I keep getting down to the last two and picking the wrong one and then getting it correct in blind review. Need to slow down and focus more on accuracy instead of timing...sigh
My "post-mortem" reasoning devoid of astronomical knowledge was as follows: Assuming there is no other way to measure distance, an observer from Earth sees stars of varying brightness levels. Obviously one could assume the ones that appear dimmer are further away if all things are equal (if all stars had the same intrinsic brightness). But things are not equal. Some stars are inherently brighter than others. So with that let's imagine we see a star that is 25% as bright as the average star. With no way to measure distance, we could assume it was either old and close or young and far. But the key piece of information we need to make that conclusion (younger = brighter) is not in the stimulus. Once we have that we can see that the "earlier estimates" were wrong because they erred too much on the "old and close" side of the formula, so much so that it would make them impossibly old. So correct that to younger/brighter/further and we can make sense. This is actually the second time I have encountered this question. I think I guessed right the first time simply because the conclusion mentions age and distance, a premise establishes a relationship between brightness and distance, so a logical link between the two is age and brightness. I missed the question on my second encounter with it, hence my post-mortem analysis.
Is it odd/wrong to think about some of these questions (logic based questions in general) kind of like algebra questions? We are trying to find X. I'm not sure if this is the case for all LR questions, but it just hit me on this question.
Optional fact, younger stars have more energy in them and thus more bright, while older stars have less energy in them. And less bright. Plus distance traveled also impacts.
The relationship is that the astronomer's discovery of [Stars are farther and brighter] must somehow reconcile the impossible scenario, which means [Stars are farther and brighter] must lead to either [Stars are younger] or [Universe is older]. Since the property of being [farther and brighter] concerns stars, it must be that [Stars are younger].
More fleshed out:
Earlier estimates of the distances of certain stars led to an "impossible scenario." To reconcile this, we must infer that either the stars are younger than previously thought, or the universe is older than previously thought.
Astronomer's estimates indicate that the distance between Earth and stars is greater than what "earlier estimates" thought. This means stars must also be brighter, since they must have a greater intrinsic brightness to achieve the same apparent brightness to us.
With these new estimates, the astronomer concludes that the earlier conflict is resolved, which means it must be that either the stars are younger or the universe is older than previously thought. Since these new estimates are concerned with the properties of stars (farther means brighter), it must be that farther and brighter means younger.
@legallyhaya It's really odd and the more I do it, the more I realize how unintuitive it can be to find these relationships. But you just kind of have to force it, knowing that there is some sort of relationship between the clauses, as different as they sound. Sometimes, specific wording matters more and sometimes it's the broader topics in the stimulus. I got this question correct by forcing that relationship between the brightness of the stars with their age or the age of the universe. I second-guessed this relationship/line-of-thinking during BR though, so it's definitely a learning process.
@legallyhaya This is how I thought about this question:
The astronomer starts off by mentioning that these earlier estimates of distances of stars from Earth are known to be untrue. This is because this would mean that the stars are older than the universe, which couldn't possibly happen.
The astronomer then goes on to say that they have their own estimates; it is implied that they believe their estimates to be true. The astronomer's estimates are saying that the stars are farther away than what those earlier estimates (which are untrue) said.
So, the astronomer is saying the stars are (1) farther away and (2) not as old/younger than what was previously thought. This, thinking back on the first premise, also tells us that a closer star is older than a star that is farther away.
The next premise then says "the farther away the stars are, the greater their intrinsic brightness..." So, the stars are (1) farther away, (2) not as old/younger than what was previously thought, and (3) brighter.
From this, the astronomer's argument concludes that these new estimates help to explain the earlier conflict between the age of star and age of universe. Because if it's true that the star is farther away than what was believed, it is younger and brighter. Which helps to discredit that stars are older than the universe.
this really took me a while and i was not doing well on previous questions for not reading thoroughly, so i wanted to take my time on this:
the old way says the stars that are far away are 1 billion years old... that is impossible. because i declare that they are further and brighter. but what does that have to do with the conclusion? we have to piece the lack of words we have together.
we can delete A,D,E. because that has nothing to do with what we are talking about. I was stuck on B and C.
B suggests that we are discussing the universe...um okay yes but we are not talking about the quantity of stars in it. Just their BRIGHTNESS and AGE
C- the brighter a star is, the younger it is. Yes because she cannot fathom for them to be 1 billion years old and that far away. She is standing her ground that they are so much brighter than the old opinion and that she disagrees that they can be 1 billion years old.
there is no way they can be older than 1 billion years old! there are no answer choices that suggest that she thinks they are OLDER and BRIGHTER. is kinda how i read it in my mind...i hope this helps those who are confused. it might sound dumb the way i explained, but i really have to dumb it down to understand these. especially the hard ones.
