Having trouble with conditional reasoning

[Vishmaram94]

Dear PowerScore Staff
I am currently in week three of my LSAT prep using the recommended PowerScore materials and 4 month study plan. I am having a few problems with conditional reasoning and hope you can give me some pointers. First off, ever since learning the chapter, I tend to look for conditionality everywhere and sometimes feel like I see it even when it’s unnecessary (costing me precious time on questions).
Secondly, even when there is conditionality it takes me quite a bit of time to work out the elements of it (necessary vs sufficient, contrapositives and wrong answer choices). Can you give me some pointers or things I can practice to get better at these particular issues? I would greatly appreciate it
Thank you !!

[Vishmaram94]

Just to add to the above, If we see a stimulus with a string of connected conditional statements, would you recommend diagramming in that case ?

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Vishmaram,

Thanks for the questions! This is a topic that has come up a lot on our forum and blog, and so I'm going to start by referring you to a set of articles to read that I believe will help quite a bit. Then, if you have questions afterwards, just add them here and we'll help you out with them.

For further discussions of conditional reasoning, including an analysis of intuition vs technical knowledge, I'm going to refer you to a variety of resources here that you may find helpful:

• Avoid Real World Interpretations and Follow the Language: http://forum.powerscore.com/lsat/viewto ... p=216#p216
  
  One More Look on what Sufficient and Necessary Means (this is key so that when indicators aren't present, we know what we're doing): http://forum.powerscore.com/lsat/viewto ... 6166#p6166
  
  LSAT Conditional Reasoning: When To Diagram: http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid/333 ... To-Diagram
  
  The PowerScore LSAT Blog, Conditional Reasoning articles - http://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/topic/l ... -reasoning. We write often about this concept, and there are over 20 articles here discussions all sorts of interesting conditional language and arrow relationships.
  
  My posts on this Forum, all searchable: lsat/search.php?author_id=63&sr=posts

This is just a small selection of the items we've published on this topic, so I encourage you to go beyond these and explore even more. I frequently write about conditional reasoning since it's so prevalent on the LSAT, so if you search my posts you can find me talking about it quite a bit.

Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!

[Vishmaram94]

Thank you for the reply, these links are indeed very informative.
When it comes to the one about conditional statements and how they can be equated with dominos, would you suggest diagramming every time we see a stimulus that has more than two conditions linked together ? aka do you think it would save time/waste time in this situation ?

[Dave Killoran]

Thank you for the reply, these links are indeed very informative.
When it comes to the one about conditional statements and how they can be equated with dominos, would you suggest diagramming every time we see a stimulus that has more than two conditions linked together ? aka do you think it would save time/waste time in this situation ?

Hi Vishmaram,

Read the articles linked above—this is a point addressed several times within what I've written There is no specific yes or no answer; it typically depend\s on the context of the problem, but the clearest criterion is whether you think it will help you keep the ideas straight. That takes time and experience. So, what I'd say for now is diagram things until they are clear, but over time you will find yourself diagramming less as you become more comfortable. I will say this: not every statement needs to be diagrammed, but again, I cover that in the articles and statements above.

Thanks!