category/characteristic CONditional Relationship

[lathlee]

From my prior post from Re: How come To Be is not listed as a sufficient Indicator by Mr. Adam Tyson

There are many conditional indicators beyond the ones we listed in our materials, lathlee, although many of them are implied or inherent in the ones we did list. "To be" is like an extension of "In order to". We listed the most common ones that we see on the test, but don't be constrained by that list. Instead, use it as a jumping off point to understand the nature of conditional relationships. Most of them will fall into the broad category of a "category/characteristic" relationship - the sufficient condition sets up a category (like "people who prefer Chicago style pizza"), and the necessary condition identifies a characteristic of that category ("have no idea what real pizza is"). Here are some examples:

In order to be a Doctor (category=Doctor), you must first attend medical school (characteristic of Doctors=went to med school)

Dogs with curly fur (category) are adorable (characteristic)

All Ohio State fans (category) are a little upset at the loss to Oklahoma (characteristic)

Watch for that kind of relationship, and the indicator words won't matter quite so much. Here's one that is a little more subtle, perhaps, because it doesn't have the obvious indicators, although they are implied:

Mahogany tables are beautiful and long-lasting

Go ahead and add "to be" to the list in your book, if you like, as it does occur with some frequency, but then go beyond the list and look for these sorts of category/characteristic relationships to widen your understanding of conditional relationships. Remember not to force it, though, and don't make everything conditional when you often don't need to do so in order to understand and attack the argument.

Is there any practice that Powerscore recommends to a potential test taker can do to recognize the conditional relationship nature in a sentence consists of category/characteristic? cuz every time i read sentence these days, BE Verbs in LSAT Questions, I immediately think of category/characteristic aspect and time to time, which was not required, then I simply just waste way too much time.

[Adam Tyson]

My advice is this: don't look for it! If something you read doesn't jump out at you as conditional, then don't try to force it into that framework, but just take it as it is. Same thing with causal reasoning - if you see it, great, but if you don't, then don't spend time and effort trying to make it causal. The goal here isn't for you to analyze things conditionally or causally (which are only two types of the many types of reasoning on the LSAT, and do not cover every LR question, not by a long stretch), but for you to recognize it when it is present and to be able to analyze it in those ways when it's called for. If you don't see it, don't look for it! The more you practice, the easier you will find it becomes to recognize when it is, and is not, the appropriate way to attack a question. Let it come naturally, and when you don't see it, just analyze what you are given however you feel is best.

For example, you may see an argument that says "we should build a new library in our town, because they did that in my old home town and a lot of people there were happy about it". Do you see anything conditional jumping out at you? I don't. Something causal? Nope, not really, nothing obvious like a "leads to" or a "responsible for". So how do we analyze the argument in favor of the new library? Well, it's based on a comparison to another town. Is it a fair comparison? Was the other town like our town? Was the old library in that town similar to our old library? Are the people here like the people there? This argument is all about the comparison, or analogy, between the two towns and their people and their libraries. So focus on the comparison, and don't try to make it something conditional (like imagining it as "if we build a new library then a lot of people will be happy") or causal (such as "the new library there made people happy, so a new library here will cause the same effect"). Perhaps we could force these arguments into those frameworks, but that's too much work and isn't called for when we can just look at whether the analogy was good or not!

The short answer is to get familiar with the indicators, and with the common "category/characteristic" relationship, but then to let nature take its course. You'll either see it or you won't, and when you do see it you will know what to do, and when you do not see it you should not waste time and effort trying to create it but instead focus on what you do see.

Good luck, and keep practicing!