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Course: LSAT > Unit 1
Lesson 3: Logical Reasoning: Video Lessons- Identify the conclusion | Video lesson
- Identify an entailment | Video lesson
- Strongly supported inferences | Video lesson
- Disputes | Video lesson
- Identify the technique | Video lesson
- Identify the role | Video lesson
- Identify the principle | Video lesson
- Match the structure | Video lesson
- Match principles | Video lesson
- Identify a flaw | Video lesson
- Match flaws | Video lesson
- Necessary assumptions | Video lesson
- Sufficient assumptions | Video lesson
- Strengthen | Video lesson
- Weaken | Video lesson
- Helpful to know | Video lesson
- Explain | Video lesson
- Resolve a conflict | Video lesson
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Identify the conclusion | Video lesson
Watch a demonstration of one way to approach a question that asks you to identify the conclusion of an argument on the Logical Reasoning section of the LSAT.
Want to join the conversation?
- I keep falling for the trap on this type of question. What is the a way to avoid the trap? When I did this question I ended selecting answer choice C. How do you prevent second guessing yourself on theses types of quesitons?(8 votes)
- What about the indicator word "must"?(4 votes)
- I first selected "B" and it make sense, then overthinking took over and I switched my answer to "C". "...Curiosity of others," although in an earlier sentence still remains a focal point in the conclusion.
Thank you for this video!(1 vote)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] This questions asks us, which one of the following
most accurately expresses the conclusion drawn
in the argument above? So we're looking at a task of
identifying the conclusion. That means that the answer
will be the main conclusion of the argument, and
the other four choices will be a claim that either
doesn't exist in the argument or does exist but it's
the evidence or background instead of the main conclusion. Go ahead and pause your video
now if you'd like to try this question on your
own, otherwise let's move on to the explanation. Okay, let's read the stimulus together. Don't concentrate on
the details or analyzing what the arguer is saying. I want you to just try to
decide whether each claim is supporting something
else or whether the claim is being supported. The passage reads, it is a
given that to be an intriguing person, one must be able to inspire the perpetual curiosity of others. Constantly broadening one's
abilities and extending one's intellectual reach will enable one to inspire that curiosity. For such a perpetual expansion
of one's mind makes it impossible to be fully comprehended, making one a constant mystery to others. This is in what we might
consider light reading. It's fairly abstract and
that can be distracting on test day. Hopefully you were able to
look for structural signals and other clues instead of really digging into what the meaning of it all is. Let's look at some signals together. The first sentence starts with the words, it is a given that. Well, that's probably not
gonna be our conclusion, because if something is a given, then that's not an opinion that someone is trying to argue for. Even if you don't agree that
what the arguer is saying is a given, the fact that
the arguer sees it as a given means that that's not the
thing he's trying to prove. It's more like background or context for what he is about to say. So our given is that you need
to inspire other people's curiosity if you want to be intriguing. Great. Now, what's the function
of the next sentence? It tells us a way that you'll be able to inspire that curiosity. Now this is more interesting to us, because we're being given a
method of doing something. It's almost like a recommendation. And then we hit a gold
mine on our last sentence, because it starts with the word for. The word for is used a lot
in writing to mean because. Or in this case it really
means that's because. Well, that's a strong strong indicator that this sentence supports
the previous sentence, because it explains why
something is the case. So we feel very certain that
the first claim is context, that the third sentence is evidence, and that the second sentence
is a borderline recommendation. It must be then that that second sentence is our main conclusion. The other claims in the passage support that second sentence. And the second sentence doesn't support or explain anything else. And that's the very definition
of a main conclusion. And that means we have
a specific prediction to head in to the choices with. You should expect to have a
specific prediction every time you tackle and identify the
conclusion question type. Alright, A reads, to be
an intriguing person, one must be able to inspire
the perpetual curiosity of others. Well, that matches the
first claim in the passage, which we already said was context since we're told that it's a given. We can quickly eliminate this choice. B tells us that constantly
broadening one's abilities and extending one's
intellectual reach will allow us to inspire the perpetual
curiosity of others. That's a match for the second claim, which we said was our main conclusion. So on test day we'll be
done with this question and very happy to take our point and run. Just briefly for the remaining choices, C says if one's mind becomes
impossible to fully comprehend, one will always be a mystery to others. That's part of the third claim,
which we know is evidence because we notice that it
starts with a signal word for. D is to inspire the perpetual
curiosity of others, one must constantly
broaden one's abilities and extend one's intellectual reach. Well, I'm glad that we would
have picked B and stopped on test day, because this choice has a lot of the right words. It's in the wrong structure,
but it's tempting nonetheless. This choice tells us that it's necessary to broaden your abilities and extend your intellectual reach. But the passage tells us
that broadening abilities and extending reach are sufficient. See that phrase, will enable? That indicates sufficiency. This choice has must,
which indicates necessity. It's so important to
not just look for words, but to also see the structure
of what's presented to you. Finally, E starts out great with, if one constantly broadens one's abilities and extends one's intellectual reach, that's a perfect match for the
first half of the conclusion. Unfortunately the choice ends with, one will always have curiosity. And that's not what the passage says. The passage's conclusion
is that these things will enable you to inspire the perpetual curiosity of others. Not to have curiosity yourself. So to recap, for identify
the conclusion questions, you need to determine which
claim is the one being supported by the other claims in the passage, and make sure that it doesn't
also support any other claims. Sometimes you can save
time if you just throw out everything that you know
is evidence or context, and then you're left with the conclusion. Notice that here we didn't
have any nice conclusion words like therefore or thus. But we did have good evidence
and context signal words, so we were still able to
see which claim is the one that represents what the
arguer is trying to prove.