The necessary assumption is a piece of evidence that the argument needs but does not have. The right answer has to be something that fills in a blank within the argument - some place in which the arguer didn't provide you with the evidence, but instead just assumed that the evidence was true.
What is a necessary assumption question?
If this were a necessary assumption question, the question stem would include words like “relies,” “depends,” “requires,” etc., indicating that the answer choice MUST BE THERE for the author to draw a conclusion. Once we break apart the argument the way we did above, we need to figure out what the author requires to draw the conclusion.
What is the difference between an inference and a necessary assumption?
Necessary assumption questions are actually similar to inference questions, since both of them are asking us what must be true. The difference is that inference questions are asking us to draw a correct conclusion from given information and necessary assumptions want us to bridge a gap between given evidence and the author’s conclusion.
What does it mean to negate the necessary assumption?
In English, this means that when we negate the necessary assumption, the argument falls apart. No necessary assumption, no argument. Necessary Assumption questions present you with an argument (premises + conclusion) where in order for the conclusion to be valid, there is a necessary (critical) assumption not stated in the argument.
What does it mean when an argument is an assumption?
When there’s a gap in an argument (in other words, a missing link between support and conclusion) that argument is assuming that something is true without stating it. In other words, it’s an assumption. Let's look at an example together.
What is a sufficient assumption?
This question asks you to identify a sufficient assumption—that is, an assumption that, if added to the argument, would make it logically valid. We're looking for something that would fix all of an argument's problems, bridging the gap between what the support justifies and what the conclusion claims.
What is the difference between necessary and sufficient assumption?
A sufficient assumption is an assumption that, if true, would make the whole argument totally valid. A necessary assumption is an assumption that needs to be true in order for the conclusion to be possible.
How do you negate necessary assumptions?
Re: Negation for Necessary Assumption Questions If the sentence says: Some people don't eat chicken, it inherently implies that some people do. So negating it as "Some people do eat chicken" doesn't actually change the meaning. The negation would be ALL people eat chicken, because it's the logical opposite.
How many necessary assumption questions are on the LSAT?
There, now you've seen how to negate the answer choices. It's basically a foolproof strategy for finding the answer. There's one big problem. If you did all this work on each assumption question, you would have 10 minutes to do the other 23 LR questions.
What words or phrases indicate a necessary assumption question stem a sufficient assumption stem?
Solving for Necessary Assumption If this were a necessary assumption question, the question stem would include words like “relies,” “depends,” “requires,” etc., indicating that the answer choice MUST BE THERE for the author to draw a conclusion.
How do you approach sufficient assumption questions?
The question asks us to prove the conclusion. The way to answer sufficient assumption questions is to arrange the evidence, find the gap, and add a new premise that lets you draw the conclusion. Here, conditional logic is key, but this will not always be the case.
What is a necessary assumption LSAT?
Necessary assumption questions ask you to determine what has to be true—but was never explicitly stated—in order for an argument to work. Stated differently, if a necessary assumption were discovered to be false, the argument would fall apart—the conclusion would not follow logically from its premises.
What is an example of an assumption?
An assumption is something that you assume to be the case, even without proof. For example, people might make the assumption that you're a nerd if you wear glasses, even though that's not true.
What are the types of assumptions?
They make four key assumptions: ontological, epistemological, axiological, and methodological assumptions.
How do you identify an assumption?
One of the most reliable ways to find assumptions is to look for shifts in language between the premises and conclusion of an argument. When new stuff appears in the conclusion that wasn't discussed in the premises, it usually got there by way of an assumption.
Why all arguments require assumptions?
In an argument, an assumption is a premise that is not explicitly (directly) stated. These unstated premises are very important since the validity of an argument is determined by the validity of its assumptions. Assumptions are the missing links of arguments. You can think about assumptions in visual terms.
Is Assumption a question?
By contrast, Assumption questions require you to identify a statement upon which the conclusion depends, i.e. a statement without which the conclusion wouldn't make any sense. Typical Assumption question stems include: “Which of the following is an assumption upon which the argument depends?”
What is a necessary assumption?
I've heard the definition of a necessary assumption, many many times. But for some reason, it doesn't click in my head 100 percent.
Re: What is a necessary assumption?
zainrizvi wrote: A necessary assumption is something that is REQUIRED for the argument to be true, meaning if this assumption is false, then the argument CANNOT be valid. The conclusion WILL not follow given the evidence.
Re: What is a necessary assumption?
zainrizvi wrote: I'm just confused about how to utilize the denial test without adding any other premises.
Breaking down LSAT assumption questions
Let’s start by identifying the conclusion and evidence to the following faux-LSAT argument-based question, and then predict the assumption.
Necessity and Sufficiency
Now, if you’ve got this far, excellent. But there is something we can do on Test Day that we could not do in the above sample argument because we don’t have a question stem, and that is to differentiate between two different kinds of assumption questions: necessary and sufficient.
