LSAT Logical Reasoning: Main Conclusion Questions

[Music] hi this is Matt at LSAT lab and today&#39;s lesson is on main conclusion questions in the logical reasoning section they&#39;re about 4 percent of all logical reasoning questions so it&#39;s not a major question type but it is an important one because it&#39;s a core skill you need to be able to find the conclusion in order to evaluate arguments in this question type our entire goal is to simply find the conclusion of the argument in this lesson we&#39;re going to cover how to spot a main conclusion question what the process is for approaching 1 is what are some of the different types of conclusions we expect to see on the LSAT and then what are the trap answer patterns that you need to be aware of on this particular question type in this question stem were asked which one of the following most accurately expresses the main conclusion of argument the language in here that tells us that we&#39;re looking at a main conclusion question is pretty obvious its main conclusion in this question stem it asks which one of the following most active expresses the conclusion drawn in the argument so it&#39;s here it&#39;s not asking for the main conclusion but it is asking for the conclusion the conclusion is a sign that you&#39;re looking at a main conclusion question if it ever asks you for a conclusion that can be inferred that&#39;s a must be true question and you&#39;ll be looking at the definite article ah a conclusion that can be inferred but if it ever asks you to find the conclusion drawn that&#39;s a main conclusion question asking you to find the main conclusion of the argument the process that you want to take when approaching a main conclusion question is to first identify what you think is the conclusion make sure that you understand what the evidence is that&#39;s used to support that conclusion this way it&#39;ll help you identify whether the conclusion you initially identified is actually the main conclusion or maybe it&#39;s an intermediate inclusion along the way then once you have organized the argument you can anticipate what the answer would sound like and use trap answer patterns to make eliminations as you work through the choices a common way that we find conclusions on the LSAT is to use language cues words like therefore or hence words that help us organize arguments these words here help you identify conclusions they directly introduce a conclusion you can&#39;t guarantee that it&#39;s the main conclusion but you do know that it is a conclusion maybe it&#39;s an intermediate inclusion maybe it&#39;s the main conclusion but at least you&#39;re heading down the right track of finding the conclusion these words here help you identify the evidence and they can also help you identify what the conclusion is in that these claims are supporting the conclusion so if you know that this claim here that&#39;s being introduced by one of these words is supporting another claim then you know that that other claim is that is a conclusion these words here are introducing claims that provide support these words help you identify a pivot in the argument and a pivot is when the argument opposes another argument so the argument is designed to refute someone&#39;s statement as opposed to assert something positively to be true you use pivots to help you identify the author&#39;s position as opposed to the opposing position usually these words help you identify that you&#39;re moving away from the opposing point and into the author&#39;s point here&#39;s an example question go ahead and give this one a try and when you think you&#39;ve got the right answer hit play again and we&#39;ll work it through together all right welcome back in this one the question stem asks us to find the conclusion so we know we&#39;re looking for the main point and then we have some paleontologists have suggested that Apatosaurus a huge dinosaur was able to gallop some paleontologists have suggested notice how the author is attributing this view to the paleontologists then it goes on to say this however is unlikely and that however is the pivot and this is unlikely seems to be refuting the paleontologists suggestion and then we get this claim that begins with because which is introducing support for the previously stated position followed by this other information experiments with modern bones show how much strain they can withstand before braking by taking into account the diameter and density of Apatosaurus leg bones it is possible to calculate that those bones could not have withstood this trains of galloping this idea is used to support the point that galloping would probably have broken Apatosaurus legs so what we have here in the green is the evidence that is unsupported in the blue we have a conclusion that is being supported by the claims in green and in the red we have the author&#39;s main point in yellow we have the opposing point and now that we understand the entire argument we can anticipate the right answer the right answer should say something like this however is unlikely and if we can&#39;t remember what this is it&#39;s referring back to the previous statement the statement that a pot of Soros a huge dinosaur was able to gallop the author is saying that the PATA source was probably unable to gallop