Hi Btown,
Thanks for the questions!
Let's start with the idea of "distance." It actually doesn't mean a whole lot; what is more important is which terms modify which elements. That's the key, and in some cases words modify the word right after it, and in other cases they modify ideas far away. You mentioned "only way," and that is a
great example of an idea modifying something that is often physically far away in the sentence, so let's start there. That phrase is involved in #9 in the Drill, and since I've discussed that problem previously, I will refer you to two of my discussions of that one:
lsat/viewtopic.php?t=7708&p=19894 (you get a bonus discussion of #8 there too!) and
lsat/viewtopic.php?t=4564&p=12004. The key in that one is to understand that "way" refers to an idea that is not introduced in the sentence until a bit later. That's not uncommon in English, and so it happens on the LSAT as well. It's also one of the main reasons that preparing for the LSAT is so valuable, because you get to see situations like this before the actual test, and you can get a complete handle on them before it counts. So, take a look at my post there, and then let me know if that helps clear up the idea with "only way." If not, there's more we can discuss
Drill items #3 and #12 are obviously quite similar, and so we can discuss those together. Each is in the form of "No Xs are Ys." This is irritating at first because the "no" is immediately next to the X, and so your first reaction is to think that the "not" should be on the X. But then when you look at the answer key, you see that that's not the case!
The form of this rule is quite common—especially on Logic Games—so it is good that you are coming up against it now. The way it works is that when you have "No Xs are Ys," the actual negative generated by the "no" ends up being physically on not X, but Y. This is because the "No" applies to all of the elements in X. In other words, if you are in the group X, then we know you don't do something (in this case, you don't do Y). So, it's not that X is negated but that the activity that X would engage in is negated. That's pretty abstract, so let's rephrase that abstract form into something more easily understood. Consider this example:
"No high school senior is attending class tomorrow"
So, when you look at that, what do you know about high school seniors? Well, that none of them will be attending class tomorrow. In other words, if you are a high school seniors, then you will not attend class tomorrow. So, the "no" is something that the high school seniors
don't do. This happens because the phrase "no high school seniors" tells you that none of the elements in that group of seniors will do something (attend class), and thus the actual negative symbol is applied not directly to high schools seniors (the group that matches X), but to "attending class tomorrow" (the Y portion):
HSS
ACT
If the "no" was to be applied directly to "high school seniors" (
HS ACT ), then it would need to be phrased along the lines of, "If you are not a high school senior..."
When we take that analysis and apply it back to a problem like #3, for example, we get:
No robot can think.
That would mean that all elements in the group "robots" do not "think", which would be:
R
T
So, take a moment to consider how a phrase like "No Xs are Ys" differs from "If you are not an X, then you are a Y." As you do that, consider also how "No X" is an absolute statement—it means that every X does not have a certain characteristic. Conditional statements, and thus conditional indicators, are often absolute in nature (all, every, none, never, no, etc). That will hopefully help you when you encounter other scenarios you might not have seen before.
Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!
