is anyone else struggling with this section?? maybe I need to take a reset and come back to the questions but I'm barely getting any of the question sets correct :/
I think its weird that no one is talking about Darwinism and survival of the fittest. I hunted for C in this case, because I already thought that something apart of the wild birds environment was naturally selecting these small birds. Some people are saying thats a large assumption, but when we did the theory part of RRE questions, it said to lean in when you understand the concept. I dont know anything about bird species, but middle school science did help me go into hunt mode for this question!
I feel like he made the explanation of A unnecessarily complicated— to me, the most glaring error is that if the researchers captured and measured only the small-beaked birds at the end of the study, they would have also done so at the beginning of the study. Therefore, they were still probably observing the same population of birds over the three decades, so A isn't accounting for the decrease in beak size that occurred.
Remember that the stimulus never actually compares the beak size between the wild and captive bird populations, just the change in beak size within each population.
I was going to say exactly this if someone hadn't said it already. If wild birds with small beaks are harder to capture, that would have always been true (unless told otherwise), and so the average wouldn't change.
This is how I thought of the question, but I wasn't 100% how to formulate an explanation, so thanks for this. I thought this was a more obvious method of reasoning vs. the weighted average explanation in the video.
"Do I really want a phd anyway?" Ahh I would literally pay subscription fees solely for JY's sense of humour. JY have you ever considered trying out stand up comedy?
C is making no sense to me. It is a giant assumption to think that their beak sizes are in contrast to their survival rates. I think that is a huge jump; I read C and got rid of it instantly.
In this question type, we are taking the answer choices as true. C states that the survival of small-beaked birds was favored over large-beaked birds due to changes in food supply. That is, smaller beaks provided an evolutionary advantage for the wild birds. The wild birds with longer beaks presumably had a more difficult time obtaining necessary nutrients as the food supply changed, and it is a reasonable assumption that they did not live as long, did not reproduce at the same rate, or some other phenomenon that lead to proportionally more wild birds with shorter beaks by the end of the study period. Thus, the average beak size decreased.
Its not an assumption because in RRE all answers are true!
However C is the only one that answers the question: Why is the average beak size smaller than it was 30 years ago for wild birds?
It is because the food supply has changed and now favours the survival of small beaks. This means in survival of the fittest there will be fewer birds with larger beaks. Which answers our question.
here is my thinking; i could be flawed in my reasoning here...but thought i would share
the stimulus alludes to the gap in the argument about why, even though they studied the same species of birds, the captured ones didn't change. an inference that could be made is climate, evolution, or necessity to survive.
an analogy i made is to useless human body parts. over time we dont need some like appendix (dont quote my gr.9 bio). similarly, birds over time in the wild needed to evolve to adapt to their habitat. say their beak was too big to fit in tree burrows to gather food, over time the size would decrease right?
and in comparison to the other answers it MOST makes sense. as the other answers alluded to the capture of 2 different species..
@Disney Thats the thing; they SEEM impossible. This test thrives on you being frustrated and making mistakes. They may seem big, but know that even titans can be felled
#Help: To me, it seems easy to eliminate A and B because being easy to capture does not explain or resolve why beaks would shrink. It feels like an obscure, illogical reason to assume something would physically shrink due to one niche factor that does not threaten the species as a whole.
My process looked like this:
Two populations of birds were tracked:
Wild population → went down
Captive population → not affected
We need to explain why the wild birds’ beaks got smaller but the captive birds’ beaks did not.
A) Why would this explain anything? Being easy to capture does not explain why beak size would decrease.
B) Same issue as A. Why would we care about how easy or hard they are to capture? That does not connect to beak reduction.
C) This seems possible. If a certain beak size was favored in the wild, they would begin to adapt. The captive birds did not need to hunt or change, while the wild birds did.
D) This does not resolve the issue and does not address the other side.
E) Ok cool and what would that do to resolve/.explain why they changed in size
To me, this seems like the most logical way to approach the question. Did others have a different experience?
#feedback literally getting every question of this type wrong. im not sure if im over thinking it, but no answer ever seems the best to me like in the other question types. any advice?
I think of these as, which one helps make the best argument for what is being asked? The questions is asking which answer choice makes the best argument for the reason wild birds beaks got smaller while the captive birds beaks stayed the same over a 30-year period. Answer C is basically saying the birds in the wild needed smaller beaks to live over that time compared to captive no change was needed. That's how i thought about it.
