Question about Multiple Negatives in Stimulus

[JFrank93]

Hello,

Hope all is well. I am reaching out after continually having some confusion about stimuli that contain multiple negatives, such as "not" or "no." I noticed that I am consistently confused by these questions, and wanted to know if Powerscore had an approach to attack these kind of problems. I usually flip a statements with two negatives to a positive, but I become confused if there are three or more. I don't have a specific question on hand, but the blog below brings up the issue I'm struggling with:

https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/lsat-l ... ifficulty2

Is there an advisable way to attack a question with multiple negatives? Sorry for not providing a specific example

[Adam Tyson]

Thanks for the question, JFrank93, and I'll be happy to help. The link you shared didn't work for me, so if you can find the title of that blog post and/or the date it was posted, we can look into it further, but meanwhile it sounds to me like you are talking about claims that sound something like this:

"It's not possible to never be sad about not getting what you want."

In cases like this, you have a few options available. You could try mechanically approaching the double negatives, turning them into positives. Here, I might start that process at the beginning of the sentence, like this:

"not possible to never be sad" = not never sad (or if you prefer, never sad) = sometimes sad

Translation: "sometimes you're sad about not getting what you want"

Another approach is less mechanical and more holistic. Ask yourself what the author really means here. He's trying to tell us that when you don't get what you want, then at least some of that time you will be sad. Sadness is at least sometimes required. It cannot be completely avoided.

Ultimately, these two approaches are the doing the same thing - translating the sentence into something simpler to digest that retains the original meaning. I suggest the holistic approach more frequently than the mechanical one, because it's too easy to get caught up in the linguistic mechanics and lose sight of the goal. Break down the claims that you are struggling with and see if you can paraphrase them in simpler language without altering their original meaning.

If you find any specific examples, let us know and we will help walk you through the process, but try it on your own a bit first, using whichever method you prefer (or even try both, to compare results). We'll be here when you're ready!

[Katty_05]

Hello Adam. Can you share or refer to drills to get good in double or tripple negatives?

[KelseyWoods]

Hi Katty_05!

I don't believe we have any drills specifically focused on double/multiple negatives. But here are a of couple resources you might be interested in:

1. Here's the blogpost on double and multiple negatives that I think the original poster was trying to link to: https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/lsat-l ... fficulty2/

2. Here's another forum thread where someone asked about double/multiple negatives with multiple responses from PowerScore instructors providing additional examples and ways to practice with multiple negatives: viewtopic.php?t=26972

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[lsathelpwanted]

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

Thank you for posting those links Kelsey. I'm laughing at myself here, but I'll ask anyway although I am honestly not sure what I'm asking other than confirmation of understanding. I know what double negatives are. But have never thought about them like this before.

(for simplicity's sake, I'll use acquittal for not guilty, and conviction for guilty) Also, pardon the absurdity of my example. It did make me laugh.

My client is not guilty. -Acquittal
My client is not not guilty. -Conviction
My client is not, not not guilty. -Acquittal
My client is not, not, not not guilty. -Conviction

So could I:

Any time the number of negative modifiers is:
odd: the word IS modified. ie, Not Guilty
even: is NOT modified. ie, Guilty

DO you think the odd/even thing could work in the LSAT? I haven't come across many multiple negatives yet, but I know it won't be like the not guilty example. I would assume they use negatives to modify multiple differing words/ideas/concepts within the same sentence, you're not sure what is even really being modified much less by how much. I'm sure they can get all crazy.

Thanks!

[Robert Carroll]

lsat,

Typically, the LSAT is not going to straight-up negate things multiple times, and probably won't have too many double negations, much less any higher number.

I think the most complicated thing you're likely to see, which I adapted from a real answer choice, is something like this:

"A potential error in your application should not be left uncorrected unless you inform the admissions committee of the error."

This is a statement using the word "unless", so it's a conditional and we use the Unless Equation to diagram it. The necessary condition is the part modified by "unless", and the rest of the statement should be negated. That means I have to negate "an error not being left uncorrected". "Not" and "uncorrected" are both already negative, and I have to add another negation to that! Let's untangle it: "not being left uncorrected" = "being corrected". Remember, though, we have to negate this, so we add a negative: "not being corrected." So our conditional:

an error is not corrected you inform the admission committee

Because the Unless Equation made me negate something that was already a double negative, this involves a triple negative, which cancels out to a single negative.

Your rule (even negations = positive, odd negations = negative) is accurate. You just need to make sure you know what the scope of the negation is. In my example, for instance, I was negating half of the statement, not the entire thing - I had to negate the part NOT modified by "unless" because that's what the Unless Equation says to do. So, when the scopes of negations are identical, your rule for eliminating double (and higher number) negations should work to rephrase those scopes.

Robert Carroll

[lsathelpwanted]

You just need to make sure you know what the scope of the negation is. In my example, for instance, I was negating half of the statement, not the entire thing

Hi Robert,

The last part of my post was my way of trying to describe exactly what I "quoted" from your post. You did a much better job of it than I did. I won't rely on the odd/even unless it is the exact same concept/word being negated. Thank you.