up this structure is actually a very common one on main conclusion questions in fact 39% of main conclusion questions the conclusion serves to refute a previously stated position why do they follow this template so much well it&#39;s because it adds complexity to the argument by introducing an opposing point and then having the author go on to refute it it creates more of an argument structure for you to keep track of and it makes it harder for you to know which claim is actually the main point you could easily get the two points confused at some point along the way if you look at answer choice a galloping would probably have broken legs of Apatosaurus we can find that in the argument but that&#39;s not the conclusion that&#39;s the intermediate conclusion on the weight of the main conclusion so answer is a is wrong answer choice B says it is possible to calculate that a pot of sourcils leg could not have withstood the strain of galloping and that is in the argument but again that&#39;s in the green part of the argument which means that it&#39;s evidence used to support the intermediate conclusion the answer choice C says the claim of paleontologists that Apatosaurus was able to gallop is likely to be incorrect that looks exactly like our pre phrase let&#39;s hold on to answer choice C and to choice D says if galloping would have broken the legs of Apatosaurus then Apatosaurus was probably unable to gallop well this is not actually stated within the argument but it is an assumption of the main argument here that because galloping would probably have broken apart Assessors legs it&#39;s unlikely that Apatosaurus was able to gallop answer is DS an assumption underlying the main argument not the main conclusion answer choice C says that modern bones are quite similar in structure and physical properties to the bones of Apatosaurus well we do see something similar to that it says in the argument experiments with modern bones show how much strain they can withstand before breaking in order to use a claim about modern bones to support a point about Apatosaurus we need to know that the modern bones are quite similar in structure and physical properties so we need to know that they&#39;re comparable so the answer is e is an assumption underlying the intermediate argument again it&#39;s wrong and that means that answer choice C is the correct answer here&#39;s another example give this one a try when you think you have the right answer and hit play again and we&#39;ll work it through together all right welcome back so in this one it asked us to find the main conclusion of the argument so fairly clear where our main conclusion question as I read through this argument there&#39;s a word that catches my attention in fact it catches my attention twice it&#39;s the word should-should is a recommendation and recommendations involve value or preference judgment they suggest opinion and opinion tends to serve the role of conclusions an argument might take a look at some facts in the world and then make a recommendation about a couple of choices or a couple of options that might be in front of you or to rank order the preferences of several different choices that word should helps us find the conclusion but in this case it&#39;s in two sentences and they can&#39;t both be the main conclusion of the argument so to help us figure out which one of these is the main conclusion the word and in the second sentence is really helpful the word and that comma and structure is telling us that in the second sentence there are two parts and that there are equivalent to each other and that they&#39;re not according each other that they sit next to each other so what that&#39;s telling us is that those two those two claims in the second sentence since they&#39;re not supporting each other they must be supporting the only other claim in the argument so the second sentence is essentially two premises and we know that they can&#39;t be conclusions because of the word and which tells us that they would support each other but that they serve together alongside each other which means that the first sentence is the conclusion which is the recommendation that double-blind techniques should be used whenever possible in scientific experiments keep that in mind as you go to look at the choices let&#39;s look at answer choice a says that scientists objectivity may be impeded by interpreting experimental evidence on the basis of expectations and opinions that they already hold this information is actually in the argument but it&#39;s a premise not the conclusion it&#39;s playing the wrong role for this particular question type we&#39;re looking for the conclusion not the evidence so we can get rid of it let&#39;s look at stress B it says that it is advisable for scientists to use double-blind techniques in as high proportion of their experiments as they can that sounds like it matches the recommendation that double-blind techniques should be used whenever possible in scientific experiments so let&#39;s hold on the answer is B that looks like a good contender answer twice C says that scientists sometimes neglect it adequately consider the risk of misinterpreting evidence on the basis of prior expectations and opinions the term neglecting to adequately consider the risks of misinterpreting