Situation Judgment and Logical Reasoning: Conditionals, Constraints, and Elimination
What this domain tests
상황판단 and 언어논리 test rule application under constraints and formal reasoning - not opinion, and not general knowledge.
Core rules
- Conditionals: "If P then Q" licenses modus ponens (P, so Q) and modus tollens (not Q, so not P). It never licenses affirming the consequent (Q, so P) or denying the antecedent (not P, so not Q).
- Necessary versus sufficient: "Only if P, Q" means Q → P. "P is sufficient for Q" means P → Q. "Unless P, Q" means not P → Q.
- Quantifiers: "some" means at least one and does not imply "not all"; "most" means more than half; "none" is the negation of "some".
- Rule-ordering problems: list every condition explicitly, then eliminate options rather than searching for the right answer. Find the constraint that fixes the most variables and branch from it.
- Ethics scenarios: identify the conflicting duties, then choose the action that respects the most binding duty while minimising harm.
Worked example
Rule: "Only candidates who have completed field training may be assigned to a mission." Candidate A is assigned. By contraposition, assignment → completed training, so A completed the training. Nothing follows about candidates who completed training but were never assigned. An option claiming "all trained candidates were assigned" reverses the conditional and is wrong.
Traps that cost marks
- Reversing a conditional and calling it contraposition.
- Reading "some" as "some but not all".
- Choosing the most humane-sounding action instead of one satisfying every stated constraint.
- Overlooking that a single hard-rule violation disqualifies an otherwise attractive option.