@rengoku Right, this is also how I distinguished between B and C. B assumes the universe to be the main subject of age, but what we are given in the premises concern the stars, so it doesn't make sense to flip the main topic of the premises around. There may be a more logically precise way to think of this, but the big-picture helps me understand it better and makes LSAT thinking more intuitive sometimes
"So the new estimates of these stars' distances from Earth help resolve the earlier conflict between the ages of these stars and the age of the universe."
either the stars are younger than previously thought OR the universe is older than previously thought
we should expect the correct answer to relate the brightness of stars to the age of stars OR to somehow connect their brightness with the age of the universe
only B) and C) are attractive based on the above
C) is exactly what we were looking for
B) is actually not helpful! it works in the opposite direction. If anything, we need the universe to be older than we had thought, not younger.
Why answer C is correct has been poorly explained, and this video should be redone with a much more thorough explanation. I largely understand why the other 4 are incorrect, but I do not understand why C is correct.
Conclusion: the stars are younger than previously thought
Premise: the stars are further from us and thus brighter than previously thought.
How do I connect the premise to the conclusion? It must be that distance or brightness(two have a correlation as established in the stimulus) can help us calculate the star's age.
(C) does exactly that. I would also say not only is it necessary because there's a gap in the argument, it also pretty strongly supports the argument. And again, if we negate (C) and say that distance/brightness doesn't prove a star's age, then the argument is just baseless.
#feedback There ABSOLUTELY must be a more clear way to explain the correct answer to this question. There must be a way to more clearly explain the wrong answers as well. If the answer to both of those is no, then at least raise the difficulty meter of the question so that we do not feel like idiots.
https://lsathacks.com/explanations/lsat-preptest-62/logical-reasoning-1/q-20/ Check out LSATHacks explanation, I found it super helpful. This is a great resource
Bruh this is so dumb... I knew the brighter the star the younger it is and I chose it but I was like what does this have to do with the conclusion about the universe so I changed it to B ugh
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130 comments
the more i do NA questions the more i hate it. ive gotten the past 3 Qs wrong. omfg losing my mind.
I was struggling with RRE questions at one point, and today I got this level 4 question right (+2:25 on timing). I'm so happy!!
This took me 12 mins of mapping the stim over and over again to understand but I got it right finally!
got it right on the BR, I was going to choose it for the first try but thought it was too simple :/
I keep getting down to the last two and picking the wrong one and then getting it correct in blind review. Need to slow down and focus more on accuracy instead of timing...sigh
I am so glad I caught this... I had to re read the stimulus three times
what is an rre question .... these acronyms are killing me
@LiviaLSAT i went hunting, its resolve reconcile explain if anyone else was curious ... i do think it would be helpful to restate full names
My "post-mortem" reasoning devoid of astronomical knowledge was as follows: Assuming there is no other way to measure distance, an observer from Earth sees stars of varying brightness levels. Obviously one could assume the ones that appear dimmer are further away if all things are equal (if all stars had the same intrinsic brightness). But things are not equal. Some stars are inherently brighter than others. So with that let's imagine we see a star that is 25% as bright as the average star. With no way to measure distance, we could assume it was either old and close or young and far. But the key piece of information we need to make that conclusion (younger = brighter) is not in the stimulus. Once we have that we can see that the "earlier estimates" were wrong because they erred too much on the "old and close" side of the formula, so much so that it would make them impossibly old. So correct that to younger/brighter/further and we can make sense. This is actually the second time I have encountered this question. I think I guessed right the first time simply because the conclusion mentions age and distance, a premise establishes a relationship between brightness and distance, so a logical link between the two is age and brightness. I missed the question on my second encounter with it, hence my post-mortem analysis.
Wow one of the first ones I got right on NA section w/o BR and it's RRE LMAO
Is it odd/wrong to think about some of these questions (logic based questions in general) kind of like algebra questions? We are trying to find X. I'm not sure if this is the case for all LR questions, but it just hit me on this question.
Optional fact, younger stars have more energy in them and thus more bright, while older stars have less energy in them. And less bright. Plus distance traveled also impacts.
Apparent Brightness? We ae supposed to know this?
When I heard the learn'd astronomer...
can someone explain to me, I am not understanding the relationship between the brightness and a star being young?
@legallyhaya
The relationship is that the astronomer's discovery of [Stars are farther and brighter] must somehow reconcile the impossible scenario, which means [Stars are farther and brighter] must lead to either [Stars are younger] or [Universe is older]. Since the property of being [farther and brighter] concerns stars, it must be that [Stars are younger].
More fleshed out:
Earlier estimates of the distances of certain stars led to an "impossible scenario." To reconcile this, we must infer that either the stars are younger than previously thought, or the universe is older than previously thought.
Astronomer's estimates indicate that the distance between Earth and stars is greater than what "earlier estimates" thought. This means stars must also be brighter, since they must have a greater intrinsic brightness to achieve the same apparent brightness to us.
With these new estimates, the astronomer concludes that the earlier conflict is resolved, which means it must be that either the stars are younger or the universe is older than previously thought. Since these new estimates are concerned with the properties of stars (farther means brighter), it must be that farther and brighter means younger.
