first RRE i got wrong. i didnt see how proportion of thieves who tend to abandon cars before their owners notice that they have been stolen decreasing explained the conviction rate... kind of a crazy inference!
It’s funny bc in this one all you need is “it is more likely now than it was 5 years ago for a car thief to be convicted of the crime”. The decline in overall auto thefts doesn’t really matter. The total thefts could have gone up or stayed the same, and the answer would still be the same.
Today’s thieves are less likely to abandon the car before it’s noticed missing -> more likely to be associated with the stolen card -> more likely to be convicted of its theft.
That was a toughie. I pigeon-holed myself into hunting for something like “juries are more likely to prosecute now”, and took me a while to consider something else like “car thieves are more likely to be caught than they were previously”, which A) implies
The lessons say that if you can predict an explanation, then go into "hunt mode," but I disagree.
While you may be able to predict a scenario that will resolve/explain the issue…there can still be several other things that solve it. & Even if you correctly predicted the explanation, the answer choice may still not explicitly state what you had in mind & its even trickier to predict what assumption(s) the Answers will use to explain the phenomena. You still have to weed out the answer choices after evaluating where their assumptions are on the scale of reason.
I think we're better off:
reading the stimulus,
understanding what needs to be explained,
then going choice by choice to see what makes sense.
@GabrielLerma While some students believe this to be true, they are incorrect. It is faster in the long run to hunt for your prediction, and then switch to POE mode, only if your prediction cannot be quickly found. That is because the time taken to hunt for a prediction is little, and the time taken to use POE is great. That means overall you should be able to save much more time on successful hunting than the amount of time lost to your unsuccessful hunts. Furthermore, the more you study, you will likely get better at predicting a correct target for your hunt and resulting in more frequent successful hunts, as well as making each successful or failed hunt faster regardless of result. This results in the delta between the total time saved by using “hunt first” instead of “always POE” will grow over time as you get better at LSAT questions.
For real though I believe this to be very true. As an example, I typically answer 15-30+ seconds under time on questions I can predict and hunt successfully which is currently like 70% of questions so far. On this one I predicted something along the lines of “juries are more likely to find thieves guilty”. Which was incorrect, and I had to go into POE mode. I actually hunted each answer twice before going into POE mode. I eventually selected A, and ended up going 19 seconds over time. However that time loss was more than made up for by any single previous questions where I predicted and hunted successfully and saved 30 seconds or more.
@NicoleSpradlin at least you're honest with yourself. Admitting it is the first step lol, but it's only up from here. I suck at these too, but it will become a second nature to us soon enough.
@ps939 As it should be. The lessons say that if you can predict an explanation, then go into "hunt mode," but I disagree.
While you may be able to predict a scenario that will resolve/explain the issue…there can still be several other things that solve it. & Even if you correctly predicted the explanation, the answer choice may still not explicitly state what you had in mind & its a bit trickier to predict what assumption(s) the Answers will use to explain the phenomena. You still have to weed out the answer choices after evaluating where their assumptions are on the scale of reason.
@ChandaM, but YOU are not making any assumptions. Each answer is a possible hypothesis; they each make their own assumptions. We just evaluate how strong the viability of truth is if the assumptions are true, but we are not coming up with any assumptions ourselves.
I'm still confused on how answer choice A can be right. If the proportion of car thieves who abandon the car before it is noticed to be stolen has decreased, then wouldn't that mean that car thefts has increased, which contradicts the first fact in the stim? If 5 years ago 50% of car thieves abandoned the car before it was noticed to be stolen but now only 25% of car thieves abandon the car before it is stolen, would that not mean that there are more car thefts now since less thieves are abandoning them? I think it is pretty reasonable to assume that a car that is never noticed to have been stolen would not be counted as a car theft.
@dbellonz well, I think there were more thefts back then but they tend to abandon the car before owner notice compared to nowadays, which make its harder to catch them, resulting in less conviction.
In answer E, why shouldn't I assume that less adolescent car thieves means less overall thieves, not that the proportion has changed? For example, lets say there were 50 adult thieves and 50 adolescent thieves, and with the statements in answer E I can conclude that now there are 50 adult thieves and 40 adolescent thieves. Is it unreasonable to assume that there are less automobile thefts because there are less overall thieves? Why should I assume that the proportion changed and not the actual amount?
