LSAT Logical Reasoning 1c - Evaluating Arguments

In the previous video we introduced arguments in their structure, and in this video we're going to

introduce our process our our approach to evaluating arguments, and this process is going to

form the basis for our approach to different question types in the argument section. Okay, so

taking a look at this argument, it says,

“Every year, new reports appear concerning the health risks posed by certain substances, such

as coffee and sugar. One year an article claimed that coffee is dangerous to one's health. the

next year another article argued that coffee has some benefits for one's health. From these

contradictory opinions, we see that experts are useless for guiding one one's decisions about

one's health.”

Okay so like I said in this lesson we're going to look at our approach for evaluating arguments,

and when you evaluate an argument you assess its content and its structure and that puts you in a

much better position to answer the question correctly. Now in order to usefully evaluate

arguments for the section of the test you will need to follow basically a three step process.

1. You need to determine what the conclusion is and what the premises are

2. You need to analyze the structure of reasoning

3. And you need to analyze the premises and conclusion

Now this is presented as a as a step by step process, but in reality this approach towards the

arguments passages will become ingrained and automatic.

Okay so the first step in in valuing arguments is to determine what the conclusion is and what the

premises are and in order to do that you simply summarize the argument quickly into one

sentence just to get its its core idea its core essence. So don't diagram the argument out next to
the passage you won't have time to do that. You need to summarize with the conclusion first and

because giving the support. Now that's easiest it's easiest to remember that way if you just start

off your sentence with the conclusion followed by the cause followed by the sort of support.

If it helps you can also label the conclusion by underlining it or putting it in brackets. Just so that

you have the the premises and the conclusion sub separate differentiated visually in front of you

on the on the test paper, and then once you're done you move on step two.

So quick summer here could be experts are useless for health because articles change from year

to year, and so you notice how the conclusion is first experts are useless for health, then we have

the because articles change from year to year, which is a summary of the different premises that

support that argument. That support that conclusion.

The next step is to analyze the structure of the argument, and there you're looking to see how the

premises a conclusion relate to one another and how the conclusion is supported. So you're

looking at the relationships between the statements that make up the argument.

How does the information in one premise tie into the information and the other premises?

How does the information the premises tie into the information in the conclusion?

Now, there are a wide variety of different ways in which arguments can different from one

another in their structure, but there are basic things to be aware of. The ways in which the

statements reference one another, are the abstractions, examples consequences, or negations of

one another? Things like that. Whether the statements form some sort of group whether you can

logically combine them? Are they alternatives or conditions for something?

Now this isn't an exhaustive list so you make sure to pay attention to the arguments as you're

studying for the test to develop your understanding of the ways in which the arguments are

structured. Structure is going to be important not just in the questions the deal explicitly with

argument structure, but having an understanding having an intuitive understanding of how an

argument is structured, will help you in evaluating it for every single question type.

Okay, so once you're done you move on to step three. So in this case the first premise is a

general fact, the next two premises, present specific examples of the situation from from the first

premise that appear contradictory, and the conclusion makes a claim based in this contradiction.

Now the third step is to analyze the premises in conclusion. How strongly the premises? Is the

information complete? Do the terms shift from premise to conclusion? And is the conclusion

reasonable? So you want to be aware of the strengths of the premises. The facts or opinions are

they credible are they from a good authority is there any bias are they reasonable and consistent

or are they extreme? So you need to be aware of the premises. You'll also need to look to see

how complete the information is in the premises in conclusion. Is there any relevant information

that isn't conveyed and are there any implied assumptions that need to be dealt with?

A shift in terms or problems with scope is when the premises are talking about one thing but the

conclusion is talking about something different.

And then finally you need to check the conclusion for reasonableness. So you need to look for

the adjectives and the qualifiers in the conclusion and what their degree is. Do they have an

extreme conclusion using extreme language based on support that isn't as extreme that doesn't

warrant that? So Looking at our premises we see that the three sentences before the conclusion

are presented as facts. But we're not presented with a credible Authority, and we see that the first
sentence is qualified been extreme adjectives, every it says that new reports appear every year.

This doesn't seem reasonable especially considering that it's not verified information. Also the

next two premises the coffee is dangerous in the coffee has some benefits are presented to show

that they're contradictory, thus leading to the conclusion that experts are useless. But the two

privacy's can go together: Something can be both dangerous and have benefits aspirin in large

quantities is dangerous but has a lot of benefits. And looking at our second question is the

information complete we can see that the premises deal with reports and articles but deal but the

conclusion deals with experts so there's some crucial information missing there to get from one

to the other. Now looking at our conclusion, it says the experts are useless for guiding one's

decisions about oneself. Now let's compare that to the premises. The premises say the new

reports appear every year that one year an article says the coffee is bad, and the next year another

article says the coffee is good. So the privacy's focus on reports and on articles, but do they

mention experts? No. The word experts appears for the first time in the conclusion. The premises

don't talk about experts, they talk about related concepts like reports and articles and we can

assume that experts are involved in the writing of reports and articles, but concluding the experts

are useless, we're going to use a different term. And that's something that will come up again and

again in the arguments in this section. The conclusion will have a related but slightly different

concept from the premises and you need to train yourself to see whether or not the premises

support what the conclusion is talking about or is the conclusion out of scope. so the conclusion

says that experts are useless for guiding one's decisions about one's health. the adjective that

immediately jumps out is useless. Because then lets you know how much you should trust

experts with decisions about your health. Useless doesn't allow any room for compromise. It's an

extreme adjective. Is that warranted by the inferring the premises? In this case the premises say
that each year there are articles about what substances are dangerous for you, that contradict the

articles from the previous year. Does that mean that experts are useless for guiding one's

decisions about oneself? No of course not maybe experts aren't involved in writing these articles.

Maybe not all experts agree with the contradictions, maybe there are decisions about your health

that don't deal with dangerous substances that experts all agree on. It will be way too drastic to

conclude that anything that an expert tells you, isn't useful simply because there are

contradictions in articles concerning dangerous substances. In this instance, it's unreasonable

given the premises.

Okay, so that's the basic approach to use when evaluating arguments. Now, it isn't meant to be a

checklist to rigorously go through for each question because that will be too time-consuming.

Instead it's it's a basic structure to internalize, to give you a framework for understanding and

evaluating the arguments. Now certain question types will require you to pay more attention to

the content of the premises in conclusion, and less to the structure and certain question types will

require you to pay more attention to the structure, and less to the content. And we'll go over that

as we introduce and explain the different question types.

Okay so to recap, when you evaluate an argument you assess its content and its structure and that

puts you in a much better position to answer the question correctly. To evaluate an argument unit

what the conclusion is what the premises are you analyze the structure of reasoning and you

analyze the premises and conclusion.