Necessary Assumption Forum

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fire_fried_rice

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Necessary Assumption

Post by fire_fried_rice » Fri Mar 02, 2018 10:17 pm

I just have a quick question regarding NA. Normally, I would solve the NA questions by using negation. I would first understand the core of the argument and then negate every AC and find one that destroys or wrecks the argument. Now, I understand the point of doing negation is a 'foolproof' method; you would actually find the answer and then conduct the negation 'just in case'. However, I feel that doing the negation test first seems to be pretty comfortable for me. Is this the 'right' way to do it? While there cannot be 'right or wrong' method, I just want to know if this is a valid and standard way of solving the question.

P.S. I actually have trouble doing negation on ACs that are "if ~ then". How do you negate those if statements? Examples would be really helpful!

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Bartlet4President

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Re: Necessary Assumption

Post by Bartlet4President » Sat Mar 03, 2018 1:42 pm

If you post an example (don’t take on from LSAC) I could probably have a better idea of what exactly you are talking about and go from there.

LSAT_Ninja_Tutor

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Re: Necessary Assumption

Post by LSAT_Ninja_Tutor » Mon Mar 05, 2018 2:06 pm

It costs you time to negate every answer choice. You should first eliminate answers that are definite losers. Then with the remaining answer choices, use negation. If you find that you are regularly unable to eliminate any answer choices, you probably don't have a solid handle on the argument core (premises and conclusion). If that's the case, practice writing out the argument core and compare your the answer choices to the argument core. It will take time, but students see improvements when they do this. This is something you would do during practice and not during a timed test.

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