LSAT - LOGICAL REASONING STUDY GUIDE
TEST WITH COMPLETE SOLUTIONS
Premise - ANSWER A fact, proposition or statement from which a conclusion is made
Conclusion - ANSWER A statement or judgment that follows from one or more reasons.
Conditional Reasoning - ANSWER A conditional statement is, in its most easily
recognized form, an "if...then..." statement. The following is, for example, a conditional
statement. Conditional statements are also described in terms of sufficient and
necessary conditions.
Sufficient - ANSWER An event or circumstance whose occurrence indicates that a
necessary condition must also occur.
Necessary - ANSWER An event or circumstance whose occurrence is required in order
for a sufficient condition to occur.
Explain Sufficient Necessary - ANSWER If a sufficient condition occurs, you
automatically know that the necessary condition also occurs. If a necessary condition
occurs, then it is possible that the sufficient condition will occur, but not certain.
Example of Sufficient Necessary - ANSWER Banging my shin on the table is all that is
needed for me to scream in pain (i.e. it is sufficient), so banging my shin is considered
the sufficient condition. I cannot bang my shin on the table without screaming in pain
(screaming necessarily follows the banging of my shin), so screaming in pain is the
necessary condition. You should be fine if you can simply remember that the
antecedent (the phrase following the "if") is the sufficient condition for the consequent
(the phrase following the "then") and the consequent is the necessary condition for the
antecedent.
Contra-positive - ANSWER a conditional statement derived from another by negating
and interchanging antecedent and consequent
Premise Indicators - ANSWER Because
Since
For
For example
For that reason that In that
Given that
As indicated by
Due to
Owing to