@legallyhaya the first sentence sets the tone for who needs to be old or young. I read it twice then understood where it was coming from.
@legallyhaya It's really odd and the more I do it, the more I realize how unintuitive it can be to find these relationships. But you just kind of have to force it, knowing that there is some sort of relationship between the clauses, as different as they sound. Sometimes, specific wording matters more and sometimes it's the broader topics in the stimulus. I got this question correct by forcing that relationship between the brightness of the stars with their age or the age of the universe. I second-guessed this relationship/line-of-thinking during BR though, so it's definitely a learning process.
@legallyhaya This is how I thought about this question:
The astronomer starts off by mentioning that these earlier estimates of distances of stars from Earth are known to be untrue. This is because this would mean that the stars are older than the universe, which couldn't possibly happen.
The astronomer then goes on to say that they have their own estimates; it is implied that they believe their estimates to be true. The astronomer's estimates are saying that the stars are farther away than what those earlier estimates (which are untrue) said.
So, the astronomer is saying the stars are (1) farther away and (2) not as old/younger than what was previously thought. This, thinking back on the first premise, also tells us that a closer star is older than a star that is farther away.
The next premise then says "the farther away the stars are, the greater their intrinsic brightness..." So, the stars are (1) farther away, (2) not as old/younger than what was previously thought, and (3) brighter.
From this, the astronomer's argument concludes that these new estimates help to explain the earlier conflict between the age of star and age of universe. Because if it's true that the star is farther away than what was believed, it is younger and brighter. Which helps to discredit that stars are older than the universe.
I found this much more easier to explain if you are just treating the question as an RRE question, and not whatever this video said.
this really took me a while and i was not doing well on previous questions for not reading thoroughly, so i wanted to take my time on this:
the old way says the stars that are far away are 1 billion years old... that is impossible. because i declare that they are further and brighter. but what does that have to do with the conclusion? we have to piece the lack of words we have together.
we can delete A,D,E. because that has nothing to do with what we are talking about. I was stuck on B and C.
B suggests that we are discussing the universe...um okay yes but we are not talking about the quantity of stars in it. Just their BRIGHTNESS and AGE
C- the brighter a star is, the younger it is. Yes because she cannot fathom for them to be 1 billion years old and that far away. She is standing her ground that they are so much brighter than the old opinion and that she disagrees that they can be 1 billion years old.
there is no way they can be older than 1 billion years old! there are no answer choices that suggest that she thinks they are OLDER and BRIGHTER. is kinda how i read it in my mind...i hope this helps those who are confused. it might sound dumb the way i explained, but i really have to dumb it down to understand these. especially the hard ones.
@rengoku Right, this is also how I distinguished between B and C. B assumes the universe to be the main subject of age, but what we are given in the premises concern the stars, so it doesn't make sense to flip the main topic of the premises around. There may be a more logically precise way to think of this, but the big-picture helps me understand it better and makes LSAT thinking more intuitive sometimes
"So the new estimates of these stars' distances from Earth help resolve the earlier conflict between the ages of these stars and the age of the universe."
either the stars are younger than previously thought OR the universe is older than previously thought
we should expect the correct answer to relate the brightness of stars to the age of stars OR to somehow connect their brightness with the age of the universe
only B) and C) are attractive based on the above
C) is exactly what we were looking for
B) is actually not helpful! it works in the opposite direction. If anything, we need the universe to be older than we had thought, not younger.
lol. "(E) feels like it gave up on life."
@ibnjames haha, true!
only knew this because im an astronomy nerd
Same
#feedback
Why answer C is correct has been poorly explained, and this video should be redone with a much more thorough explanation. I largely understand why the other 4 are incorrect, but I do not understand why C is correct.
@odserlin282
This was my process:
Conclusion: the stars are younger than previously thought
Premise: the stars are further from us and thus brighter than previously thought.
How do I connect the premise to the conclusion? It must be that distance or brightness(two have a correlation as established in the stimulus) can help us calculate the star's age.
(C) does exactly that. I would also say not only is it necessary because there's a gap in the argument, it also pretty strongly supports the argument. And again, if we negate (C) and say that distance/brightness doesn't prove a star's age, then the argument is just baseless.
#feedback There ABSOLUTELY must be a more clear way to explain the correct answer to this question. There must be a way to more clearly explain the wrong answers as well. If the answer to both of those is no, then at least raise the difficulty meter of the question so that we do not feel like idiots.
yea I am questioning if i should keep paying for 7sage :/
https://lsathacks.com/explanations/lsat-preptest-62/logical-reasoning-1/q-20/ Check out LSATHacks explanation, I found it super helpful. This is a great resource
thank you! This helped!
Thank you!! I like this explanation much better
@ameliaviscay1 Wow this explanation helped a ton!
Bruh this is so dumb... I knew the brighter the star the younger it is and I chose it but I was like what does this have to do with the conclusion about the universe so I changed it to B ugh
What the no prior knowledge my ass
diabolically worded question.
YUHHHH BRING ME BACK TO RRE! I HATE NA