When going through the answer choices, I didn't altogether rule out answer choice (B) because I logged that it only discussed "cancer-preventive effects", while both studies referred to "cancer or heart disease" and "health of subjects" which I read as not totally resolving the discrepancy in terms of, "well, that's how it is for cancer, what about heart disease?" After reading all of the answer choices, I then chose answer choice (D) because giving half of the subjects a placebo in one study does not resolve why there was NO positive or negative effect, while the other study showed otherwise. It might resolve if the 12-year study supported a DIMINISHED effect. Long story long, answer choice (B) looked like an attractive answer because in my mind it only resolved a portion, while answer choice (D) did not resolve anything.
A) The human body processes the beta-carotene present in foods much more efficiently than it does beta-carotene supplements.
(A) This tells us that the beta carotene foods are processed more efficiently in the human body vs. the supplements so this definitely explains why there is a change in results. EXPLAINS DISCREPANCY (difference between processing of beta-carotene depending on what you consume: foods vs. Supplements).
B) Beta-carotene must be taken for longer than 12 years to have any cancer-preventive effects.
(B) This focuses in on the different dates of the study, if beta carotene needs to be taken for longer than 12 years, then that explains why there was no effect in the second study. EXPLAINS DISCREPANCY (study 2 is flawed; study 1 was 24 years long and people saw results; study 2 was 12 years long and there were no results, maybe it needs to be taken longer than 12 years).
C) Foods rich in beta-carotene also tend to contain other nutrients that assist in the human body's absorption of beta-carotene.
(C) Gives another factor that is present in the foods rich in beta carotene that the supplements do not have. EXPLAINS DISCREPANCY (foods (study 1) are different from supplements (study 2); why? —> because they have other nutrients that assist in the absorption; subsequently leads to different results).
E) In the 24-year study, the percentage of the subjects who had a high intake of beta-carotene-rich foods who smoked cigarettes was much smaller than the percentage of the subjects with a low intake of beta-carotene-rich foods who smoked.
EXPLAINS DISCREPANCY: Let’s assume that AC (E) is TRUE, and look at Study 1 (24 years long): From the answer choice, what do we know?
% of Smokers with a High intake of BC = LOW } they are smokers, but they have high BC, so that makes them less likely to die from Cancer/Heart Desease.
% Smokers with low intake of BC = HIGH } so they are MORE likely to die because of low BC intake. But they are also smokers, which also causes death because of cancer. So are they more likely to die from Smoking, or low BC? We don't know, and we can't tell!
Therein-lies the discrepancy. The 24-year old study has smokers which have low intake of BC = so they are more likely to die. But it could be because of smoking! Or more because of smoking than low BC intake!
D) In the 12-year study, half of the subjects were given beta-carotene supplements and half were given a placebo.
What does this do to solve the discrepancy? The only thing that we may incur is whether the studies were or were not controlled; assuming that both were controlled, this doesn’t solve the discrepancy.
What makes consuming high beta carotene to have negative correlation with the effect? This analysis is subtly confusing and rewiring how to see cause and effect relationship.
Sweet goodness I came back after finishing this section to review and I just barely got it. I only eliminated E because i reread the stim and saw it wasn't a direct experiment. it was about the subjects and not the beta carotene.
Less smoking-> more beta carotene> less cancer risk. So maybe they were just healthier people.
In simple terms, isn't E basically saying that out of this study of 100 people, there are 4 people who take lots of BC and smoke and then there are 50 people who take very little BC and smoke. If so, can we just say that it would be wrong to draw any conclusions when the group allocations are this off? Of course the results of the study are going to be wrong if the group numbers can distort things.
This question throws me off so badly because I thought we have to throw out real world knowledge when it comes to lsat questions so we don't get influenced to answer another way. Now E is requiring us to use our real life knowledge as proof that it is right.... my brraainnnn
@Julietb07I defiently understand but like he said, it's fair game to know that smoking cigarettes causes more cancer than it doesn't. Especially given the presumption of truth even though it's still the wrong answer choice.
