Sufficient Assumption Forum

[farman]

Does anyone have any tips for solving these problems? They are my worst performance wise (I get about only 60% correct on timed preptests) and it's driving me nuts! I usually elect to skip them as they tend to be a time drain, especially if they're a higher number problem in LR, but if I'm shooting for 170 I can't afford to be doing that!

[scalawag]

Make flashcards for the sufficient and necessary terms. These are inconclusive but

sufficient
When
If
Only
Any
Each
In order to
Every
Whenever
People who


Necessary
Without
All
Required
Only if
Until
Must
Unless
Except
Then

If unless, except until or without indicates a necessary condition you must negate the sufficient condition.

I'm assuming you know how to do the contrapositive.

Also connect common terms to make one statement, if possible.

[sox49]

there are some great folks on here that will probably give way better help than i will. but i will give it a shot

a sufficient assumption question is asking you to fill very specific gap in the argument which, if given, would guarantee the truth of the conclusion. that is, it is an assumption that in an of itself (and of course the reasoning in the stimulus) is enough (or sufficient) to make the conclusion true.

so if the argument is:

premise: sally lacks respect for people
conclusion: sally is abad person

so you are missing the assumption that having a lack of respect means you are a bad person, or in Lsat words lacking respect for someone is sufficient to guarantee you are a bad person.

this is super simple and I'm sure you are having trouble with the more complex questions. but it is imperative that you understand the structure of the argument in order to find the gap in the reasoning (this is true for most questions on the lsat i find). what has helped me and what i would recommend would be drilling where you diagram each argument, no matter how simple. and don't worry about time. speed comes with ease. i really feel that the lsat so much about the mechanics of logic and reasoning that once for each question you unpack those elements for yourself you have done the heavy lifting.

as the above post states, get down your conditional reasoning mechanics. many sufficient assumption questions will operate using conditional logic so it is very important that you can wield it without uncertainty. it is extremely important in a significant amount of the more complex and lengthy stimuli.

sufficient assumption questions are just a specific way of testing the same thing that so many other parts of the test do: gaps in logic and reasoning. so my suggestion is taking a lot of time learning how to unpack arguments and lay them out clearly for yourself either mentally or by diagramming them. this will benefit you in other areas as well. no matter where you are in your prep it is absolutely never too late to go back and make sure the basics are down.

[Christine (MLSAT)]

Can you give us a little more information on what exactly is giving you so much trouble on these? Do you stumble on the ones that have a ton of conditional logic going on? Or do you just have trouble identifying the disconnect when the language gets dense?

What's your current way of thinking about SA questions? You might be doing something that is hamstringing you - if you lay out your process, maybe we can help you find what it is.

Can you give a few examples of ones that are typical problem children for you?