conditional reasoning

[barrettmelissa82]

I know that the knowledge of conditional reasoning is a critical skill for scoring well on the logical reasoning portion of the LSAT. However, I don't have a problem setting up conditional statements during practice drills when it is one sentence, however, when indicator words are present in logical reasoning statements, I am not setting up the conditional correctly. Are there any other tips for conditional reasoning or any supplemental blogs or websites that can help with this? I have memorized the indicator words and can see them in the stimulus, I think I just get confused with all the sentences or nervous. Please help!!!

[Dave Killoran]

Hey Melissa,

Conditional reasoning can be very confusing! Fortunately, it's come up a lot on this forum, so let me first direct you to a few other posts that might be good references:

• http://forum.powerscore.com/lsat/viewto ... 557#p10557
  
  http://forum.powerscore.com/lsat/viewto ... 7382#p7344
  
  http://forum.powerscore.com/lsat/viewto ... 79&p=17765

Our blog also has a lot of info on this topic:

• http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/263 ... -Condition
  
  http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/263 ... -Condition

And the bottom of each blog post should list other articles in the same vein.

The thing about diagramming is that it is easy to overthink it at first. With a simple recognition of indicator words, you can probably diagram 90-95% of all conditional statements easily and accurately (the remaining 5-10% take a while to get comfortable with, but it is a lot easier to take your time with those once you know you can handle the vast majority of conditionals you see). So, the first step is to know the basic indicator words for sufficient and necessary conditions. Know those by heart, and simply apply them when you encounter them.

As far as how indicator words work, think about them as you would road signs: when you see such as "if," "when," "only," "all," "every," and so on, they are always telling you something consistent as well as how to proceed. In those instances, you can typically process the statements very quickly without really thinking about the content (one of the links above touches on that idea).

Please check some of those out and then let me know if it helps. Thanks!

[barrettmelissa82]

Thanks Dave!