evidence that&#39;s not an idea contained within the argument that&#39;s simply out of scope answer choice D whenever possible scientists should refrain from interpreting evidence on the basis of previously formed expectations and convictions well that&#39;s there in the argument but that&#39;s there in the second half of the second sentence so that&#39;s the premise of the argument let&#39;s get rid of it answer choice C says that double-blind experimental techniques are often an effective way of ensuring scientific objectivity that is an argument but it&#39;s a premise of the argument so that makes it wrong and that means that a choice B is the right answer here&#39;s the last example for this lesson go ahead and give this one a try see if you can find an answer that you like hit play again when you&#39;re ready to review it together all right welcome back the question is asking for the conclusion drawn in the geographers argument so we know we&#39;re looking for the conclusion of the main point and in this case we can use language cues to a certain extent but in that first sentence we see the word because telling us that this is serving as support for something and then in the second sentence we get the words for this reason telling us that what comes after this is supported by what came before it so now we have an evidence conclusion relationship between the first and second sentences at this point we get the word but and the word but is a pivot so but recent research shows that this prediction is unlikely to be born out so we have a language cue the word but telling what us that we&#39;re pivoting back into the author&#39;s position away from the opposing point and this claim here recent research shows that this prediction is unlikely to be born out actually it follows along a couple of patterns in main conclusion questions first it follows the pattern of refutation we looked at that earlier where 39% of main conclusion questions work by refuting a previously stated position but there&#39;s another pattern network here that doesn&#39;t always follow the refutation model which is we&#39;re looking at a prediction here there were some people who are predicting that global warming would cause more frequent and intense tropical storms this main conclusion is seeking to refute that prediction and predictions are something we use regularly to help us find conclusions on main point questions as well as on other kinds of arguments as well 12% of main conclusion questions use a prediction in the conclusion or you can use the idea that the statement is a prediction to help you identify it as the conclusion finally the last sentence is support for the author&#39;s conclusion so we&#39;ve got an opposing support followed by an opposing point followed by a main conclusion followed by a premise so let&#39;s anchor ourselves on the conclusion recent research shows that this prediction is unlikely to be borne out let&#39;s make sure that we&#39;re clear about the word this and what is referring to global warming would cause more frequent intense drop storm is that prediction so the main point is that that prediction that global warming is going to cause more frequent and intense tropical storms is unlikely to be borne out if we go into the in tres is focused on that idea we should have a fairly easy time finding the right answer the answer choice a says that tropical storms are especially likely to form over warm ocean surfaces well we see that but it&#39;s not the author&#39;s main point it&#39;s in the support for the opposing point so this is opposing support let&#39;s get rid of it and stress B says that contrary to early discussions global warming is not the only factor affecting the frequency and intensity of tropical storms we get that other factors such as instabilities in wind flow are elected at Condor at global warming those effects on tropical storm development this is an idea that&#39;s true but again it&#39;s not the main point it&#39;s sitting in the evidence of this argument let&#39;s get rid of it it&#39;s a premise answer choice C says that if global warming were reversed tropical storms would be less frequent and less intense answer choice C is wrong but I could imagine someone picking this one because if the conclusion of this argument is to refute the opposing point answer choice C sounds like a negation of the opposing point the opposing point is a global warming would cause more frequent intense tropical storms and Tracy says that if global warming were reversed tropical storms would be less frequent and less intense so it&#39;s literally the polar opposite of the opposing point but the opposing point isn&#39;t trying to prove the polar opposite it&#39;s just trying to say that though that prediction is unlikely to be borne out so answer choice C this negation of the opposing point is actually a misconstrued perception of what the author&#39;s trying to say answer choice D says that instabilities and wind flow will negate the effect of global warming on the formation of tropical storms well that part is in the argument but it&#39;s again it&#39;s not in the main conclusion the premise let&#39;s get rid of D that leaves us with e global warming probably will not produce more frequent in intense tropical storms this is the author&#39;s