Arguments versus Fact Sets

LSAT stimuli fall into two distinct categories: those containing an argument
and those that are just a set of facts. Logically speaking, an argument can be
defined as a set of statements wherein one statement is claimed to follow from
or be derived from the others. Consider the following short example of an
argument:
All professors are ethical. Mason is a professor. So Mason is ethical.
The first two statements in this argument give the reasons (or “premises”) for
accepting the third statement, which is the conclusion of the argument.
Fact sets, on the other hand, are a collection of statements without a
conclusion, as in the following example:
“The Jacksonville area has just over one million residents. The
Cincinnati area has almost two million residents. The New York area
has almost twenty million residents.”
The three sentences above do not constitute an argument because no
conclusion is present and an argument, by definition, requires a conclusion.
The three sentences merely make a series of assertions without making a
judgment. Notice that reading these sentences does not cause much of a
reaction in most readers. Really, who cares about the city sizes? This lack of a
strong reaction is often an indication that you are not reading an argument and
are instead reading just a set of facts.
When reading Logical Reasoning stimuli, you should seek to make several key
determinations, which we call the Logical Reasoning Primary ObjectivesTM.
Your first task is to determine if you are reading an argument or a fact set.
Primary Objective #1: Determine whether the stimulus
contains an argument or if it is only a set of factual statements.
To achieve this objective, you must recognize whether a conclusion is present.
Let us talk about how to do this next.