Identifying Premises and Conclusions

For LSAT purposes, a premise can be defined as:
“A fact, proposition, or statement from which a conclusion is made.”
Premises support and explain the conclusion. Literally, the premises give the
reasons why the conclusion should be accepted. To identify premises, ask
yourself, “What reasons has the author used to persuade me? Why should I
believe this argument? What evidence exists?”
A conclusion is the point the author tries to prove by using another statement.
A conclusion can be defined as:
“A statement or judgment that follows from one or more reasons.”
Conclusions, as summary statements, are supposed to be drawn from and rest
on the premises. To identify conclusions, ask yourself, “What is the author
driving at? What does the author want me to believe? What point follows from
the others?”
Because language is the test maker’s weapon of choice, you must learn to
recognize the words that indicate when a premise or conclusion is present. In
expressing arguments, authors often use the following words or phrases to
introduce premises and conclusions:

Premise Indicators                             Conclusion Indicators
because                             thus
since                             therefore
for                             hence
for example                             consequently
for the reason that                             as a result
in that                             so
given that                             accordingly
as indicated by                             clearly
due to                              must be that
owing to                             shows that
this can be seen from                             conclude that
we know this by                             follows that
                             for this reason
Make sure to memorize these word lists. Recognizing argument elements is
critical!
Because there are so many variations in the English language, these lists
cannot be comprehensive, but they do capture many of the premise and
conclusion indicators used by LSAT authors. As for frequency of appearance,
the top two words in each list are used more than any of the other words in the
list.
When you are reading, always be aware of the presence of the words listed
above. These words are like road signs; they tell you what is coming next.
Consider the following example:
Humans cannot live on Venus because the surface temperature is
too high.

As you read the first portion of the sentence, “Humans cannot live on Venus,”
you cannot be sure if you are reading a premise or conclusion. But, as soon as
you see the word “because”—a premise indicator—you know that a premise
will follow, and at that point you know that the first portion of the sentence is a
conclusion. In the argument above, the author wants you to believe that
humans cannot live on Venus, and the reason is that the surface temperature is
too high.
In our daily lives, we make and hear many arguments. However, unlike on the
LSAT, the majority of these arguments occur in the form of conversations (and
when we say “argument,” we do not mean a fight!). Any LSAT argument can
be seen as an artificial conversation, even the basic example above:
Author: “Humans cannot live on Venus.”
Respondent: “Really? Why is that?”
Author: “The surface temperature of Venus is too high.”
If at first you struggle to identify the pieces of an argument, you can always
resort to thinking about the argument as an artificial conversation and that may
assist you in locating the conclusion.
Here are more examples of premise and conclusion indicators in use:
1. “The economy is in tatters. Therefore, we must end this war.”
“Therefore” introduces a conclusion; the first sentence is a
premise.
2. “We must reduce our budget due to the significant cost overruns we
experienced during production.”
“due to” introduces a premise; “We must reduce our budget” is
the conclusion.
3. “Fraud has cost the insurance industry millions of dollars in lost
revenue. Thus, congress will pass a stricter fraud control bill since
the insurance industry has one of the most powerful lobbies.”
This argument contains two premises: the first premise is the
first sentence and the second premise follows the word “since”
in the second sentence; the conclusion is “congress will pass a
stricter fraud control bill.”
Order of presentation has no effect on the logical structure of the argument.
The conclusion can appear at the beginning, the middle, or the end of the
argument.
Notice that premises and conclusions can be presented in any order—the
conclusion can be first or last, and the relationship between the premises and
the conclusion remains the same regardless of the order of presentation. For
example, if the order of the premise(s) and conclusion was switched in any of
the examples above, the logical structure of the argument would not change.
Also notable is that the premises and the conclusion can appear in the same
sentence, or be separated out into multiple sentences. Whether the ideas are
together or separated has no effect on the logical structure of the argument.
If a conclusion is present, you must identify the conclusion prior to proceeding
on to the question stem. Often, the reason students miss questions is because
they have failed to fully and accurately identify the conclusion of the
argument.
Remember, a fact set does not contain a conclusion; an argument must
contain a conclusion.
Primary Objective #2: If the stimulus contains an argument,
identify the conclusion of the argument. If the stimulus
contains a fact set, examine each fact.