@ValeriaFranco lol same. I had to imagine that before there used to be, let's say, 10 thieves and they all abandoned the cars, hence they never got caught. But now, let's say, there are 5 thieves and none of them abandon the cars.
Another where I had to re-read the answers. A seemed very obvious after that.
Reading CAREFULLY was really required.
Less Car thieves now (in my mind, this was a check (something in stimulus addressed: Great)).
Next part, I had to make an example in my head to understand it.
Tom steals a car 5 years ago, BUT he leaves it literally down the street (must have driven like 10 secs). So, owner didn't notice, did or didn't call cops until the morning maybe, but Tom was long gone.
BUT NOW, Tom stole the car, and drove it until the morning. The owner comes out, sees car missing, calls cops. Tom could be caught. Tom could be charged. Tom could be convicted.
In my mind. BAM! Check for the other part of the stimulus.
Unfortunately, this took 1:25 over for 3:07. But considering time saved on easier questions... maybe... plus just a right answer in general, I'm happy. Better to know a correct answer on one question than guess on 3 others.
A was not assumption based out of all these answer choices. If thieves aren't abandoning cars, they will get caught as opposed to abandoning cars because how else would they get caught
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192 comments
first RRE i got wrong. i didnt see how proportion of thieves who tend to abandon cars before their owners notice that they have been stolen decreasing explained the conviction rate... kind of a crazy inference!
Mr.fat cat had taken possession of me while answering this question!!!
because I have finally got it right. THANK YOU MR.FAT CAT YOU VOLUPTUOUS BEING
It’s funny bc in this one all you need is “it is more likely now than it was 5 years ago for a car thief to be convicted of the crime”. The decline in overall auto thefts doesn’t really matter. The total thefts could have gone up or stayed the same, and the answer would still be the same.
Today’s thieves are less likely to abandon the car before it’s noticed missing -> more likely to be associated with the stolen card -> more likely to be convicted of its theft.
That was a toughie. I pigeon-holed myself into hunting for something like “juries are more likely to prosecute now”, and took me a while to consider something else like “car thieves are more likely to be caught than they were previously”, which A) implies
Had A selected the entire time then switched to E last minute. Gotta trust your instinct
Hey chat, food for thought:
The lessons say that if you can predict an explanation, then go into "hunt mode," but I disagree.
While you may be able to predict a scenario that will resolve/explain the issue…there can still be several other things that solve it. & Even if you correctly predicted the explanation, the answer choice may still not explicitly state what you had in mind & its even trickier to predict what assumption(s) the Answers will use to explain the phenomena. You still have to weed out the answer choices after evaluating where their assumptions are on the scale of reason.
I think we're better off:
reading the stimulus,
understanding what needs to be explained,
then going choice by choice to see what makes sense.
@GabrielLerma While some students believe this to be true, they are incorrect. It is faster in the long run to hunt for your prediction, and then switch to POE mode, only if your prediction cannot be quickly found. That is because the time taken to hunt for a prediction is little, and the time taken to use POE is great. That means overall you should be able to save much more time on successful hunting than the amount of time lost to your unsuccessful hunts. Furthermore, the more you study, you will likely get better at predicting a correct target for your hunt and resulting in more frequent successful hunts, as well as making each successful or failed hunt faster regardless of result. This results in the delta between the total time saved by using “hunt first” instead of “always POE” will grow over time as you get better at LSAT questions.
Stem: Gabriel and Dan disagree on what point?
For real though I believe this to be very true. As an example, I typically answer 15-30+ seconds under time on questions I can predict and hunt successfully which is currently like 70% of questions so far. On this one I predicted something along the lines of “juries are more likely to find thieves guilty”. Which was incorrect, and I had to go into POE mode. I actually hunted each answer twice before going into POE mode. I eventually selected A, and ended up going 19 seconds over time. However that time loss was more than made up for by any single previous questions where I predicted and hunted successfully and saved 30 seconds or more.
