i initially picked B because i overlooked the fact that B does not really give us any new info. it just repeats what was already acknowledged in the stimulus. and i also missed the word 'many'...
The manager isn't arguing about benefiting the company, though. He only cares about the current product based on the passage... maybe when he's talking about guaranteeing success, he's talking about the success of the company and not the product right?
I think this one is really weird. D jumped out to me first as a possible answer, but then I changed my mind because I was like "wait why would we care about the other marketing campaigns" -_-
@GnatTaylor This question hit me, especially after doing a level one before it, like total whiplash ended up choosing D just cause it kinda sounded right.
So, I'm confused about what makes a question easy or difficult. I got that immediately and was expecting it to be easy. Yet I totally missed the easy one, like three questions back. Anyone else?
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but my takeaway from Weaken questions here is that doing so does not always mean we're weakening the strength of the premises. The whole objective of W questions is to undermine the logical framework of the author's argument that their premises --> conclusion. Here's where the issue comes in: the previous lessons say weakening the premises doesn't necessarily mean that the conclusion isn't true, that instead our objective is to just weaken the author's assumption that their premises fully support the conclusion. However, the explanation of D being the correct answer indicates that there ARE some cases where an additional explanation (cost in this situation) does weaken the author's conclusion.
Does anyone know why my timing keeps showing up as zero? I always try to pay attention to my timing in order to help me evaluate where I'm at, but for some reason the last few questions I've done it says I took no time. Is there something I can do to fix this?
@Bree2003 Ive been having the same issue for the past two days, I'm glad its not just me. I tried clearing my cache and that helped for two questions but its already back to showing as zero again.
Does anyone else have to refresh the page every time before running the practice questions? It happens on my phone, my laptop, and my ipad. Just wondering if anyone else has this issue!?
I knew it was D from the very beginning and I thought about how the company's overall position was irrelevant to the argument. I keep seconding guessing myself way too much.. I keep getting it wrong initially and right in my BR. Idk how to stop second guessing myself..
I am feeling fustrated as I am always between the right answer and a wrong answer (usually the most picked wrong answer) and always choose the wrong answer in WSE Questions. In my blind review I will end up picking the correct answer.
@KayceBassman Unfortunately this is exactly how the LSAT writers want us to feel and they purposely make the questions come down to two seemingly similar answer choices. Ellen Cassidy has a decent chapter about answer choices in her book "The Loophole", that you might find helpful! She specifically mentions how to choose between two answers choices.
I was 36 seconds over and only chose D as a last second gut decision. My reasoning is far from perfect but here it is.
Stimulus: New marketing campaign. No guarantee of success, but there's a chance.
(essentially, there is a possibility of failure, but a possibility of success).
A - Mentions losses, but does not state how those losses would arise. They may arise from the new campaign, maybe not. We don't know - it's too vauge on that note.
B - (I almost chose this). There are many new products that fail, but that implies that some succeed. The stimulus states that there is no gurentee of success, but there is still the possibility.
B implies there is still a possibility of success.
C - Similar to B. The stimulus implies that there is a possibility to fail and to succeed. There was never any gurentee they would fail.
D - Provides reason why it would be a bad idea to undertake this idea, despite the possibility of success. Invoking a 3rd variable that would hinder the argument.
E - We don't care about other products, only this one. If people demand more of other products that's good, but why should we not at least try to promote this one?
I chose D, but this is why I think people are picking B and C
We know that we assume the ACs are true. B and C do not guarantee the outcome if the condition is met
C. The drug company should not undertake a new marketing campaign for its newest product if the campaign has no chance to succeed.
For this to be true all that needs to happen is that if the product has a 0% chance of suceeding, the company should not do another campaign.
But in our heads when we assume truth, we go on to assume that the product does not have a chance of suceeding, so the company should not undertake a new campaign
In other words, when we say an AC is true what we say is that the conditional is right in saying whatever it said, not that what it said has happened.
I chose (D) but I didn't think of the question as a cost/benefit analysis. I just thought (D) as the only answer that really does something to weaken the argument.
Should I get in the habit of trying to identify whether a question is a cost/benifit?
I think there is another flaw with B. Even if you change "many" to "most" I don't see that as impacting the argument. Even if most marketing campaigns fail, what drawback is there to trying it anyway? B doesn't give us any reason NOT to try to marketing campaign, because there is no cost to simply trying, even if you were likely to fail. D on the other hand reveals that there is indeed a cost to attempting the marketing campaign in the first place.
Is it a stretch to say that the overall success is relevant also because the speaker is a person working at the company? Even if the company's position doesn't "matter" in the grand scheme of things, surely it's a reasonable thing to say that it matters to the people that it employs
@MattBav no, if anything it strengthens it because it gives a very strong reason to take a chance to save the product.
A says that the company has invested a lot in this product, so if it fails, it would be very harmful to the company. That is a reason to take the chance on the marketing campaign to save the product. If they don't, the company will be harmed
I was so tripped up by this. I thought D was the trap answer because it explicitly said "endangered". I thought they were trying to trick us with that word :(
120 comments
i initially picked B because i overlooked the fact that B does not really give us any new info. it just repeats what was already acknowledged in the stimulus. and i also missed the word 'many'...
2:54 JY says ineffect-ual instead of ineffective which should be a word I love it lol
Less than a minute. First try. No BR needed.
I'm getting good at these. LESGOOOOO
whenever i see a short stimulus, I always think "this has got to be a four or five star" XD I WAS RIGHTTTT
Bro how am I getting these level 4+ ones right but not the 1-3 levels right. my overthinking is killing me
How is this level 4?
