page 2-62 of the lesson books!

Thanks!

[jerry]

I get the part where a person lacking self-confidence doesn't enjoy telling funny stories about oneself. But I don't understand the part about not liking to hear funny stories about oneself. How does a willingness to have others poke fun at you translate to "hearing funny stories"?

If I am willing to tell funny stories about myself then I am supremely confident
If I am willing to have others poke fun at me then I am supremely confident

If others tell funny stories about myself then they are poking fun at me?

I would've picked (A) if it had said, "A person who lacks self-confidence will enjoy neither telling funny stories about oneself, nor having others poke fun at oneself."

However, we aren't told that telling funny stories constitutes poking fun at someone, so I thought answer choice A was outside the scope or shifted the meaning of a word.

[Brook Miscoski]

jerry,

When we do this sort of question (a must be true question), we do want an answer choice that is 100% supported by the stimulus. But notice that question asks which choice is most strongly supported. When the test writers use softer wording like that, remember that you might only get what you need.

You're correct that "poke fun at" and "tell funny stories about" are not 100% the same thing. However, they are extremely similar things with a great deal of overlap. Additionally, the first sentence of the stimulus already associated that with joking about the person. We're expected to use our common knowledge and linguistic cues in the stimulus to realize that these things are interchangeable. The only way you can eliminate (A) is if some other answer choice is superior. Since no other answer choice is supported at all, you must not eliminate (A).

One of the skills you develop and fine tune on the LSAT is how to tell when there is a conceptual leap that constitutes an assumption (in the stimulus) or takes an answer choice out of scope. A good rule of thumb is that word changes highlight a possible leap, but you will want to remain aware that the same concept can be expressed using different wordings.

[alylespier]

Can you confirm a contrapositive is when you flip and negate? Do you negate both the sufficient and the necessary?

Thank you!
Aly

[Jeremy Press]

That's correct, Aly!

Let's take an example just to clarify: "If you go to law school, then you must apply for admission."
We'd diagram that as: L.S. A.A.

The contrapositive flips and negates both pieces of that: "If you don't apply for admission, then you don't go to law school."
We'd diagram that as: A.A. L.S.

Hope this helps!

[lilcamaj]

How do you know to look for conditional relationships in the stimulus and then the contrapositive in the answer choices? What should trigger that process of doing so in our minds? Why can't we do this then for every LR question?

[Adam Tyson]

That's a great question, lilcamaj, because this stimulus lacks any clear, obvious indicators of conditional reasoning. There is no "if...then" language to tip us off!

In the absence of such language we might just not bother thinking of it conditionally, and we can still get a good prephrase and the correct answer. Your analysis in that case might go something like this: "The facts in the stimulus indicate that confident people are okay with being made fun of and making fun of themselves. So what does that prove? That people who get can't handle those things probably aren't confident. Let's see if that's in the answers."

So why are we talking about conditional reasoning in this question? Because some conditional relationships are indicated by less common words and phrases that still manage to convey some degree of certainty, and certainty is what conditional reasoning is all about. A relationship is conditional when a certain condition is guaranteed, required, unavoidable, inevitable...aka necessary. Here, one word comes very close to being certain, and that is "surest." If being good-natured in these circumstances is the "surest mark" of supreme self-confidence, that is almost a guarantee that someone who feels that way is confident. That's what is causing many of us to use a conditional approach here, even while it technically isn't conditional.

[gmd114@miami.edu]

what does WHFS stand for?

[Stephanie Oswalt]

what does WHFS stand for?

Hi! That is referenced in the administrator post at the beginning of this thread:

The diagram of the second sentence is a tricky one: First, the “good natured acquiescence” refers to the idea that you are ok with hearing other people tell funny stories about you (we can call that WHFS, or “willing to hear funny stories about oneself.”)

Thanks!