main point the refutation of the opposing prediction and stress e is the right answer so I talked about several different types of conclusions those that refute a previously stated position maybe those that you can identify using language cues like sensor because or therefore those that serve as recommendations suggestion using the word should or ought things that might be a prediction about the future based off of what we&#39;re saying today and then one that I didn&#39;t mention before is an explanation so if you ever see a claim that offers an explanation for how or why another thing happened that&#39;s another common form that we might use to help us find the conclusion within arguments on the LSAT when you&#39;re working through the wrong answer choices the kinds of reasons why answers are wrong on main conclusion questions well out of scope is something that will happen but not happen that often they&#39;re asking you to find the conclusion of the argument and so the odds that they&#39;re gonna bring in completely random terms or if they do bring in answers that bring in completely random terms it&#39;s gonna make it fairly easy to spot and so they won&#39;t be nearly as tempting as they might be let&#39;s say on a strengthened question or a weakened question and so we see fewer of them on main conclusion questions in terms of why most wrong answers are wrong is because they&#39;re providing a different role within the argument either it&#39;s giving you a premise or it&#39;s giving you an opposing support or an opposing point 38% of wrong answers on main conclusion questions are wrong because they&#39;re presenting a premise of the argument as opposed to the main conclusion 19% are wrong because they&#39;re presenting information that is unsupported meaning it twists or mangles the relationship between some terms found within the argument but presents them in a slightly different way so that the meaning has been changed 8% of wrong answers are wrong because they&#39;re presenting opposing support or an opposing point 7 percent of them are wrong because they&#39;re presenting an assumption of the argument as opposed to the conclusion of argument and seven percent of wrong because they&#39;re presenting an intermediate conclusion along the way to the main conclusion now those can be very tempting because you will still see language cues that suggest conclusion you&#39;ll still see relationships that indicate this is being supported by something else the main conclusion is the ultimate goal like what is that we&#39;re here to prove intermedia conclusion is being supported by another claim and is supporting the main conclusion the main conclusion does not support anything else sometimes you can use degree to also help you make eliminations one way in which they&#39;ll take you an inter trace and make it close but wrong is those strengths and the conclusion beyond what it&#39;s really trying to say so sometimes if you&#39;re torn between two choices at the very end they seem like they&#39;re both really really close to the main conclusion look for a place where one of them has been strengthened such that it gets close to the main idea but it takes a little bit too far maybe something like that negation we saw in the last question so in summary you spot main conclusion question with language in the question stem and you&#39;re looking for words like the conclusion the main conclusion or the overall conclusion there are several different types of conclusion structures that you want to be on the lookout for look out for refuting a previously stated position 39% of main conclusion questions use that structure 21% you can identify it the main conclusion using language cues words like Simpson because introduced evidence and so you can see what is being supported from that claim pointing you to the conclusion or words like therefore and so and hence they&#39;re introducing the conclusion directly the conclusion represents a recommendation in eighteen percent of main conclusion questions the conclusion represents a prediction in twelve percent the main conclusion questions and an explanation in nine percent the trap answer patterns that you need to be on the lookout for are those introduced other claims brought up or surfaced within the course of the argument so things that play the role of a premise or an answer is that mangles the meaning of a statement or of a couple of statements basically taking terms from within the argument and presenting them in the answer choice in a way that changes the meaning introduces that it might be a little bit too strong introduces that are presenting an opposing point as opposed to the author&#39;s point intermediate conclusions on the way to the main conclusion and ideas that represent an assumption underlying the argument as opposed to what the argument is trying to prove itself so that&#39;s it for today&#39;s lesson on main conclusion questions I invite you to check out these other lessons or visit us today at LSAT lab calm you

