This is a continuation of the Simple Guide on Principle Questions. I recommend familiarizing yourself with the concepts discussed there. Note that this guide does not touch on Sufficient Assumption questions where the answer choices (AC) are in the format of a principle. I take those questions as better served by the Sufficient Assumption Guide. In this guide, we are focusing on identifying, matching, or spotting the violation of a principle. We will either have a principle in the stimulus that we need to apply to the ACs, or we will have to select a fitting principle for the stimulus from the ACs.
Table of Contents:
First, we have questions where we are given a principle in the stimulus and have to find the AC that “most conforms” to it or violates it. Trouble here usually stems from failing to spot a subtle factor that eliminates an AC. Second, we have questions where we need to identify and extract the best principle from the information in the stimulus. They often will add out-of-scope information to render an AC false that would otherwise be perfect. Students typically get tripped up in both of these subtypes in one of two ways. The first and obvious one is mistakes in attention to detail. Second, and specific to Principle questions, is failing to identify whether a principle conforms, violates, or has no effect on the scenario described.
Many students have no problem identifying if a variable is necessary or sufficient, but often fail to apply the concept to Principle questions. Do not be the peak on the Dunning-Kruger scale.
If the principle in the stimulus is conditional, an AC concluding that the sufficient condition was met can never be justified or violated by the principle. The same applies to concluding that the necessary condition was not met (that is the sufficient condition in the contrapositive). Knowing this can save us a lot of time. Think about whether each application conforms or violates both principles below:
1) Whenever I have a car, I will go to work
2) When I don’t have a car, I don’t go to work
If this was obvious to you, move on. If not, you might want to spend more time practicing how to apply necessary/sufficient as it shows up on the LSAT. This closely relates to understanding and applying the contrapositive. Being fluent in these concepts will save a lot of time on Principle questions.
Take a look at:
Let’s check out “extract” questions where we must identify the principle from a stimulus. Generally, the correct AC will be a summary of the author’s reasoning, universalized. Trap ACs will often seem perfect yet harbor something subtle that disqualifies them.
1) Many will seem similar, and students struggle to identify why an AC is incorrect.
2) Like other question types, read carefully and look for keywords that might render the remaining contender ACs incorrect.
Take a look at:
A common question I get regards what it means to conform. Is it merely not to violate, or does it imply actively following a set of rules? On questions where we need to match if a passage conforms to a principle, we need the principle to actually justify the reasoning, not merely avoid conflicting with it.
The most important takeaway here was mentioned in the Necessary/Sufficient section, but it bears repeating. For a conditional principle to conform to a passage, it needs to correctly apply the logic in one of these ways:
1) Concludes that the necessary condition is present from the premise that the sufficient condition is present
2) Concludes that the sufficient condition is absent from the premise that the necessary condition is absent
Now, the next two kinds of ACs can be immediately disqualified, as it is impossible for the applied logic to lead to them:
1) Concludes that the sufficient condition is present
2) Concludes that the necessary condition is absent
For a practical example, lots of stimuli look like “In X situations, people ought to do Y”. Let’s say we have the following principle:
During emergencies, all people are obligated to try to help others.
Which of the following conform to the principle (select all that apply):
A) Lisa is a doctor, so she needs to try to save the man having a heart attack.
B) Lisa has no ethical duty to treat her patient’s high blood pressure, since it won’t start to cause issues for another 10 years.
C) Lisa always fulfills her ethical duties, so abruptly leaving her current patient means there must have been an emergency for her to attend to.
D) That boy's fainting must not have been an emergency, since Lisa was nearby but clearly had no obligation to try to help him.
E) That boy's fainting must not have been a true emergency, since his doctor, Lisa, didn’t think anybody needed to help.
A) Yes, it concludes that the necessary condition is present from the premise that the sufficient condition is present.
B) No, it concludes that the necessary condition is absent.
C) No, it concludes that the sufficient condition is present.
D) Yes, it concludes that the sufficient condition is absent from the premise that the necessary condition is absent.
E) No, shift in scope.
I hope this exercise was helpful. The specific thought I have upon seeing the two kinds of ACs that can be instantly DQ’d is “Pfft, you can’t tell me that”. I.e., there is no way to conclude it from the information provided, I don’t care what your evidence is.
