Hi Michael,
Thanks for the questions! The problems you are having are actually pretty standard, and ones that fortunately aren't too difficult to fix. So, I feel like with some work, you can get this corrected. Here are a few points that might help:
First, I'm all for understanding the theory behind concepts, and ultimately that is what will really make something click. With conditionality it's tough at first to use all the conceptual knowledge simply because there's so much of it. It creates a mental logjam when you are first working with these problems. The way to get around that is in the beginning to go on a sort of autopilot, and to do that, you need to first memorize the conditional indicators (the lists with "if," "then," "all," "every," etc). Why? Because although the definitions of conditionality will help you recognize when it is present (especially in the harder problems), at first when you are trying to recognize it in a sentence it is all about the language. There is almost always some type of indicator or logical formation present that tips you off as to which condition is sufficient and which is necessary. So at first, you need to be a robot that simply recognizes the terms and processes the conditions. If you see an "all," for example, you know that introduces a sufficient condition and you can proceed from there. That allows you to go quickly and at the same time reduces the chances of error.
Second, one thing to avoid is trying to figure each relationship out based on what you know of the real world when you read each sentence. In the real world that works fine, but in the LSAT world that causes a lot of problems because LSAT speakers can make up ridiculous and nonsensical statements.
Here's an example I used in another post on this board:
Sentence: The sun rises only if I wake up in the morning.
If you reason this out using your understanding of the real world, you would probably make "sun rises" the necessary condition because it is ridiculous to think that the sun would depend on whether I woke up or not. However, I wouldn't even try to think about it that way during the exam. Instead, I'd see the term "only if," know that that introduces a "necessary" condition, and immediately realize that "I wake up" is necessary and thus that "sun rises" is sufficient, leading to the following diagram:
Sun rises
I wake up in the morning
That diagram and relationship is ridiculous from a real world standpoint, but, nonetheless, that is exactly what the author said in the sentence. And that's the key thing here: you aren't trying to figure out what things mean according to you or the real world, you are trying to figure out what the
author said. Identifying indicators makes that much easier because you never have to try and determine what you think was said, you simply react based on the indicators that are used.
That's a start, but it will definitely help you recognize when these relationships are present. And, you have to be able to do it until it becomes second nature. It's like a flashcard: if I said to you, "every!" you should immediately say back, "sufficient!" If you hesitate, that translates into lost time on the test. So, for every term, it should be nearly instantaneous. The good news is that although it's a bit of work at first, eventually you get so that you don't even think about it, and you react quickly and smoothly when you encounter those terms. It's at that point that we start moving into more difficult problems where they don't use indicators or where the indicators are confusing. But we'll worry about those after we get the basics down.
Please let me know if that helps, and please keep me posted on your progress. Thanks and good luck!
Dave
? Thank-you