[Music] hi this is Matt at LSAT lab and today&amp;#39;s lesson is on main conclusion questions in the logical reasoning section they&amp;#39;re about 4 percent of all logical reasoning questions so it&amp;#39;s not a major question type but it is an important one because it&amp;#39;s a core skill you need to be able to find the conclusion in order to evaluate arguments in this question type our entire goal is to simply find the conclusion of the argument in this lesson we&amp;#39;re going to cover how to spot a main conclusion question what the process is for approaching 1 is what are some of the different types of conclusions we expect to see on the LSAT and then what are the trap answer patterns that you need to be aware of on this particular question type in this question stem were asked which one of the following most accurately expresses the main conclusion of argument the language in here that tells us that we&amp;#39;re looking at a main conclusion question is pretty obvious its main conclusion in this question stem it asks which one of the following most active expresses the conclusion drawn in the argument so it&amp;#39;s here it&amp;#39;s not asking for the main conclusion but it is asking for the conclusion the conclusion is a sign that you&amp;#39;re looking at a main conclusion question if it ever asks you for a conclusion that can be inferred that&amp;#39;s a must be true question and you&amp;#39;ll be looking at the definite article ah a conclusion that can be inferred but if it ever asks you to find the conclusion drawn that&amp;#39;s a main conclusion question asking you to find the main conclusion of the argument the process that you want to take when approaching a main conclusion question is to first identify what you think is the conclusion make sure that you understand what the evidence is that&amp;#39;s used to support that conclusion this way it&amp;#39;ll help you identify whether the conclusion you initially identified is actually the main conclusion or maybe it&amp;#39;s an intermediate inclusion along the way then once you have organized the argument you can anticipate what the answer would sound like and use trap answer patterns to make eliminations as you work through the choices a common way that we find conclusions on the LSAT is to use language cues words like therefore or hence words that help us organize arguments these words here help you identify conclusions they directly introduce a conclusion you can&amp;#39;t guarantee that it&amp;#39;s the main conclusion but you do know that it is a conclusion maybe it&amp;#39;s an intermediate inclusion maybe it&amp;#39;s the main conclusion but at least you&amp;#39;re heading down the right track of finding the conclusion these words here help you identify the evidence and they can also help you identify what the conclusion is in that these claims are supporting the conclusion so if you know that this claim here that&amp;#39;s being introduced by one of these words is supporting another claim then you know that that other claim is that is a conclusion these words here are introducing claims that provide support these words help you identify a pivot in the argument and a pivot is when the argument opposes another argument so the argument is designed to refute someone&amp;#39;s statement as opposed to assert something positively to be true you use pivots to help you identify the author&amp;#39;s position as opposed to the opposing position usually these words help you identify that you&amp;#39;re moving away from the opposing point and into the author&amp;#39;s point here&amp;#39;s an example question go ahead and give this one a try and when you think you&amp;#39;ve got the right answer hit play again and we&amp;#39;ll work it through together all right welcome back in this one the question stem asks us to find the conclusion so we know we&amp;#39;re looking for the main point and then we have some paleontologists have suggested that Apatosaurus a huge dinosaur was able to gallop some paleontologists have suggested notice how the author is attributing this view to the paleontologists then it goes on to say this however is unlikely and that however is the pivot and this is unlikely seems to be refuting the paleontologists suggestion and then we get this claim that begins with because which is introducing support for the previously stated position followed by this other information experiments with modern bones show how much strain they can withstand before braking by taking into account the diameter and density of Apatosaurus leg bones it is possible to calculate that those bones could not have withstood this trains of galloping this idea is used to support the point that galloping would probably have broken Apatosaurus legs so what we have here in the green is the evidence that is unsupported in the blue we have a conclusion that is being supported by the claims in green and in the red we have the author&amp;#39;s main point in yellow we have the opposing point and now that we understand the entire argument we can anticipate the right answer the right answer should say something like this however is unlikely and if we can&amp;#39;t remember what this is it&amp;#39;s referring back to the previous statement the statement that a pot of Soros a huge dinosaur was able to gallop the author is saying that the PATA source was probably unable to gallop up this structure is actually a very common one on main conclusion questions in fact 39% of main conclusion questions the conclusion serves to refute a previously stated position why do they follow this