Question 5 demonstrates a weak argument because the conclusion could have stated the shirts could not be sold at less than the stores price, but it also could have stated that shirts could not be sold at more than the stores price in order for the premise to maintain strong assumption, correct?
Man, I could be a future a LSAT test writer! Hopefully someone understood that question haha.
Could you say that "Train service suffers when a railroad combines" is a supporting conclusion? It is not the Main Conclusion. But a conclusion that stands on the MC "Therefore, if..."
Just a helpful tip, if you guys see words/phrases like "therefore", "thus", "because of this", the conclusion more often than not comes after these words and phrases. Those signify "author opinion," which is more often than not what the "goal" or "conclusion" is, at least in these instances and practice problems I have interacted with. Hope this helps!
5/5!! Got tripped up a bit but my main focus was to "get to the point". I then back tracked and located the premises by asking "why should I believe this claim" and it allowed to me to locate the premises and get through this exercise swiftly! Attacking premises and conclusions has always been difficult for me, but the way that this course is set up is really helping me learn efficiently.
I unfortunately got tripped up with the quiz instructions and was suspicious of every question being an argument trap. Meaning its going to use the indicator words to trick me into thinking its an argument, but my mistake was trying to analyze the argument to identify one. Wrong pattern of thinking and it led to me being unnesccesarily confused and skeptical.
got a 5/5 this has already helped me so much and I think by the time I take my LSAT I should be able to hit my goal score or higher. It has for sure gave me a boost of confidence. Hoping the same happens for reading comprehension.
So does it ever really matter if a passage is an argument or not? Will any questions ask, "Is this an argument?" I am stuck more on that than identifying what is a premise and what is a conclusion.
I know "Consequently" is a strong conclusion indicator but for question 5 i flipped the premise and conclusion bc it made more sense to me that customers being able to buy shirts at less than the store's cost would result in neither making profit or breaking even ..
Q2. Not sure exactly how much it matters, but should "his asking the police to investigate" be considered conclusion or premise? Because it is communicating to us that he asked the police, something we didn't know before.
Premise- If Max were guilty, he would not ask the police to investigate.
Intermediate Conclusion- Therefore, his asking the police to investigate shows that he is not guilty.
Main (Implied) Conclusion- Max is not guilty
Because the premise is a conditional statement, the second sentence does the work of being supported by the premise and supporting that Max isn't guilty...
Would #2 be considered a valid argument in the sense that the premise states if he were guilty, he would've gone to the cops but he didn't so he must've been innocent?
In this skill builder I was also trying to assess the merit and relative strength of the arguments. Did anyone else find that the bulk of these arguments are weak (excluding Q1) and have tons of room for assumption.
I originally thought Question 3 was an argument, but when I looked at the first claim it seemed to have nothing to do with argument, so I said it wasn't an argument. UGGH, I should have just left my original answer. 4/5
I didn't think Question 4 was an argument. I don't see anything in the question that links pedestrians with cars driving faster. I'm trying to use the concept of only referencing other claims in the argument and not referencing my own knowledge (which I do a LOT). It seems like there should be an additional premise to show some linkage within the context of this question. Appreciate any additional insight from folks as it looks like I am alone in my confusion on this question based on the discussion, lol
For Question 3, can someone explain why the first sentence "Train service suffers when a railroad combines" is not also a conclusion? In my mind, that is neither evidence/support of the following conclusion, and is worded as if it is to be supported by a claim, making it a conclusion or part of the conclusion as well.
For #3 I could see either the first [Train service suffers when a railroad combines.] or last [f railroad is going to be a successful business, then it must concentrate exclusively on one of these two markets.] statement being the conclusion. The right answer was the last statement but why is that. I think the the argument could run both way, besides the indicator word is there are way to tell which way the argument runs in a case like this? I could see this being a problem in a question without indicator words.
To explain further: Here is the question:
Train service suffers when a railroad combines. By dividing its attention between its freight and commuter customers, a railroad serves neither particularly well. Therefore, if railroad is going to be a successful business, then it must concentrate exclusively on one of these two markets.
Argument 1:
p1) Train services suffers when combined
p2) Dividing attention of railway does niether commuter or freight well.
C) For a railway to be successful, it must focus on either commuter or freight.
But I could also see this
Argument 2:
p1) Dividing attention of railway does niether commuter or freight well.
p2) For a railway to be successful, it must focus on either commuter or freight.
C) Train service suffer when combined.
I think I am making the assumption in argument 2 that bad service means unsuccessful, and that is why that argument doesn't work as well. But it is still an argument. So how do I know which of the statements are the conclusion?
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216 comments
finally got all of them right for once
Question 5 demonstrates a weak argument because the conclusion could have stated the shirts could not be sold at less than the stores price, but it also could have stated that shirts could not be sold at more than the stores price in order for the premise to maintain strong assumption, correct?