Very weird with these types of questions. A 4-level difficulty question can feel like a 1 and vice versa.
overall position made sense, as a business owner, you should not take a risk when it comes to a new product PR if it endangers your current profits
The manager isn't arguing about benefiting the company, though. He only cares about the current product based on the passage... maybe when he's talking about guaranteeing success, he's talking about the success of the company and not the product right?
@sarahbalfoul That was exactly my thought as well
lets gooo correct with -7s
I think this one is really weird. D jumped out to me first as a possible answer, but then I changed my mind because I was like "wait why would we care about the other marketing campaigns" -_-
@GnatTaylor This question hit me, especially after doing a level one before it, like total whiplash ended up choosing D just cause it kinda sounded right.
So, I'm confused about what makes a question easy or difficult. I got that immediately and was expecting it to be easy. Yet I totally missed the easy one, like three questions back. Anyone else?
@MarieChavis My guess is many people got this wrong that would explain the difficulty.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but my takeaway from Weaken questions here is that doing so does not always mean we're weakening the strength of the premises. The whole objective of W questions is to undermine the logical framework of the author's argument that their premises --> conclusion. Here's where the issue comes in: the previous lessons say weakening the premises doesn't necessarily mean that the conclusion isn't true, that instead our objective is to just weaken the author's assumption that their premises fully support the conclusion. However, the explanation of D being the correct answer indicates that there ARE some cases where an additional explanation (cost in this situation) does weaken the author's conclusion.
Does anyone know why my timing keeps showing up as zero? I always try to pay attention to my timing in order to help me evaluate where I'm at, but for some reason the last few questions I've done it says I took no time. Is there something I can do to fix this?
@Bree2003 Ive been having the same issue for the past two days, I'm glad its not just me. I tried clearing my cache and that helped for two questions but its already back to showing as zero again.
@Bree2003 I kept having the same problem, but I found that if I refresh the page before I press "start," the timing issue is solved.
I really dislike these weakening questions, I need to work on them more :/
Does anyone else have to refresh the page every time before running the practice questions? It happens on my phone, my laptop, and my ipad. Just wondering if anyone else has this issue!?
@LawyeRell Occasionally. I recommend checking if your browser needs an update. This will happen on other sites if chrome or something is out of date.
@DNAlex Gotcha. Thanks!
I knew it was D from the very beginning and I thought about how the company's overall position was irrelevant to the argument. I keep seconding guessing myself way too much.. I keep getting it wrong initially and right in my BR. Idk how to stop second guessing myself..
I am feeling fustrated as I am always between the right answer and a wrong answer (usually the most picked wrong answer) and always choose the wrong answer in WSE Questions. In my blind review I will end up picking the correct answer.
Can someone please help me on how to fix this?
@KayceBassman This happens to me to 99% of the time, and I think we just have to continue practicing.
@KayceBassman Unfortunately this is exactly how the LSAT writers want us to feel and they purposely make the questions come down to two seemingly similar answer choices. Ellen Cassidy has a decent chapter about answer choices in her book "The Loophole", that you might find helpful! She specifically mentions how to choose between two answers choices.
I was 36 seconds over and only chose D as a last second gut decision. My reasoning is far from perfect but here it is.
Stimulus: New marketing campaign. No guarantee of success, but there's a chance.
(essentially, there is a possibility of failure, but a possibility of success).
A - Mentions losses, but does not state how those losses would arise. They may arise from the new campaign, maybe not. We don't know - it's too vauge on that note.
B - (I almost chose this). There are many new products that fail, but that implies that some succeed. The stimulus states that there is no gurentee of success, but there is still the possibility.
B implies there is still a possibility of success.
C - Similar to B. The stimulus implies that there is a possibility to fail and to succeed. There was never any gurentee they would fail.
D - Provides reason why it would be a bad idea to undertake this idea, despite the possibility of success. Invoking a 3rd variable that would hinder the argument.
E - We don't care about other products, only this one. If people demand more of other products that's good, but why should we not at least try to promote this one?
I chose D, but this is why I think people are picking B and C
We know that we assume the ACs are true. B and C do not guarantee the outcome if the condition is met
C. The drug company should not undertake a new marketing campaign for its newest product if the campaign has no chance to succeed.
For this to be true all that needs to happen is that if the product has a 0% chance of suceeding, the company should not do another campaign.
But in our heads when we assume truth, we go on to assume that the product does not have a chance of suceeding, so the company should not undertake a new campaign
In other words, when we say an AC is true what we say is that the conditional is right in saying whatever it said, not that what it said has happened.
This same principle applies to AC B
I chose (D) but I didn't think of the question as a cost/benefit analysis. I just thought (D) as the only answer that really does something to weaken the argument.
Should I get in the habit of trying to identify whether a question is a cost/benifit?
I think there is another flaw with B. Even if you change "many" to "most" I don't see that as impacting the argument. Even if most marketing campaigns fail, what drawback is there to trying it anyway? B doesn't give us any reason NOT to try to marketing campaign, because there is no cost to simply trying, even if you were likely to fail. D on the other hand reveals that there is indeed a cost to attempting the marketing campaign in the first place.
Is it a stretch to say that the overall success is relevant also because the speaker is a person working at the company? Even if the company's position doesn't "matter" in the grand scheme of things, surely it's a reasonable thing to say that it matters to the people that it employs
I am a little bit confused about of A is not weakened because it is an example of the Sunk Cost Fallacy? #help
@MattBav no, if anything it strengthens it because it gives a very strong reason to take a chance to save the product.
A says that the company has invested a lot in this product, so if it fails, it would be very harmful to the company. That is a reason to take the chance on the marketing campaign to save the product. If they don't, the company will be harmed
I was so tripped up by this. I thought D was the trap answer because it explicitly said "endangered". I thought they were trying to trick us with that word :(