template so much well it&amp;#39;s because it adds complexity to the argument by introducing an opposing point and then having the author go on to refute it it creates more of an argument structure for you to keep track of and it makes it harder for you to know which claim is actually the main point you could easily get the two points confused at some point along the way if you look at answer choice a galloping would probably have broken legs of Apatosaurus we can find that in the argument but that&amp;#39;s not the conclusion that&amp;#39;s the intermediate conclusion on the weight of the main conclusion so answer is a is wrong answer choice B says it is possible to calculate that a pot of sourcils leg could not have withstood the strain of galloping and that is in the argument but again that&amp;#39;s in the green part of the argument which means that it&amp;#39;s evidence used to support the intermediate conclusion the answer choice C says the claim of paleontologists that Apatosaurus was able to gallop is likely to be incorrect that looks exactly like our pre phrase let&amp;#39;s hold on to answer choice C and to choice D says if galloping would have broken the legs of Apatosaurus then Apatosaurus was probably unable to gallop well this is not actually stated within the argument but it is an assumption of the main argument here that because galloping would probably have broken apart Assessors legs it&amp;#39;s unlikely that Apatosaurus was able to gallop answer is DS an assumption underlying the main argument not the main conclusion answer choice C says that modern bones are quite similar in structure and physical properties to the bones of Apatosaurus well we do see something similar to that it says in the argument experiments with modern bones show how much strain they can withstand before breaking in order to use a claim about modern bones to support a point about Apatosaurus we need to know that the modern bones are quite similar in structure and physical properties so we need to know that they&amp;#39;re comparable so the answer is e is an assumption underlying the intermediate argument again it&amp;#39;s wrong and that means that answer choice C is the correct answer here&amp;#39;s another example give this one a try when you think you have the right answer and hit play again and we&amp;#39;ll work it through together all right welcome back so in this one it asked us to find the main conclusion of the argument so fairly clear where our main conclusion question as I read through this argument there&amp;#39;s a word that catches my attention in fact it catches my attention twice it&amp;#39;s the word should-should is a recommendation and recommendations involve value or preference judgment they suggest opinion and opinion tends to serve the role of conclusions an argument might take a look at some facts in the world and then make a recommendation about a couple of choices or a couple of options that might be in front of you or to rank order the preferences of several different choices that word should helps us find the conclusion but in this case it&amp;#39;s in two sentences and they can&amp;#39;t both be the main conclusion of the argument so to help us figure out which one of these is the main conclusion the word and in the second sentence is really helpful the word and that comma and structure is telling us that in the second sentence there are two parts and that there are equivalent to each other and that they&amp;#39;re not according each other that they sit next to each other so what that&amp;#39;s telling us is that those two those two claims in the second sentence since they&amp;#39;re not supporting each other they must be supporting the only other claim in the argument so the second sentence is essentially two premises and we know that they can&amp;#39;t be conclusions because of the word and which tells us that they would support each other but that they serve together alongside each other which means that the first sentence is the conclusion which is the recommendation that double-blind techniques should be used whenever possible in scientific experiments keep that in mind as you go to look at the choices let&amp;#39;s look at answer choice a says that scientists objectivity may be impeded by interpreting experimental evidence on the basis of expectations and opinions that they already hold this information is actually in the argument but it&amp;#39;s a premise not the conclusion it&amp;#39;s playing the wrong role for this particular question type we&amp;#39;re looking for the conclusion not the evidence so we can get rid of it let&amp;#39;s look at stress B it says that it is advisable for scientists to use double-blind techniques in as high proportion of their experiments as they can that sounds like it matches the recommendation that double-blind techniques should be used whenever possible in scientific experiments so let&amp;#39;s hold on the answer is B that looks like a good contender answer twice C says that scientists sometimes neglect it adequately consider the risk of misinterpreting evidence on the basis of prior expectations and opinions the term neglecting to adequately consider the risks of misinterpreting evidence that&amp;#39;s not an idea contained within the argument that&amp;#39;s simply out of scope answer