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.
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.
"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.
#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.
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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125 comments
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
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?
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.
"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."
only knew this because im an astronomy nerd
#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.
#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.
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
"Dont bring outside knowledge into the LSAT"
"Anyway you really need to consider both the intrinsic AND apparent brightness of stars for this one"
GIRL PLEASE! WHAT THE HALLE BERRYYYYYYY
I think it's time to log off 7sage for the day.
JY we know you had to google intrinsic brightness too, don't pretend
I understand why D is wrong (the answer I chose) but I'm still not following the reasoning behind why C is correct.
ima crash out