{"id":94,"date":"2015-12-11T12:46:54","date_gmt":"2015-12-11T20:46:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/lsat\/?p=94"},"modified":"2018-10-05T22:01:35","modified_gmt":"2018-10-06T05:01:35","slug":"unless-statements-on-the-lsat-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/lsat\/unless-statements-on-the-lsat-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Unless&#8221; Statements on the LSAT: Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In our continuing exploration of the wonderful world of formal logic, I bring you: <em>unless<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>But this time, you have to work it out for yourself via this real world example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<strong>I refuse to keep writing formal logic blog posts unless some of you post comments telling me that you\u2019re finding these helpful<\/strong>. \ud83d\ude09<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>A Quick Challenge<\/h2>\n<p>Your challenge is to figure out how to translate the statement above into a standard if\/then form. Here are some questions to ponder as you work through this one:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><strong>What can you be absolutely sure of if\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n&#8212; I refuse to write another formal logic blog post?<br \/>\n&#8212; one person posts a comment telling me he\/she finds this post helpful?<br \/>\n&#8212; I write another formal logic blog post?<br \/>\n&#8212; two or more people posts comments telling me they find these posts helpful?<br \/>\n&#8212; no one posts any comments at all?<\/ol>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The truth of one term is <strong>sufficient<\/strong> to deduce the truth of the other term. The truth of that other term is <strong>necessary, but not sufficient<\/strong>, to deduce the truth of the former. But can you tell which is which?<\/p>\n<p>Think through the answer to each of these questions. Then, on your own, try to determine whether the statement, \u201cA unless B\u201d is logically equivalent to \u201cif A\u2192 B\u201d. If so, that&#8217;s conveniently simple. If not, then how do you translate \u201cA unless B\u201d into a standard if\/then form? And what is its contrapositive?<\/p>\n<p>Lastly, which term is the trigger in the statement \u201cA unless B\u201d? And what is the trigger in the contrapositive?<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>When You&#8217;re Done<\/h2>\n<p>Once you\u2019ve spent some time working on this one, <strong>post a comment with your answer or check back soon for an explanation<\/strong>. <\/p>\n<p>And if you missed the posts on <a href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/lsat\/ifthen-statements-and-contrapositives-on-the-lsat\/\"><em>If\/then statements and contrapositives<\/em><\/a>, or <a href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/lsat\/if-only-if-and-if-and-only-if-on-the-lsat\/\"><em>alternate forms of if\/then statements<\/em><\/a>, check those out now for more help with the unless challenge.<\/p>\n<p>Happy studying! \ud83d\ude42<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In our continuing exploration of the wonderful world of formal logic, I bring you: unless. But this time, you have to work it out for yourself via this real world example: I refuse to keep writing formal logic blog posts unless some of you post comments telling me that you\u2019re finding these helpful. \ud83d\ude09 &nbsp; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[3856],"class_list":["post-94","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lsat-lr"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.7 (Yoast SEO v21.7) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&quot;Unless&quot; Statements on the LSAT: Part 1 - Magoosh LSAT Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This post introduces the word &quot;unless&quot; as a formal logic concept and challenges readers to work out its meaning on their own using a sample sentence.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&quot;Unless&quot; Statements on the LSAT: Part 1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In our continuing exploration of the wonderful world of formal logic, I bring you: unless. 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