choice D whenever possible scientists should refrain from interpreting evidence on the basis of previously formed expectations and convictions well that&amp;#39;s there in the argument but that&amp;#39;s there in the second half of the second sentence so that&amp;#39;s the premise of the argument let&amp;#39;s get rid of it answer choice C says that double-blind experimental techniques are often an effective way of ensuring scientific objectivity that is an argument but it&amp;#39;s a premise of the argument so that makes it wrong and that means that a choice B is the right answer here&amp;#39;s the last example for this lesson go ahead and give this one a try see if you can find an answer that you like hit play again when you&amp;#39;re ready to review it together all right welcome back the question is asking for the conclusion drawn in the geographers argument so we know we&amp;#39;re looking for the conclusion of the main point and in this case we can use language cues to a certain extent but in that first sentence we see the word because telling us that this is serving as support for something and then in the second sentence we get the words for this reason telling us that what comes after this is supported by what came before it so now we have an evidence conclusion relationship between the first and second sentences at this point we get the word but and the word but is a pivot so but recent research shows that this prediction is unlikely to be born out so we have a language cue the word but telling what us that we&amp;#39;re pivoting back into the author&amp;#39;s position away from the opposing point and this claim here recent research shows that this prediction is unlikely to be born out actually it follows along a couple of patterns in main conclusion questions first it follows the pattern of refutation we looked at that earlier where 39% of main conclusion questions work by refuting a previously stated position but there&amp;#39;s another pattern network here that doesn&amp;#39;t always follow the refutation model which is we&amp;#39;re looking at a prediction here there were some people who are predicting that global warming would cause more frequent and intense tropical storms this main conclusion is seeking to refute that prediction and predictions are something we use regularly to help us find conclusions on main point questions as well as on other kinds of arguments as well 12% of main conclusion questions use a prediction in the conclusion or you can use the idea that the statement is a prediction to help you identify it as the conclusion finally the last sentence is support for the author&amp;#39;s conclusion so we&amp;#39;ve got an opposing support followed by an opposing point followed by a main conclusion followed by a premise so let&amp;#39;s anchor ourselves on the conclusion recent research shows that this prediction is unlikely to be borne out let&amp;#39;s make sure that we&amp;#39;re clear about the word this and what is referring to global warming would cause more frequent intense drop storm is that prediction so the main point is that that prediction that global warming is going to cause more frequent and intense tropical storms is unlikely to be borne out if we go into the in tres is focused on that idea we should have a fairly easy time finding the right answer the answer choice a says that tropical storms are especially likely to form over warm ocean surfaces well we see that but it&amp;#39;s not the author&amp;#39;s main point it&amp;#39;s in the support for the opposing point so this is opposing support let&amp;#39;s get rid of it and stress B says that contrary to early discussions global warming is not the only factor affecting the frequency and intensity of tropical storms we get that other factors such as instabilities in wind flow are elected at Condor at global warming those effects on tropical storm development this is an idea that&amp;#39;s true but again it&amp;#39;s not the main point it&amp;#39;s sitting in the evidence of this argument let&amp;#39;s get rid of it it&amp;#39;s a premise answer choice C says that if global warming were reversed tropical storms would be less frequent and less intense answer choice C is wrong but I could imagine someone picking this one because if the conclusion of this argument is to refute the opposing point answer choice C sounds like a negation of the opposing point the opposing point is a global warming would cause more frequent intense tropical storms and Tracy says that if global warming were reversed tropical storms would be less frequent and less intense so it&amp;#39;s literally the polar opposite of the opposing point but the opposing point isn&amp;#39;t trying to prove the polar opposite it&amp;#39;s just trying to say that though that prediction is unlikely to be borne out so answer choice C this negation of the opposing point is actually a misconstrued perception of what the author&amp;#39;s trying to say answer choice D says that instabilities and wind flow will negate the effect of global warming on the formation of tropical storms well that part is in the argument but it&amp;#39;s again it&amp;#39;s not in the main conclusion the premise let&amp;#39;s get rid of D that leaves us with e global warming probably will not produce more frequent in intense