As I progress through the lesson plans without drilling different question types, encountering a new type unexpectedly becomes very challenging. I confidently chose my answer after thorough consideration and significant investment in BR to confirm it, assuming it was a WSE question. A more prominent warning when the next screen resembles the previous one would be beneficial, as I moved forward unaware of the change and did not pay enough attention to notice RRE. Discovering that my confirmed BR answer was incorrect came as a shock, only realizing the issue after when I (rarely) checked the discussion board. Everything finally clicked, but now I need to revisit the question to reassess my answer choice before watching the video. Even if my original answer would have been wrong if it were a WSE question, at least I wouldn't feel tricked. I understand it's good to practice shifting between question types, as the LSAT presents, but that's what drills and PTs are for, not the core curriculum. It's quite frustrating.
@Andrewstine99 *I'm not prepared or ready to juggle different question types at a time, and I'm not comfortable enough to recognise the various question types. So when I'm in the groove, trying to learn my best, and it sucks, but I want to sit here for hours trying to figure out each question, I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets thrown off. So much that I now spend 15 minutes writing this out because it pissed me off. The lessons are great and the videos are explained so well, but stop unintentionally fucking me. I don't want an RRE review. I'll get back to RRE when I want to drill.
@Andrewstine99 Wow, would you look at that? With RRE in mind, I'm sure D is the answer I would've chosen. Maybe not, however, because it was already spoiled for me.
@Andrewstine99 You wrote exactly how I feel right now.
The silver lining is that it has revealed that I'm not confident nor capable of recognizing different question types. I obliviously sat there looking for a conclusion. There wasn't one like there is in WSE, but I just kept thinking "I'm learning about WSE... I'm sure this is it." Dumb.
great googly moogly, RRE questions make me their bitch. i've conquered a lot of level 4 and 5 difficulty questions for other LR types including parallel reasoning and WSE, but almost every time it's RRE, i completely airball. the worst i've encountered so far is that god-awful deer population question from LSAT 128 section 3 (IYKYK). i've even gotten level 1 RREs wrong LMAO
drilling exclusively RRE almost feels counter-intuitive at this point because 1.) i've dedicated entire days to it—i'm just not improving and 2.) the amount of new entries i have to put in my wrong answer journal quickly pile up. i'll find some way to make it over this hurdle, but in the meantime, i'm going to selfishly hope my test has few RRE questions. i can't even say "i hope they're easy" because i still flub the easy ones 💀
E is essentially saying that in the 24 yr study, those who had high intake of beta-carotene rich foods, who were less likely to die from cancer/heart disease, had a a smaller percentage of them who smoked cigarettes and those who had low intake of beta-carotene, who more likely to die from cancer/heart disease, had a bigger percentage of people who smoked cigarettes. And that could be a reason why the people from the 12 yr study had no affects from the beta-carotene supplements because it wasn't the beta-carotene intake that affected them it was actually whether or not you smoked cigarettes.
Thus solving the discrepancy of the results between both studies.
Doesn't this require the background knowledge that smoking causes cancer? if you didn't know the background info that smoking increases chances of cancer could you still get it correct? IDK I thought background outside information wasn't supposed to be brought into the reasoning?
I look at answer A and it says "efficiently" in the answer. Doesn't this imply that in both studies that Beta Carotene is taken in by the human body? In the 24 year study it is taken in better than in the 12 year study, but it is taken in during the 12 year study less efficiently. The explanation given for answer A states that in the 12 year study the Beta Carotene was not taken in. This is a mistake imho. It still has relevance if you attribute efficiency of Beta Carotene uptake as a link to low cancer levels, but this does not imply that Beta Carotene in the 12 year study was not taken in as the explanation indicates.
(D) does absolutely nothing in terms of providing a resolution. It's basically saying that they've done their study effectively yet still produced these results. How does that resolve the issue? It doesn't.
(E) basically says that for those whom had a high content of beta-carotene in their diet, a small percentage of them smoked. Those that had a low content of beta-carotene in their diet, more of them smoked. This would explain the 24 year study found that those with a high diet high in beta-carotene had less cancer and heart disease - smoking was the cause. So it wasn't actually the high beta-carotene diet that prevented cancer and heart disease, it was smoking less. With this in mind it makes sense that the 12 year study produced nothing. Thus, we've resoled the issue.
