April 2016 – Law and Logic

How to Find the Conclusion

The first thing I teach new LSAT students to do is “find the conclusion.” That’s because every logical reasoning question on the LSAT is about a logical argument, and every logical argument combines premises into a conclusion. The conclusion of an LSAT stimulus is what the whole paragraph is about.

Every word, clause, and sentence in a stimulus relates to the conclusion in some way. Typical sentences may introduce the topic to be discussed, provide evidence supporting the conclusion, acknowledge weak points, or describe competing views, but they all contribute to the argument in some way. Once you locate the conclusion, the rest of the paragraph generally falls into place.

So–how does one find this conclusion? More specifically, how does someone who is brand new to the LSAT and completely unfamiliar with logic find the conclusion? This post provides a toolbox of “find the conclusion” tips and techniques.

The “why” test. This is the least useful technique for beginners, but the most useful technique for advanced students. The conclusion is the statement in the stimulus that requires explanation. That makes sense, because every other word in the stimulus provides the explanation that is required.
Conclusion Keywords. The easiest technique is to look for keywords like “therefore,” “thus,” “hence,” “so,” “it follow that,” “and so we see,” “clearly,” and so forth. Most LSAT prep materials provide a comprehensive list of typical conclusion keywords. Be careful about relying too heavily on these keywords, however, especially in a “main point” question where your only job is to find the conclusion. There can be more than one conclusion in an argument, and “main point” questions are notorious for packing them in!
Eliminate the Evidence. Evidence is generally easier to spot than the conclusion. There are evidence keywords (“because,” “for,” “for example,” “since,” etc.) that always introduce a reason for something. (Remember: the conclusion is what makes you ask “why,” so the evidence provides the reasons.) Even without an evidence keyword, you can usually tell evidence because it seems non-controversial. Nobody asks “why” two plus two equals four. It just does. If something is presented as a given, it’s evidence. Once you exclude all the evidence in a stimulus, it’s much easier to pick the conclusion out of what is left.
The position principle. The average writer either starts a paragraph with the point he or she is trying to make, or ends with it. The first and last sentences are emphatic, and most writers want to emphasize the point they are trying to make. Unless someone is trying to bury the conclusion (which LSAT writers often do!), it will typically come first or last.
Sentence type. Kaplan Publishing notes that almost all LSAT conclusions fall into the following six categories: predictions, comparisons, recommendations, judgments, affirmations, or if/then statements. Affirmations (“the sky is blue”), comparisons (“Bob is taller than Sue”) and if/then statements (“If it rains, I get wet”) appear frequently in logical arguments, but the other three categories are rare. If you see a prediction, recommendation, or judgment in a stimulus, it is likely to be the conclusion.
The “some people say” principle. I have written elsewhere about the fact that other people’s statements in an LSAT stimulus almost always point at the conclusion. The conclusion, in almost every case, denies what “some people say.” The conclusion may be as short as “But they are wrong” or as complex as “Romantics who claim that people are not born evil but may be made evil by the imperfect institutions that they form cannot be right.”

The “Should” Principle

The first skill I teach new students is to “find the conclusion.” This is essential but not easy. Until they develop an intuitive sense of what a conclusion is and how it relates to the argument as a whole, students need external cues to help them find the conclusion. One of those cues is what I call the “should” principle.

The “Should” Principle: if the word “should” appears in a stimulus, it will probably appear in the conclusion.

This is a “principle,” not a “rule, because it is not always and necessarily reliable. I haven’t gone through every PrepTest yet. I’m eager to find some counterexamples so that I can refine the principle a little. As of now, however, I have not found a single stimulus with the word “should” in it that doesn’t have “should” in the conclusion. (If you can find a counterexample, please identify it in the comments!)

There are two different reasons for this principle. The word “should” appears in moral arguments but not in factual arguments. One would expect the word “should” throughout a moral argument, especially in the conclusion.

We should obey the law.
The law says we should not drive faster than the speed limit.
THEREFORE, we should not drive faster than the speed limit.

Explicitly moral arguments are relatively rare, however. Arguments about facts are much more common. In real life and on the LSAT, however, a argument about the facts usually has a higher purpose. People may debate whether it will rain this afternoon, but not because they’re abstractly interested in the weather. What they really want to know is whether to cancel the picnic.

Kaplan’s LSAT Premier Chapter 9 lists six types of conclusions: value judgments, if/then conditionals, predictions, comparisons, assertions, and recommendations. When an argument about facts leads to a prediction, judgment, or recommendation, it may easily result in “should.”

The word “should” appears in six stimuli in the June 2007 PrepTest (the only test that is publicly accessible). All instances obey the “should” principle.

Section II, Question 10: “should” appears twice in this moral argument.
Section II, Question 16: “should” in the conclusion of “Sandra’s” short argument.
Section II, Question 17: “should” is the recommendation after a factual argument.
Section II, Question 20: “One should not assume” is the conclusion.
Section III, Question 14: “should” only appears once in this moral argument, in the conclusion.
Section III, Question 20: “should” is a recommendation.