tropical storms this is the author&amp;#39;s main point the refutation of the opposing prediction and stress e is the right answer so I talked about several different types of conclusions those that refute a previously stated position maybe those that you can identify using language cues like sensor because or therefore those that serve as recommendations suggestion using the word should or ought things that might be a prediction about the future based off of what we&amp;#39;re saying today and then one that I didn&amp;#39;t mention before is an explanation so if you ever see a claim that offers an explanation for how or why another thing happened that&amp;#39;s another common form that we might use to help us find the conclusion within arguments on the LSAT when you&amp;#39;re working through the wrong answer choices the kinds of reasons why answers are wrong on main conclusion questions well out of scope is something that will happen but not happen that often they&amp;#39;re asking you to find the conclusion of the argument and so the odds that they&amp;#39;re gonna bring in completely random terms or if they do bring in answers that bring in completely random terms it&amp;#39;s gonna make it fairly easy to spot and so they won&amp;#39;t be nearly as tempting as they might be let&amp;#39;s say on a strengthened question or a weakened question and so we see fewer of them on main conclusion questions in terms of why most wrong answers are wrong is because they&amp;#39;re providing a different role within the argument either it&amp;#39;s giving you a premise or it&amp;#39;s giving you an opposing support or an opposing point 38% of wrong answers on main conclusion questions are wrong because they&amp;#39;re presenting a premise of the argument as opposed to the main conclusion 19% are wrong because they&amp;#39;re presenting information that is unsupported meaning it twists or mangles the relationship between some terms found within the argument but presents them in a slightly different way so that the meaning has been changed 8% of wrong answers are wrong because they&amp;#39;re presenting opposing support or an opposing point 7 percent of them are wrong because they&amp;#39;re presenting an assumption of the argument as opposed to the conclusion of argument and seven percent of wrong because they&amp;#39;re presenting an intermediate conclusion along the way to the main conclusion now those can be very tempting because you will still see language cues that suggest conclusion you&amp;#39;ll still see relationships that indicate this is being supported by something else the main conclusion is the ultimate goal like what is that we&amp;#39;re here to prove intermedia conclusion is being supported by another claim and is supporting the main conclusion the main conclusion does not support anything else sometimes you can use degree to also help you make eliminations one way in which they&amp;#39;ll take you an inter trace and make it close but wrong is those strengths and the conclusion beyond what it&amp;#39;s really trying to say so sometimes if you&amp;#39;re torn between two choices at the very end they seem like they&amp;#39;re both really really close to the main conclusion look for a place where one of them has been strengthened such that it gets close to the main idea but it takes a little bit too far maybe something like that negation we saw in the last question so in summary you spot main conclusion question with language in the question stem and you&amp;#39;re looking for words like the conclusion the main conclusion or the overall conclusion there are several different types of conclusion structures that you want to be on the lookout for look out for refuting a previously stated position 39% of main conclusion questions use that structure 21% you can identify it the main conclusion using language cues words like Simpson because introduced evidence and so you can see what is being supported from that claim pointing you to the conclusion or words like therefore and so and hence they&amp;#39;re introducing the conclusion directly the conclusion represents a recommendation in eighteen percent of main conclusion questions the conclusion represents a prediction in twelve percent the main conclusion questions and an explanation in nine percent the trap answer patterns that you need to be on the lookout for are those introduced other claims brought up or surfaced within the course of the argument so things that play the role of a premise or an answer is that mangles the meaning of a statement or of a couple of statements basically taking terms from within the argument and presenting them in the answer choice in a way that changes the meaning introduces that it might be a little bit too strong introduces that are presenting an opposing point as opposed to the author&amp;#39;s point intermediate conclusions on the way to the main conclusion and ideas that represent an assumption underlying the argument as opposed to what the argument is trying to prove itself so that&amp;#39;s it for today&amp;#39;s lesson on main conclusion questions I invite you to check out these other lessons or visit us today at LSAT lab calm you

Transcript for:LSAT Logical Reasoning: Main Conclusion Questions

Transcript for:
LSAT Logical Reasoning: Main Conclusion Questions