Would an accurate reading of E be that the data in the 24-year study was bad? The reasoning I used was that the study had more smokers in the low-intake group. Which, skewed the results. The bad data would help to explain the discrepancy... right? Or is my translation of the grammar wrong here?
Isn't the question asking about the "discrepancy between the 2 studies"? I chose E because at first glance it doesnt even address the 12-years study or anything related to the comparison between foods v.s. supplements, so how are E reaffirming the logic of bc-supp =no=cause=> cancer/heart-disease? #help #feedback
well, because it solves the discrepancy between the 2 results, and the question is asking which answer choice does not.
E shows that the reason the people saw no difference in the 2nd test is because many of them were smokers, showing that smoking has an affect on why they saw no difference, meanwhile in the first test, there are less smokers, which shows why there were better results for them. It is solving the discrepancy by showing there is an explanation for the results of both.
D provides information that has no effect on the argument at all, Basically, so what if some participants had a placebo in the 2nd test? How does this explain the difference in results between the 1st and 2nd test? it does not and therefore is the right answer. Hope this helps!
Sorry, where did you get this? "in the 2nd test is because many of them were smokers, showing that smoking has an affect on why they saw no difference". Where did any of the answer choices mentioned that in. the2nd test there were more smokers? or smokers at all?
The question is asking us which answer does NOT resolve the discrepancy.
If we were trying to RESOLVE the discrepancy, we would look for answers that tackled the differences between the two studies.
Study 1 - 24 years, small-scale, Beta-carotene prevented cancer, got results
Study 2 - 12 years, large-scale, Beta-carotene didn't prevent cancer, no results.
Answer E can basically be translated as
"The first study found that:
People who ate alot of Beta-carotene smoked less
+
People who did NOT eat alot of Beta-carotene smoked more"
E is telling us there was a correlation in Study 1 that wasn't mentioned in the original question. The correlation is that people who eat more Beta-caotene ALSO smoke less... which caused them to have less cancer, which threw off the study, which explains the discrepancy between study 1 and 2.
IF there is a correlation between eating more beta-carotene and smoking less, (Maybe its beacuse people who eat alot of beta-carotene are vert health concious and take their vitamins everyday and they rarely smoke because they know smoking has side effects), it explains the difference in the cancer rates and the results.
It resolves a discrepancy between the studies, which is what the question asks us NOT to do.
So we throw out E.
Hope this made sense when I typed it all out. It did in my head.
No. The ONLY questions that religiously follow that rule should be MSS questions (anything that asks about what you can infer from the stim). In general, for RRE, Strengthen, and Weaken questions, questions are totally allowed to bring in new information in an attempt to explain the problem.
In answer E, we are told that there's a difference between the 24 year study and the 12 year study—namely that the 12 year study had a smaller proportion of smokers. To put it briefly, you can eliminate E because it mentions a clear difference in the two studies, but it would be wrong to eliminate E for new information.
I could put: "Aliens came to earth and snuck into the bedrooms of every child and stole their cookies" in place of answer choice D, and it would still be the right answer (precisely because it has nothing to do with the stimulus).
Conversely, I could replace E with "Aliens came down and snuck into every researcher's bedroom who participated in the 12 year study to modify their data," and E would still be wrong simply because it would imply a difference in the two studies.
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142 comments
The LSAT test makers and Satan collabed together to create "except" questions.
@AnthonyRojas lmao
Took me 12 minutes but got it right first try and correct on BR. Sigh
LETS GO ANOTHER ONE CORRECT! Always look at the question stem first ;)
When going through the answer choices, I didn't altogether rule out answer choice (B) because I logged that it only discussed "cancer-preventive effects", while both studies referred to "cancer or heart disease" and "health of subjects" which I read as not totally resolving the discrepancy in terms of, "well, that's how it is for cancer, what about heart disease?" After reading all of the answer choices, I then chose answer choice (D) because giving half of the subjects a placebo in one study does not resolve why there was NO positive or negative effect, while the other study showed otherwise. It might resolve if the 12-year study supported a DIMINISHED effect. Long story long, answer choice (B) looked like an attractive answer because in my mind it only resolved a portion, while answer choice (D) did not resolve anything.
