LR question..

[uwofresh]

Hey guys, I'm having problems figuring this question out.  For some reason I keep mixing up the variables that are sufficient and necessary.

Rosen: One cannot prepare a good meal from bad food, produce good food from bad soil, maintain good soil without good farming, or have good farming without a culture that places value on the proper maintenance of all its natural resources so that needed suppplies are always available.

which one of the following can be properly inferred from rosen's statement?

A.) The creation of good meals depends on both natural and cultural condition.

this was the answer..
but I'm not too sure why..
How do you diagram this chain of causation??

[Victor]

What are the other answers?

[cascagrossa]

bad food ---> no good meal
(good meals ----> no bad food)

bad soil ---> no good food
(good food ----> no bad soil)

no good farming ---> no good soil
(good soil ----> good farming)

no culture with value on maintenance ---> no good farming
(good farming ---> culture with value on maintenance)

contrapositives are in ( )'s, and the left side of an arrow is the sufficient and the right side is the neccessary.

combine :
good meals ---> no bad food(ie: good food)
good food ---> no bad soil
-------------------------------
"good meals ----> good soil"

combine:
good soil ----> good farming
good meals ----> good soil
----------------------------------
"good meals ----> good farming"

combine:
good meals ----> good farming
good farming ---> culture with value on maintenance
---------------------------------------------------
"good meals ----> culture with value on maintenance"

so you end up with three neccesary conditions for having good meals :
1) having good soil
2) having good farming
3) having a culture that values proper maintenance

the answer choice simply puts that into words. "The creation of good meals depends on both natural and cultural condition." is just another way of saying that natural and cultural are NECCESSARY conditions for having good meals.

another thing you should notice is that just because you have one, two, or all three of those conditions present does NOT mean that you will have good food.  you could have good soil and good farming, but still not have good food.  but if you want good food, then you must have those things present.  just make sure you understand what it means for something to be a neccessary condition.

[uwofresh]

see that's what i don't understand..
why was the bad food the sufficient one?
it states that
"one cannot prepare a good meal from bad food.."
so wouldn't good meal be the sufficient and bad food be the necessary?
that's what got me confused..

[cascagrossa]

think of the sentence as being "if you have bad food you cannot prepare a good meal"

does it make sense now?

the way you are reading it would mean "if you cannot prepare a good meal then you have bad food"  which is not what the sentence in the stimulus is saying.

[uwofresh]

Yeah I sorta understand..
but are u allowed to translate NOT GOOD SOIL= BAD SOIL and vice versa??
i thought u couldn't do that...and that it would just remain as NOT GOOD SOIL..or not bad soil...
as well how long did u take to answer this question after going through all the diagramming?
seems like it takes a lot of time...

[cascagrossa]

you are right about opposites in lsat terms(the opposite of tall is both: not tall, and short), and that is the only thing that im not totally sure about with this question. ill take it to my testmasters instructor tomorrow and post what he says.

and i would not have diagrammed this question if i came across it on the test, just reading through it you can see that having a good meal depends on those things.  luckily it has a fairly straight forward pattern, so its easy to follow from meals to food to soil to farming to culture.

what prep test is this from?  and can you post the other answer choices as well.  thanks.