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Do you guys prefer to change the word to "if not" (making it a sufficient condition), or take it as a necessary condition, and then negate the other clause in the sentence?

I find the first method a bit convoluted, and sometimes sticky, whereas the 2nd method seems to work perfectly fine.

gnomgnomuch wrote:Do you guys prefer to change the word to "if not" (making it a sufficient condition), or take it as a necessary condition, and then negate the other clause in the sentence?

I find the first method a bit convoluted, and sometimes sticky, whereas the 2nd method seems to work perfectly fine.

I do the second method, but go with whatever is easiest for you to understand and remember.

I agree. Negating the first clause and keeping the "unless/without" clause in the necessary condition is my go-to method. The most important thing, however, is flexibility and an intuitive grasp of contapositives, especially in sufficient assumption questions and the occasional moment when "unless" indicators come up in LG rules.

I began my LSAT studies with a Blueprint course, so I've always used the "if not" method. That said, I really like it and don't find it to be convoluted - do you have any examples?

I do find that students sometimes don't realize that they may need to rearrange the sentence (so they'll diagram "X if not Y" as X --> ~Y), but that's more of a misunderstanding about sufficiency vs. necessity.