6/6 for weaken and strengthen letss gooo
A) The human body processes the beta-carotene present in foods much more efficiently than it does beta-carotene supplements.
(A) This tells us that the beta carotene foods are processed more efficiently in the human body vs. the supplements so this definitely explains why there is a change in results. EXPLAINS DISCREPANCY (difference between processing of beta-carotene depending on what you consume: foods vs. Supplements).
B) Beta-carotene must be taken for longer than 12 years to have any cancer-preventive effects.
(B) This focuses in on the different dates of the study, if beta carotene needs to be taken for longer than 12 years, then that explains why there was no effect in the second study. EXPLAINS DISCREPANCY (study 2 is flawed; study 1 was 24 years long and people saw results; study 2 was 12 years long and there were no results, maybe it needs to be taken longer than 12 years).
C) Foods rich in beta-carotene also tend to contain other nutrients that assist in the human body's absorption of beta-carotene.
(C) Gives another factor that is present in the foods rich in beta carotene that the supplements do not have. EXPLAINS DISCREPANCY (foods (study 1) are different from supplements (study 2); why? —> because they have other nutrients that assist in the absorption; subsequently leads to different results).
E) In the 24-year study, the percentage of the subjects who had a high intake of beta-carotene-rich foods who smoked cigarettes was much smaller than the percentage of the subjects with a low intake of beta-carotene-rich foods who smoked.
EXPLAINS DISCREPANCY: Let’s assume that AC (E) is TRUE, and look at Study 1 (24 years long): From the answer choice, what do we know?
% of Smokers with a High intake of BC = LOW } they are smokers, but they have high BC, so that makes them less likely to die from Cancer/Heart Desease.
% Smokers with low intake of BC = HIGH } so they are MORE likely to die because of low BC intake. But they are also smokers, which also causes death because of cancer. So are they more likely to die from Smoking, or low BC? We don't know, and we can't tell!
Therein-lies the discrepancy. The 24-year old study has smokers which have low intake of BC = so they are more likely to die. But it could be because of smoking! Or more because of smoking than low BC intake!
D) In the 12-year study, half of the subjects were given beta-carotene supplements and half were given a placebo.
What does this do to solve the discrepancy? The only thing that we may incur is whether the studies were or were not controlled; assuming that both were controlled, this doesn’t solve the discrepancy.
For these type of questions: "Except..." the correct answer will be contrary to stimulus's conclusion and or will not be supported by the stimulus!
Does anyone have a helpful advice for approaching "EXCEPT" type of questions?
Is there a more efficient way to hunt for the answer without POE as I find that it's quite time consuming?
anyone else struggling with rre? >.> i barely get any of the questions correct and i'd be lucky if i get it right on blind review. advice?
What makes consuming high beta carotene to have negative correlation with the effect? This analysis is subtly confusing and rewiring how to see cause and effect relationship.
Sweet goodness I came back after finishing this section to review and I just barely got it. I only eliminated E because i reread the stim and saw it wasn't a direct experiment. it was about the subjects and not the beta carotene.
Less smoking-> more beta carotene> less cancer risk. So maybe they were just healthier people.
In simple terms, isn't E basically saying that out of this study of 100 people, there are 4 people who take lots of BC and smoke and then there are 50 people who take very little BC and smoke. If so, can we just say that it would be wrong to draw any conclusions when the group allocations are this off? Of course the results of the study are going to be wrong if the group numbers can distort things.
This question throws me off so badly because I thought we have to throw out real world knowledge when it comes to lsat questions so we don't get influenced to answer another way. Now E is requiring us to use our real life knowledge as proof that it is right.... my brraainnnn
@Julietb07 I defiently understand but like he said, it's fair game to know that smoking cigarettes causes more cancer than it doesn't. Especially given the presumption of truth even though it's still the wrong answer choice.
