2-58, 2-59. Possibilities and Certainties Drill. Huge Q

[lathlee]

Dear All,

This has been bothering me so much and I finally found the correct page reference I can ask.
In 2011, Lesson 2, Conditional possibilities vs Certainties Drill, It's about Could be True part.

Q 1. could be True part: Could be True: c occurs; C does not occur.

In Logic certainties and probabilities according to Logic Game bible's definition, 1-100 %.
So in Q 1, C occurs (1-100%) C does not occur (1-100%)

Q2. Could be True part, G occurs; G does not occur

and all other could be true parts in the remaining section .

in means regardless how weak probability is, both scenario, occurring or not occurring, THEY Both Happen since the possibility can be anywhere BUT ZERO%.

So using Q1 as an example: As in Could be True, C Does NOT Occur containing the possibility of Not happening at all in certainty of 1-100%. which could be True clearly proved it cannot be. But as long as C occurs is a possibility that could be True, 0% Does not have place in could be True. But we Know 0% does exist ; c does not occur.

How can that be?

For the record, I know c occurs and c does not occur is the correct answer; What I have trouble is to understand through the telescope of logical probability/certainty sense.

But I obtained this correct answer through NORMAL Common Sense Language probability/certainty, as in of : could or could not be. or May or May not have said as equivalent of I don't really know how it occurred/happened; it can be anything.

I came up with new way of resolve this paradox and is this okay way to think in this case.
In the case of could be true only , when one knows necessary condition occurred in the question stem but we don't know about the occurrence of sufficient condition, which the correct answer both contains could be true or could not be True
the possibilities/certainties of sufficient condition (0-100 %) occurrence percentage

[Adam Tyson]

Hello lathlee, and thanks for your question. In that drill, and throughout the test, anything that is not prohibited is possible. When a necessary condition does not occur, the sufficient condition cannot occur, but everything else in the world is possible. In the case of Question 1 in that drill, for example, when B does not occur, I know that A cannot occur because of the contrapositive. B's failure to occur has no impact at all on C, because the absence of that sufficient condition (B is a sufficient condition for C) tells us nothing about the absence or presence of the necessary condition. C may occur or it may not occur - we just cannot know, because the information provided tells us nothing either way.

Your common sense approach IS the logical approach in this case! When something is left uncertain, with nothing to tell us that it either must happen or cannot happen, then logically it is left up in the air as something that either could happen or could not happen.

Where this will show itself in the LSAT is in some LR logical reasoning questions that ask you what could be true or, in some cases, what cannot be true (in which case you would eliminate all the answers that could be true and select the one remaining answer, which cannot be true). This will also come up in many logic games, where you determine that in a certain case (like in a local question) that a necessary condition has occurred, and it could nonetheless be true that a sufficient condition does not, or where a sufficient condition has not occurred and it could nonetheless be true that a necessary condition does occur.

Keep up the good work, you are asking great questions!

[lathlee]

Thank you so much for the kind and encouraging apply.
Sorry to ask this part,

So it is okat to think for example there's one necessary condition and sufficient cobdition, necessary condition occurs
But we dont know about sufficient condtion
I can think of sufficient condition occurence possibility is 0-100.

[Adam Tyson]

That is correct! The necessary condition occurring tells us only that the sufficient condition could occur, but it still might not. You got it!

[lathlee]

Hi. I am sorry to ask another related questions relating the questions stated in these pages: 2-58, 2-59

Related to Q2.

1. If A + B Unless C.

Is it -C (-a) + (-b)

2.
If a students writes the question's answer of a+b is C then C is correct answer unless no other student writes D as an answer.

what would be the contrapositives of these twos?

I remember seeing a similar questions in one past LSAT from somewhere and when I was re-reading these pages, the memory came back.

Thx.

[lathlee]

It will be nice if I can get some response for this one. haha

[Francis O'Rourke]

1. If A + B Unless C.

is not a valid statement. I believe that you are trying to express something along the lines of one of the following:

1. A + B, unless C.
2. If A+B, then D, unless C

The first statement is what you are likely to see on the test. We can diagram it as:
-C- A +B

The second statement is a bit harder. We can diagram it in the following way:
A + B + -C- D


As for your second question, I'm not seeing where you found that question. Let me know what page you are referring to, and I will try to get back to you soon.