Usually, there's two sets of facts presented. They don't make sense together unless you draw an assumption, and there's one presented in the answer block that resolves, explains, or reconciles the information presented to you. Which answer makes it make sense? That's the right one.
I eliminated A based on the fact that if the small-beaked birds were easier to capture for the most recent study, there's nothing to support that they weren't easier to capture in the earlier study as well.
In other words, the ease of capture didn't change from study to study, so A doesn't explain the findings.
Because it's difficulty is rated as 2/5. You need to save time for actually hard questions.
Technically you have about 1.25 seconds for each question (35 min / 25 questions). However, you should not divide your time equally between every question.
I didn't read C properly and instead thought that it was saying changes in wild bird food supply favored the survival of captive birds over wild birds... So I thought this had nothing to do with beak sizes and ruled it out immediately and got the question wrong :((
I felt like A and B are immediately eliminated. No need to go through any logic.. 1. A and B are opposite of each other which means..."if one is helping, then the other one is helping too." But we only need one answer, so I don't need to think about the math, they're both wrong. 2. It says two populations: one wild, the other captive. If A or B is true, then why are they the wild ones??if they're so easy to capture, then they fall into the captive ones...
130 comments
This is actually a classic example of natural selection, given the relatively short period of time. Finally getting to use my degree! lol
Nice, I’m waiting for a marketing question to come up. 🤞
I eliminated the right answer because I thought 30 years is too short a time for evolution of birds
Praying SO HARD that this type of question is not on my test.
i needed this win so bad
freshman bio knowledge clocked in
I chose A bc I accepted the scientists didn't do a good job and were dumb.... sorry scientists...
is anyone else struggling with this section?? maybe I need to take a reset and come back to the questions but I'm barely getting any of the question sets correct :/
I made an assumption that the answer was going to mention food even before reading the answer choices! That was cool, haha!
@legallysaz you **anticipated ** the correct answer choice.
I think its weird that no one is talking about Darwinism and survival of the fittest. I hunted for C in this case, because I already thought that something apart of the wild birds environment was naturally selecting these small birds. Some people are saying thats a large assumption, but when we did the theory part of RRE questions, it said to lean in when you understand the concept. I dont know anything about bird species, but middle school science did help me go into hunt mode for this question!
@kaileygroess17 God you helped me!
@kaileygroess17 that's a great point!
I feel like he made the explanation of A unnecessarily complicated— to me, the most glaring error is that if the researchers captured and measured only the small-beaked birds at the end of the study, they would have also done so at the beginning of the study. Therefore, they were still probably observing the same population of birds over the three decades, so A isn't accounting for the decrease in beak size that occurred.
Remember that the stimulus never actually compares the beak size between the wild and captive bird populations, just the change in beak size within each population.
I was going to say exactly this if someone hadn't said it already. If wild birds with small beaks are harder to capture, that would have always been true (unless told otherwise), and so the average wouldn't change.
#feedback
This is how I thought of the question, but I wasn't 100% how to formulate an explanation, so thanks for this. I thought this was a more obvious method of reasoning vs. the weighted average explanation in the video.
please LSAT Gods give me 1-2 star MAX questions in this section on the real LSAT in August 2025.. it has been so intense.. have mercy!
Finally someone feels my struggle with this section. It contradicts itself constantly. No logic seems to work like I have to rely on my intuition.
"Do I really want a phd anyway?" Ahh I would literally pay subscription fees solely for JY's sense of humour. JY have you ever considered trying out stand up comedy?
Idk why but this one seemed more confusing than the other ones to me
C is making no sense to me. It is a giant assumption to think that their beak sizes are in contrast to their survival rates. I think that is a huge jump; I read C and got rid of it instantly.
In this question type, we are taking the answer choices as true. C states that the survival of small-beaked birds was favored over large-beaked birds due to changes in food supply. That is, smaller beaks provided an evolutionary advantage for the wild birds. The wild birds with longer beaks presumably had a more difficult time obtaining necessary nutrients as the food supply changed, and it is a reasonable assumption that they did not live as long, did not reproduce at the same rate, or some other phenomenon that lead to proportionally more wild birds with shorter beaks by the end of the study period. Thus, the average beak size decreased.
Its not an assumption because in RRE all answers are true!
However C is the only one that answers the question: Why is the average beak size smaller than it was 30 years ago for wild birds?
It is because the food supply has changed and now favours the survival of small beaks. This means in survival of the fittest there will be fewer birds with larger beaks. Which answers our question.