@Julietb07 it still works to resolve the discrepancy even if it requires assumptions
As I progress through the lesson plans without drilling different question types, encountering a new type unexpectedly becomes very challenging. I confidently chose my answer after thorough consideration and significant investment in BR to confirm it, assuming it was a WSE question. A more prominent warning when the next screen resembles the previous one would be beneficial, as I moved forward unaware of the change and did not pay enough attention to notice RRE. Discovering that my confirmed BR answer was incorrect came as a shock, only realizing the issue after when I (rarely) checked the discussion board. Everything finally clicked, but now I need to revisit the question to reassess my answer choice before watching the video. Even if my original answer would have been wrong if it were a WSE question, at least I wouldn't feel tricked. I understand it's good to practice shifting between question types, as the LSAT presents, but that's what drills and PTs are for, not the core curriculum. It's quite frustrating.
@Andrewstine99 *I'm not prepared or ready to juggle different question types at a time, and I'm not comfortable enough to recognise the various question types. So when I'm in the groove, trying to learn my best, and it sucks, but I want to sit here for hours trying to figure out each question, I'm sure I'm not the only one who gets thrown off. So much that I now spend 15 minutes writing this out because it pissed me off. The lessons are great and the videos are explained so well, but stop unintentionally fucking me. I don't want an RRE review. I'll get back to RRE when I want to drill.
@Andrewstine99 Wow, would you look at that? With RRE in mind, I'm sure D is the answer I would've chosen. Maybe not, however, because it was already spoiled for me.
@Andrewstine99 You wrote exactly how I feel right now.
The silver lining is that it has revealed that I'm not confident nor capable of recognizing different question types. I obliviously sat there looking for a conclusion. There wasn't one like there is in WSE, but I just kept thinking "I'm learning about WSE... I'm sure this is it." Dumb.
great googly moogly, RRE questions make me their bitch. i've conquered a lot of level 4 and 5 difficulty questions for other LR types including parallel reasoning and WSE, but almost every time it's RRE, i completely airball. the worst i've encountered so far is that god-awful deer population question from LSAT 128 section 3 (IYKYK). i've even gotten level 1 RREs wrong LMAO
drilling exclusively RRE almost feels counter-intuitive at this point because 1.) i've dedicated entire days to it—i'm just not improving and 2.) the amount of new entries i have to put in my wrong answer journal quickly pile up. i'll find some way to make it over this hurdle, but in the meantime, i'm going to selfishly hope my test has few RRE questions. i can't even say "i hope they're easy" because i still flub the easy ones 💀
boy do I love when im trying to learn a new question type and we return to an old one to stop me from learning the new type
i get that the answer is d and i got it correct, but the reasons that e is incorrect confuses me. does anyone have an explanation in simpler terms?
E is essentially saying that in the 24 yr study, those who had high intake of beta-carotene rich foods, who were less likely to die from cancer/heart disease, had a a smaller percentage of them who smoked cigarettes and those who had low intake of beta-carotene, who more likely to die from cancer/heart disease, had a bigger percentage of people who smoked cigarettes. And that could be a reason why the people from the 12 yr study had no affects from the beta-carotene supplements because it wasn't the beta-carotene intake that affected them it was actually whether or not you smoked cigarettes.
Thus solving the discrepancy of the results between both studies.
thank you!
Doesn't this require the background knowledge that smoking causes cancer? if you didn't know the background info that smoking increases chances of cancer could you still get it correct? IDK I thought background outside information wasn't supposed to be brought into the reasoning?
I look at answer A and it says "efficiently" in the answer. Doesn't this imply that in both studies that Beta Carotene is taken in by the human body? In the 24 year study it is taken in better than in the 12 year study, but it is taken in during the 12 year study less efficiently. The explanation given for answer A states that in the 12 year study the Beta Carotene was not taken in. This is a mistake imho. It still has relevance if you attribute efficiency of Beta Carotene uptake as a link to low cancer levels, but this does not imply that Beta Carotene in the 12 year study was not taken in as the explanation indicates.
#feedback
(D) does absolutely nothing in terms of providing a resolution. It's basically saying that they've done their study effectively yet still produced these results. How does that resolve the issue? It doesn't.