A word of caution is in order–the “should” principle is a fast way to find the conclusion, but it is not a reliable indicator of the right answer. The LSAT is full of synonyms for “should.” For example, Section II, Question 10 is a “Main Point” question where the conclusion in the stimulus is “Double-blind techniques should be used whenever possible in scientific experiments.” The correct answer is, “It is advisable for scientists to use double-blind techniques in as high a proportion of their experiments as they can.”

Summing this up in LSAT terminology, “should” is a sufficient condition for a conclusion, but not a necessary condition.

That still doesn’t mean that every sentence with a “should” in it is a conclusion–the principle is narrower and more specific. If the word “should” only appears once in a stimulus, then it is in the conclusion. If “should” appears twice (or more) in a stimulus, then it will be in the conclusion as well as in a premise.

The “Some People Say” Principle

I teach my students to “find the conclusion” as their top priority in answering any LSAT logical reasoning question. That means sifting through the “evidence” in a stimulus to find the main point of the paragraph. In doing so, they often run across sentences that are neither evidence nor the conclusion. One recurring pattern is a sentence near the start of the stimulus that presents some other person’s position on the topic at hand. I call these the “some people say” statements. Here is an example:

It is now a common complaint that the electronic media have corroded the intellectual skills required and fostered by the literary media. But several centuries ago the complaint was that certain intellectual skills, such as the powerful memory and extemporaneous eloquence that were intrinsic to oral culture, were being destroyed by the spread of literacy. So, what awaits us is probably a mere alteration of the human mind rather than its devolution. [June 2007 PrepTest, Section II, Question 11, emphasis supplied.]

The “common complaint” in this stimulus is not the author’s own view, so it isn’t the conclusion. It’s more like the opposite. After reviewing many LSAT questions, I have found that the actual conclusion of the paragraph usually rejects or revises what “some people say.” In fact, the fastest way to find the conclusion may to underline what “some people say” and then negate it.

Let’s test this with all the “some people say” questions on the only publicly available LSAT test (June 2007), beginning with Section II, Question 11 which I quoted above.

Some people say: “electronic media have corroded the intellectual skills required and fostered by the literary media.”

Negation: electronic media have not corroded these intellectual skills.

Conclusion: “what awaits us is probably a mere alteration of the human mind rather than its devolution.”

Section II, Question 16 is a “point of disagreement” question. Taylor, the first speaker, quotes “researchers at a local university.”

Researchers at a university say: “61 percent of information is communicated through nonverbal signals.”

Negation: It is not true that 61 percent of information is communicated through nonverbal signals.

Conclusion: “This claim, like all such mathematically precise claims, is suspect.”

Section II, Question 17 quotes “several computer experts,” but their words are used to support the main argument. This is “evidence,” not what I call “some people say” statements.

Section II, Question 20:

Muñoz says: “the Southwest Hopeville Neighbors Association overwhelmingly opposes the new water system, citing this as evidence of citywide opposition.”

Negation: The SHNA does not overwhelmingly oppose the new system.

Conclusion: “One should not assume that so few votes represent the view of the majority of Hopeville’s residents.”

Section II, Question 21:

My friends say: “I will one day have an accident because I drive my sports car recklessly.”

Negation: I will not have an accident because I drive my sports car recklessly.

Conclusion: “trading my sports car in for a minivan would lower my risk of having an accident.”

Note: this is the only example in this PrepTest where the conclusion is not logically identical to the negation of what “some people say.”

Section III, Question 5:

An early entomologist says: “ants were bringing food to their neighbors.”

Negation: ants were not bringing food to their neighbors.

Conclusion: “the early entomologist was wrong.”

Section III, Question 9:

Recent claims: “the Tasmanian tiger is not extinct.”

Negation: the Tasmanian tiger is extinct.

Conclusion: “recent claims that the Tasmanian tiger is not extinct are false.”

Repeated conclusion: “the Tasmanian tiger no longer exists.”

Section III, Question 19 begins with “Many candidates say that if elected they will reduce governmental intrusion into voters’ lives.” This is a promise of future action, not a statement that can be negated. As a result, this is not an example of the “some people say” rule.

Section III, Question 24:

Romantics claim: “people are not born evil but may be made evil by the imperfect institutions that they form.”

Negation: people are born evil or people are not made evil by the imperfect institutions that they form.

Conclusion: “Romantics who claim that people are not born evil but may be made evil by the imperfect institutions that they form cannot be right.”

Section III, Question 25:

Some anthropologists claim: “the human species could not have survived prehistoric times if the species had not evolved the ability to cope with diverse natural environments.”

Negation: the human species could have survived prehistoric times if the species had not evolved the ability to cope with diverse natural environments.

Conclusion: “the anthropologists’ claim is false.”

The bottom line: the vast majority of “some people say” statements point right towards the conclusion. You need to exercise a little caution with this–the “some people say” phenomenon is not some rule of logic that is always necessarily true. Think of it as a principle, not a rule. But if finding the conclusion is still hard for you, the “some people say” principle may help you find it faster!