#24 - Anthropologists assert that cultures advance only when

[Jonathan Evans]

Hi, S2KMo,

Good question! Yes, in fact the way you have it described is the Mistaken Reversal™ of the conditional here!

Remember that conditional statements include sufficient and necessary conditions. Let's look at the first statement and determine which is which:

• "Anthropologists assert that cultures advance only when independence replaces dependence."

What are the two conditions or ideas here? The first idea is "cultures advancing." The second idea is "independence replacing dependence."

Which of these two ideas/conditions is required for the other? Independence is required for cultures advancing. The thing that is required is the necessary condition. The thing it is required for is the sufficient condition.

"Independence" is the necessary condition. "Cultures advancing" is the sufficient condition.

• Cultures advancing Independence

There's also a shortcut to doing this: "only" is a necessary indicator word. The statement that follows "only" is very likely the necessary condition. A list of these words may be found on page 185 of the 2018 edition of the Logical Reasoning Bible.

I hope this helps!

[S2KMo]

Hey Jonathan,

Your explanation helps a lot! The only difficulty I have still (for the shortcut) is that "when" is a sufficient indicator as well, so I wasn't sure how to decide which indicator to apply to "independence replaces dependence." Is there some sort of trick/concept for when this occurs that you can consistently apply to these types of phrases?

Thanks

[Adam Tyson]

You're right about "when", S2KMo, but the indicator here is actually "only when", and that's a necessary condition indicator. "Only" is kind of like the silent e at the end of words, which converts vowel sounds from short to long (can becomes cane, man becomes mane, etc.), in that it converts any sufficient condition into a necessary one. "If" is sufficient, while "only if" is necessary; "when" is sufficient, while "only when" is necessary; "people who" is sufficient, while "only people who" is necessary, and so on. Since the phrase in question here is "only when independence replaces dependence", that makes independence replacing dependence the necessary condition!

I hope that helps clear it up!

[ryan89]

Hi there,

I chose B, only because the stimulus says that cultural advancement occurs only when "imposition by outsiders is REPLACED BY INITIATIVE from within." I did not choose A because it did not mention initiative from within: what if individual schools become independent, but they do not have any initiative from within, which therefore won't allow for educational progress.

Am I getting too caught up in thinking about the details in the stimulus, rather than considering the form/structure of the conditional relationship?

[Ben DiFabbio]

Hi there,

I chose B, only because the stimulus says that cultural advancement occurs only when "imposition by outsiders is REPLACED BY INITIATIVE from within." I did not choose A because it did not mention initiative from within: what if individual schools become independent, but they do not have any initiative from within, which therefore won't allow for educational progress.

Am I getting too caught up in thinking about the details in the stimulus, rather than considering the form/structure of the conditional relationship?

Hey Ryan!

I see why answer choice B) was appealing to you because of the fact that answer choice A) does appear to leave out the "initiative" piece. However, B) is disqualified from consideration because it takes an unwarranted logical leap: There is no information in the stimulus that would allow us to infer how much independence a particular school would need in comparison to another. Remember that the task here is to determine what must be true on the basis of the information provided in the stimulus. We're looking for an answer choice that expresses a conclusion which is absolutely required by the premises.

The conditional relationship is that advancement requires that independence replaces dependence. After the dash, independence is then defined as "initiative from within," and dependence is defined as "imposition by outsiders." Answer choice A) is a logical extension of the conditional we sketched out above, as we can see when we insert the definitions provided in parentheses:

In order for schools to progress, independence (i.e. initiative from within) must replace dependence (i.e. outside imposition).

I hope that helps!

Happy studying,

Ben DiFabbio
PowerScore LSAT Instructor

[sarah_tucker@alumni.brown.edu]

Hi!
I understand the reasoning behind why A is right, but I would love more information on why D is wrong. It feels like they are expressing similar things?

Also, a lot of the replies on this forum are focused on "the only" as signaling a conditional relationship. Is catching that conditionality critical to understanding this problem?

Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

The problem with answer D, Sarah, is that the stimulus doesn't support it. Remember that the author told us that outsiders may provide valuable advice, so they don't need to be completely prevented from participating!

I do think it's very, very helpful to take note of the conditional aspect of the argument, although some students would be able to pick up on this inference without consciously noting it as conditional, instead relying on a more instinctual reaction to identify the parallel aspect of the analogy. So while I wouldn't go so far as to call it a critical step in the process, if your instincts don't quickly and confidently lead you to a prephrase similar to answer A, then a more mechanical application of conditional reasoning, supported by a diagram, would be a wise choice!

[LSAT2HARD]

Hi,

I have a little question regarding Answer C. I chose this wrong answer because I thought school system officials is part of the school as an insider. For instance, if I am a SUNY officials, I will probably regard myself as an insider.

[Robert Carroll]

LSAT2HARD,

That just doesn't work here, because the stimulus imagines us regarding individual schools as separate cultures. By definition, anything outside an individual school is an outsider, then. If school officials are tailoring thing to "each individual school in the system," then at least some of them are outsiders for some of the schools they're directing things to. You can't get away from how the stimulus is stipulating what counts as an outsider - anything outside the individual school itself is an outsider.

Robert Carroll