Man, I could be a future a LSAT test writer! Hopefully someone understood that question haha.
Could you say that "Train service suffers when a railroad combines" is a supporting conclusion? It is not the Main Conclusion. But a conclusion that stands on the MC "Therefore, if..."
Just a helpful tip, if you guys see words/phrases like "therefore", "thus", "because of this", the conclusion more often than not comes after these words and phrases. Those signify "author opinion," which is more often than not what the "goal" or "conclusion" is, at least in these instances and practice problems I have interacted with. Hope this helps!
5/5 love the get to the point and then why should I believe this "point"
5/5!! Got tripped up a bit but my main focus was to "get to the point". I then back tracked and located the premises by asking "why should I believe this claim" and it allowed to me to locate the premises and get through this exercise swiftly! Attacking premises and conclusions has always been difficult for me, but the way that this course is set up is really helping me learn efficiently.
I unfortunately got tripped up with the quiz instructions and was suspicious of every question being an argument trap. Meaning its going to use the indicator words to trick me into thinking its an argument, but my mistake was trying to analyze the argument to identify one. Wrong pattern of thinking and it led to me being unnesccesarily confused and skeptical.
got a 5/5 this has already helped me so much and I think by the time I take my LSAT I should be able to hit my goal score or higher. It has for sure gave me a boost of confidence. Hoping the same happens for reading comprehension.
So does it ever really matter if a passage is an argument or not? Will any questions ask, "Is this an argument?" I am stuck more on that than identifying what is a premise and what is a conclusion.
I know "Consequently" is a strong conclusion indicator but for question 5 i flipped the premise and conclusion bc it made more sense to me that customers being able to buy shirts at less than the store's cost would result in neither making profit or breaking even ..
Q2. Not sure exactly how much it matters, but should "his asking the police to investigate" be considered conclusion or premise? Because it is communicating to us that he asked the police, something we didn't know before.
I was confused by Q2, but I decided on this:
Premise- If Max were guilty, he would not ask the police to investigate.
Intermediate Conclusion- Therefore, his asking the police to investigate shows that he is not guilty.
Main (Implied) Conclusion- Max is not guilty
Because the premise is a conditional statement, the second sentence does the work of being supported by the premise and supporting that Max isn't guilty...
correct me if I'm wrong, please....
Question 4 Almost got me hehe but we 5/5 lezzz goo!!
4/5 . Question 4 is tricky
5/5 lets gooo 180 LSAT
5/5 yipeee
5/5 lets goooooo
Would #2 be considered a valid argument in the sense that the premise states if he were guilty, he would've gone to the cops but he didn't so he must've been innocent?
In this skill builder I was also trying to assess the merit and relative strength of the arguments. Did anyone else find that the bulk of these arguments are weak (excluding Q1) and have tons of room for assumption.
I am a little confused about question 3, the way it read to me was that every statement was a claim in itself.
I originally thought Question 3 was an argument, but when I looked at the first claim it seemed to have nothing to do with argument, so I said it wasn't an argument. UGGH, I should have just left my original answer. 4/5
5/5!!! 🤫🧏♂️
I didn't think Question 4 was an argument. I don't see anything in the question that links pedestrians with cars driving faster. I'm trying to use the concept of only referencing other claims in the argument and not referencing my own knowledge (which I do a LOT). It seems like there should be an additional premise to show some linkage within the context of this question. Appreciate any additional insight from folks as it looks like I am alone in my confusion on this question based on the discussion, lol
For Question 3, can someone explain why the first sentence "Train service suffers when a railroad combines" is not also a conclusion? In my mind, that is neither evidence/support of the following conclusion, and is worded as if it is to be supported by a claim, making it a conclusion or part of the conclusion as well.
For #3 I could see either the first [Train service suffers when a railroad combines.] or last [f railroad is going to be a successful business, then it must concentrate exclusively on one of these two markets.] statement being the conclusion. The right answer was the last statement but why is that. I think the the argument could run both way, besides the indicator word is there are way to tell which way the argument runs in a case like this? I could see this being a problem in a question without indicator words.
To explain further: Here is the question:
Train service suffers when a railroad combines. By dividing its attention between its freight and commuter customers, a railroad serves neither particularly well. Therefore, if railroad is going to be a successful business, then it must concentrate exclusively on one of these two markets.
Argument 1:
p1) Train services suffers when combined
p2) Dividing attention of railway does niether commuter or freight well.
C) For a railway to be successful, it must focus on either commuter or freight.
But I could also see this
Argument 2:
p1) Dividing attention of railway does niether commuter or freight well.
p2) For a railway to be successful, it must focus on either commuter or freight.
C) Train service suffer when combined.
I think I am making the assumption in argument 2 that bad service means unsuccessful, and that is why that argument doesn't work as well. But it is still an argument. So how do I know which of the statements are the conclusion?