PT 37 Sec. 2 Q 12 Forum

[Adinga]

Please, can anybody help me solve this one? It is from PT 37 Sec 2 Q 12. I just can't seem to wrap my head around it. I guess my main prob is stringing it up into the A---->B form. Thanks for the tip Daily Double.

[Daily_Double]

Delete most of your post, or paraphrase it or something. You can't quote test material. I'll answer it in a second.

[Daily_Double]

So we have an inference question. We know these questions usually contain formal or conditional logic. Let's see what we have:

prepare meal from bad food ----> ~(good meal)

produce food from bad soil ----> ~(good food)

maintain good soil ---> good farming ---> culture that places value blabblah

Unfortunately, these don't really appear to link up, they do, but I'l get to that in a second. Because the last conditional relationship is the longest, I expect the answer to come from it.

A: Let's see what this is saying. So we know that, from the contrapositive of the first conditional that:

Good meal ---> ~(prepared from bad food)

Now, using the contrapositive of the second premise, and adding it we have:

Good meal ---> ~(prepared from bad food = Good food) ---> ~(bad soil)

And we can add that to the last one:

Good meal ---> ~(prepared from bad food = Good food) ---> ~(bad soil = good soil)---> good farming ---> culture that places value blabblah

So yes, it would appear that good meals depend on nature and cultural things. However, I have an issue with this one. For this to work, we must assume that when something is not bad, that it is good. Which begs the question, is there some middle ground? This question would be much better if it was a MSS. But the other answers are clearly wrong due to mistaken logic and/or scope. So we're really left with A.

B: We don't have any info about natural resources, we know about good soil, but that's it. Eliminate.

C: Nope. Just because something is a sufficient condition doesn't mean it's a prerequisite. Actually I think it is the other way around. Prerequisite, means you must have this before that. In this case, you must actually have good farming before good soil

D: Wow. That's so far out of scope I'm surprised LSAC even wasted the ink.

E: No. We don't know about bad food, this sort of reverses the chain. The entire stimulus is about what is needed for good food.

Please, can anybody help me solve this one? It is from PT 37 Sec 2 Q 12. I just can't seem to wrap my head around it. I guess my main prob is stringing it up into the A---->B form. Thanks for the tip Daily Double.

Is your question more about expressing relationships in conditional form? Or moving from those conditional relationships to an inference?

[Adinga]

Thanks so much

[Adinga]

Yes, i would appreciate some help as pertains to this question, in expressing relationships in conditional form, if it's not too much trouble. Thanks.

[Daily_Double]

Yes, i would appreciate some help in expressing relationships in conditional form, if it's not too much trouble. Thanks.

Unfortunately, an adequate explanation of that would literally take me all day. And furthermore, I'm not sure I would do a perfect job of it. So instead, I'll recommend some links and text to help you out:

TLS Article on Conditional Logic
LSAT Blog's Tips
A Manhattan Question, also my first search on Google
Read the LRB'ssection on conditional logic, many people have negative things to say about powerscore, but their take on conditional logic, formal logic, and causation, which is the foundation of LR, is pure gold.

[Adinga]

I understand. Thanks, I will visit the sites for more help.