Conditional Reasoning PLEASE HELP

[Bmill05]

I am currently in a Power Score class, however I am struggling with conditional reasoning. Specifically with identifying sufficient and necessary conditions consistently. I did really well on the mini drills in the course book and the questions in the course book, however, when I work on the homework drills or take practice exams my consistency goes out the window. On similar questions I do really well on half and the other half incorrectly diagram it while thinking I did it correctly. So I reread the lesson and rewatch the recap videos and I get it again. Then a few days later I start failing half of them again.

I do not have this problem with conditional reasoning in logic games. And I do not understand why with the reasoning sections I continue to mix it up if I do not reread the chapter before attempting anything. It's negatively affecting my performance on the test as well because it is making me spend even more time than I have before.

Are there any additional identifying drills I can practice to help? Like just sentences where I practice identifying sufficient versus necessary. Any other advice to help me over this mountain would be appreciated.

[Adam Tyson]

I feel your pain, Bmill05! Learning conditional reasoning is a lot like learning to ride a bike: we fall and scrape our knees a lot at first, and then later we get the hang of it, after which it's almost never a problem again. You're still scraping your knees, but don't worry, you will get the hang of it soon!

I suggest starting by pure memorization of the common conditional indicators, which you'll find in Lesson 2 in our course. Try creating flashcards for yourself: one side of a card says "if" and the other says "Sufficient Condition indicator; the condition goes on the left side of the arrow," etc. Drill on those until they are second nature and you instantly recognize them in any LR stimulus and know where to put the conditions in the diagram.

Another thing to work on is reminding yourself that the conditions can appear in any order in the sentence. Consider these two statements:

1. If I eat another piece of pie I will feel too full.

2. I will feel too full if I eat another piece of pie.

These two statements both include "if" as a sufficient condition indicator, and that "if" refers to "I eat another piece of pie." That means the sufficient condition is the same in both statements! These two statements are exactly the same, logically speaking, and therefore have identical diagrams. Both of them are:

I eat another piece of pie I will feel too full

Check your past work to see if you might be allowing the order in which the conditions appear to influence the way you are diagramming them. If so, that's a relatively easy thing to fix. Focus on the indicators, rather than the order, and arrange them so that you always put the sufficient condition before the arrow and the necessary condition after it, regardless of how they appeared in the stimulus.

Finally, try paraphrasing the conditional relationships that you encounter in the stimulus by putting them all in terms of "if...then," and make sure that the meaning of the paraphrased relationship is the same as the meaning of the original claim. So for example, if you encounter this statement:

Americans look forward to seeing the Northern Lights whenever they travel to Scandinavia, Finland, or Iceland.

Paraphrase it this way:

If Americans travel to Scandinavia, Finland, or Iceland, then they look forward to seeing the Northern Lights.

("Whenever" is a sufficient condition indicator, so that becomes the "if" portion of the paraphrase.)

From there it's an easy step to set up the conditional relationship, with the "if" portion on the left and the "then" portion on the right. And you'll see that it captures the original meaning of the sentence this way and makes more sense than if you had instead said to yourself "if Americans look forward to seeing the Northern Lights then they travel to Scandinavia, Finland, or Iceland."

Give all that a try and see if you start to feel more like you are riding a bike, and less like you are wobbling along in fear of falling and scraping your knees. Good luck, keep at it, you'll get there!

[Bmill05]

Thanks for the tips Adam! I made some flashcards and will study those while I review my past mistakes to find the pattern in my errors. I like the If then paraphrasing suggestion a lot!