More birds with larger beaks dying = fewer of them able to be captured for the study. That is why the average beak size decreased.
here is my thinking; i could be flawed in my reasoning here...but thought i would share
the stimulus alludes to the gap in the argument about why, even though they studied the same species of birds, the captured ones didn't change. an inference that could be made is climate, evolution, or necessity to survive.
an analogy i made is to useless human body parts. over time we dont need some like appendix (dont quote my gr.9 bio). similarly, birds over time in the wild needed to evolve to adapt to their habitat. say their beak was too big to fit in tree burrows to gather food, over time the size would decrease right?
and in comparison to the other answers it MOST makes sense. as the other answers alluded to the capture of 2 different species..
I hate that some questions seem so simple like this and others seem impossible.
@Disney Thats the thing; they SEEM impossible. This test thrives on you being frustrated and making mistakes. They may seem big, but know that even titans can be felled
@ManusWeber it's all about perception. we need to lock in
#Help: To me, it seems easy to eliminate A and B because being easy to capture does not explain or resolve why beaks would shrink. It feels like an obscure, illogical reason to assume something would physically shrink due to one niche factor that does not threaten the species as a whole.
My process looked like this:
Two populations of birds were tracked:
Wild population → went down
Captive population → not affected
We need to explain why the wild birds’ beaks got smaller but the captive birds’ beaks did not.
A) Why would this explain anything? Being easy to capture does not explain why beak size would decrease.
B) Same issue as A. Why would we care about how easy or hard they are to capture? That does not connect to beak reduction.
C) This seems possible. If a certain beak size was favored in the wild, they would begin to adapt. The captive birds did not need to hunt or change, while the wild birds did.
D) This does not resolve the issue and does not address the other side.
E) Ok cool and what would that do to resolve/.explain why they changed in size
To me, this seems like the most logical way to approach the question. Did others have a different experience?
#feedback literally getting every question of this type wrong. im not sure if im over thinking it, but no answer ever seems the best to me like in the other question types. any advice?
I'm in the same boat. I'm really struggling with RRE questions
I think of these as, which one helps make the best argument for what is being asked? The questions is asking which answer choice makes the best argument for the reason wild birds beaks got smaller while the captive birds beaks stayed the same over a 30-year period. Answer C is basically saying the birds in the wild needed smaller beaks to live over that time compared to captive no change was needed. That's how i thought about it.
Usually, there's two sets of facts presented. They don't make sense together unless you draw an assumption, and there's one presented in the answer block that resolves, explains, or reconciles the information presented to you. Which answer makes it make sense? That's the right one.
I eliminated A based on the fact that if the small-beaked birds were easier to capture for the most recent study, there's nothing to support that they weren't easier to capture in the earlier study as well.
In other words, the ease of capture didn't change from study to study, so A doesn't explain the findings.
lol i need more sleep, i thought we were talking about actual beak sizes and not populations
when you finally get a question right
soooo real !!!!!!
Joining the club 😂 the feeling unreal but then u see the question is 2 star😂
how am i supposed to answer this in 55 seconds wahhhhhhhhhh
Because it's difficulty is rated as 2/5. You need to save time for actually hard questions.
Technically you have about 1.25 seconds for each question (35 min / 25 questions). However, you should not divide your time equally between every question.
I got it right in 40 sec ¯\(ツ)/¯
Why be so condescending toward the OG poster?
wow a round of applause for getting it right in 40 sec......
In all fairness, he/she really wasn't. They were just telling it as it is.
Yea, I wasn't very nice in my reply.
But I still stand by what I said as correct. If you want to score 170+, then you need to manage your time well
You could’ve just said that
Also when you are starting out you shouldn't focus on the clock at all, you should focus on just getting it correct.
See, that’s some good advice 👍🏽
I didn't read C properly and instead thought that it was saying changes in wild bird food supply favored the survival of captive birds over wild birds... So I thought this had nothing to do with beak sizes and ruled it out immediately and got the question wrong :((
Lessons Learned:
Read the answer choices CLEARLY
Analyze the answer choices THOROUGHLY
SAME I did not even realize until watching the video
the answers felt so weak making it easier to quickly choose
I felt like A and B are immediately eliminated. No need to go through any logic.. 1. A and B are opposite of each other which means..."if one is helping, then the other one is helping too." But we only need one answer, so I don't need to think about the math, they're both wrong. 2. It says two populations: one wild, the other captive. If A or B is true, then why are they the wild ones??if they're so easy to capture, then they fall into the captive ones...
why do i always get the easy ones wrong omgg