I'm not really sure why it was A but I knew it wasn't the other 4.
I knew it was A and I ignored my gut feeling BOTH times... listen to ur gut, kids
I was between A and E
@AndreCarter The LSAT is not a casino.
the way that i got this right but i just take too long to answer bc i dont fully trust myself :( we will Get there eventually
i suck at these questions lol
@NicoleSpradlin at least you're honest with yourself. Admitting it is the first step lol, but it's only up from here. I suck at these too, but it will become a second nature to us soon enough.
POE has been my friend every time lol cux half these answer choices don't make sense lol
@ps939 As it should be. The lessons say that if you can predict an explanation, then go into "hunt mode," but I disagree.
While you may be able to predict a scenario that will resolve/explain the issue…there can still be several other things that solve it. & Even if you correctly predicted the explanation, the answer choice may still not explicitly state what you had in mind & its a bit trickier to predict what assumption(s) the Answers will use to explain the phenomena. You still have to weed out the answer choices after evaluating where their assumptions are on the scale of reason.
Brutal
My gut instinct has been right every time, and I convinced myself A makes no sense. 🤦♀️
@MarieChavis I was right there with you. I liked A at first but it just didnt seem like the right fit.
I think the biggest issue is after being drilled NOT to make assumptions to now make assumptions......
@ChandaM, but YOU are not making any assumptions. Each answer is a possible hypothesis; they each make their own assumptions. We just evaluate how strong the viability of truth is if the assumptions are true, but we are not coming up with any assumptions ourselves.
this is so confusing
I'm still confused on how answer choice A can be right. If the proportion of car thieves who abandon the car before it is noticed to be stolen has decreased, then wouldn't that mean that car thefts has increased, which contradicts the first fact in the stim? If 5 years ago 50% of car thieves abandoned the car before it was noticed to be stolen but now only 25% of car thieves abandon the car before it is stolen, would that not mean that there are more car thefts now since less thieves are abandoning them? I think it is pretty reasonable to assume that a car that is never noticed to have been stolen would not be counted as a car theft.
@dbellonz well, I think there were more thefts back then but they tend to abandon the car before owner notice compared to nowadays, which make its harder to catch them, resulting in less conviction.
In answer E, why shouldn't I assume that less adolescent car thieves means less overall thieves, not that the proportion has changed? For example, lets say there were 50 adult thieves and 50 adolescent thieves, and with the statements in answer E I can conclude that now there are 50 adult thieves and 40 adolescent thieves. Is it unreasonable to assume that there are less automobile thefts because there are less overall thieves? Why should I assume that the proportion changed and not the actual amount?
Wow, my brain hurt with this one. The "decreased" was so hard for my brain to process for some reason.
@ValeriaFranco lol same. I had to imagine that before there used to be, let's say, 10 thieves and they all abandoned the cars, hence they never got caught. But now, let's say, there are 5 thieves and none of them abandon the cars.
Another where I had to re-read the answers. A seemed very obvious after that.
Reading CAREFULLY was really required.
Less Car thieves now (in my mind, this was a check (something in stimulus addressed: Great)).
Next part, I had to make an example in my head to understand it.
Tom steals a car 5 years ago, BUT he leaves it literally down the street (must have driven like 10 secs). So, owner didn't notice, did or didn't call cops until the morning maybe, but Tom was long gone.
BUT NOW, Tom stole the car, and drove it until the morning. The owner comes out, sees car missing, calls cops. Tom could be caught. Tom could be charged. Tom could be convicted.
In my mind. BAM! Check for the other part of the stimulus.
Unfortunately, this took 1:25 over for 3:07. But considering time saved on easier questions... maybe... plus just a right answer in general, I'm happy. Better to know a correct answer on one question than guess on 3 others.
Time to watch the video now.
I'm losing my mind
how in the world does this question have a "math" label
more criminals are being caught now because less of them are abandoning the scene
RRE are definitely the most fun ones covered so far. MSS feel much harder, although MC are likely the easiest for me.
@TylerMadani021 Amen
A was not assumption based out of all these answer choices. If thieves aren't abandoning cars, they will get caught as opposed to abandoning cars because how else would they get caught