(E) basically says that for those whom had a high content of beta-carotene in their diet, a small percentage of them smoked. Those that had a low content of beta-carotene in their diet, more of them smoked. This would explain the 24 year study found that those with a high diet high in beta-carotene had less cancer and heart disease - smoking was the cause. So it wasn't actually the high beta-carotene diet that prevented cancer and heart disease, it was smoking less. With this in mind it makes sense that the 12 year study produced nothing. Thus, we've resoled the issue.
@sheadongraham this cured my confusion
Would an accurate reading of E be that the data in the 24-year study was bad? The reasoning I used was that the study had more smokers in the low-intake group. Which, skewed the results. The bad data would help to explain the discrepancy... right? Or is my translation of the grammar wrong here?
As soon as I start feeling confident, I get humbled :(
Literally wrote in my blind review that D strengthens the second study and doesn't explain... and then I picked a different answer facepalms
Isn't the question asking about the "discrepancy between the 2 studies"? I chose E because at first glance it doesnt even address the 12-years study or anything related to the comparison between foods v.s. supplements, so how are E reaffirming the logic of bc-supp =no=cause=> cancer/heart-disease? #help #feedback
yes even i picked E
well, because it solves the discrepancy between the 2 results, and the question is asking which answer choice does not.
E shows that the reason the people saw no difference in the 2nd test is because many of them were smokers, showing that smoking has an affect on why they saw no difference, meanwhile in the first test, there are less smokers, which shows why there were better results for them. It is solving the discrepancy by showing there is an explanation for the results of both.
D provides information that has no effect on the argument at all, Basically, so what if some participants had a placebo in the 2nd test? How does this explain the difference in results between the 1st and 2nd test? it does not and therefore is the right answer. Hope this helps!
Sorry, where did you get this? "in the 2nd test is because many of them were smokers, showing that smoking has an affect on why they saw no difference". Where did any of the answer choices mentioned that in. the2nd test there were more smokers? or smokers at all?
The question is asking us which answer does NOT resolve the discrepancy.
If we were trying to RESOLVE the discrepancy, we would look for answers that tackled the differences between the two studies.
Study 1 - 24 years, small-scale, Beta-carotene prevented cancer, got results
Study 2 - 12 years, large-scale, Beta-carotene didn't prevent cancer, no results.
Answer E can basically be translated as
"The first study found that:
People who ate alot of Beta-carotene smoked less
+
People who did NOT eat alot of Beta-carotene smoked more"
E is telling us there was a correlation in Study 1 that wasn't mentioned in the original question. The correlation is that people who eat more Beta-caotene ALSO smoke less... which caused them to have less cancer, which threw off the study, which explains the discrepancy between study 1 and 2.
IF there is a correlation between eating more beta-carotene and smoking less, (Maybe its beacuse people who eat alot of beta-carotene are vert health concious and take their vitamins everyday and they rarely smoke because they know smoking has side effects), it explains the difference in the cancer rates and the results.
It resolves a discrepancy between the studies, which is what the question asks us NOT to do.
So we throw out E.
Hope this made sense when I typed it all out. It did in my head.
I hate RRE
Would it be appropriate to rule out E simply because smoking doesn't specifically apply to the info in the stimulus?
No. The ONLY questions that religiously follow that rule should be MSS questions (anything that asks about what you can infer from the stim). In general, for RRE, Strengthen, and Weaken questions, questions are totally allowed to bring in new information in an attempt to explain the problem.
In answer E, we are told that there's a difference between the 24 year study and the 12 year study—namely that the 12 year study had a smaller proportion of smokers. To put it briefly, you can eliminate E because it mentions a clear difference in the two studies, but it would be wrong to eliminate E for new information.
I could put: "Aliens came to earth and snuck into the bedrooms of every child and stole their cookies" in place of answer choice D, and it would still be the right answer (precisely because it has nothing to do with the stimulus).
Conversely, I could replace E with "Aliens came down and snuck into every researcher's bedroom who participated in the 12 year study to modify their data," and E would still be wrong simply because it would imply a difference in the two studies.
Does this help?