- Wed May 15, 2019 4:59 pm
#64799
Hi Courtney,
On average, around 15% of LR question stimuli will be based around conditional logic, so somewhere between 6 and 9 LR questions on an exam. However, that only includes the questions that are directly testing your knowledge of conditionality (ie chains and/or contrapositives). Assumption and Justify questions are based around conditionality, as they are Necessary and Sufficient conditions for the stimulus's conclusion to be true, respectively. And the Grouping as well as some Hybrid games feature conditionality prominently as well. So mastering conditionality is a critical part of mastering the LSAT, and, like the Logic Games, tends to be difficult at first as it is very alien and abstract to students. However, again like the games, conditionality can quickly go from being a weakness to a strength, as the inherent certainty leaves no room for doubt and allows us to quickly zoom in on correct answer choices.
As for the time it takes to diagram, at this learning stage take as much time as you need. As you improve and grow more comfortable with this type of logic, most conditionals (outside of complex chain relationships) won't need to be diagrammed, but rather can be processed in one's mind alone. Of course, this does require plenty of practice before reaching this point, but it's definitely achievable and I've seen it happen for many students, even those who struggled mightily with it at first.
More broadly, the LSAT is designed to be a skills test to measure how efficiently (speed + accuracy) one is at reasoning through the types of issues that lawyers deal with on a daily basis. Conditional reasoning is a part of all laws: either one's conduct has met the elements of a crime/cause of action, or they haven't. Understanding the if-then relationships in the law is crucial to efficiently being able to determine whether a client has a viable case or not. And that requires a good grasp of conditional reasoning, so the work you do now will pay off later, not just in your LSAT score but in your career as well.
Hope this helps!
