It feels like a completely unwarranted assumption that avoidance of dairy may cause negative health effects. How would we have made that guess without appealing to outside knowledge (which is the last thing we ought to do on the LSAT)?
@JohnDemmler Lol right? I'm dying for an explanation. This is the one and only question that I still disagree with the correct answer out of 100s and 100s of drills. It's throwing me off for the entire test, knowing that we may be expected to just make such a massive assumption from knowledge outside of the passage.
@MacSelesnick, I'm real late to the party here, but this one threw me for a loop for a minute too, so I was reading through comments to get more perspective.
Came across yours and thought maybe this could help in reframing the question without it being necessary that we have outside knowledge to get it right.
I think it's easier to see with one simple change - we remove "dairy" from the stimulus.
So now, the stimulus reads as, "The probability of avoiding heart disease is increased if one avoids fat in one's diet. Furthermore, one is less likely to eat fat if one avoids eating food. Thus, the probability of maintaining good health is increased by avoiding food."
In this version, the premises are still technically true - you can decrease your fat intake if you simply avoid food altogether, but the author is ignoring the MASSIVE, negative implications of simply not eating food at all with his conclusion.
I suppose this version still requires the outside knowledge that humans need to eat food to survive, but I think we can consider that one common knowledge.
Anyway, hope maybe that helps a little bit - made it make more sense to me at least!
@MacSelesnick That's the thing, you do not need to know it. Being vulnerable to a criticism does not necessarily mean the criticism is correct. The text do not mention anything on negativity of avoiding dairy foods. In the meantime it connected avoiding dairy foods to increase in probability of maintaining overall health. It is then natural to question that, yes maybe it does increase the probability of avoidingheart disease, but is this the only factor that affects maintaining good health. Surely not. So the text should have considered other effects before connecting improvement ofone health factor to overall maintenance of health.
Most of the time I don't use lawgic, honestly. I think it is typically over complicated and yes, you should understand it for really difficult questions, but try not to use it. I think this is a flaw (lol) of the new 7sage curriculum that it has become so lawgic based (I also have done most of the old style curriculum as well). Here is how I thought through the question which may help someone else.
Conclusion: maintaining good health is increased by avoiding dairy foods
Premise 1: avoiding heart disease is increased if one avoids fat in one's diet
Premise 2: one is less likely to eat fat if one avoids dairy foods
------- my thought after I read the passage: Now can we really compare good health and not having heart disease and/or avoiding diary? Is this really the same thing? Red flag. Can I make the assumption having good health = avoiding heart disease/avoiding dairy? Probably not!
Now for flaw questions, you should try to predict the future answer choices. Many times you can, often you can't. But try your hardest too! At this point, I was thinking, well what if you avoid dairy and then this avoidance causes another problem for you not to have good health! Now I'm reminding myself to FOCUS ON THE CONCLUSION!
A) my prediction sort of lines up with this. I immediately suspected A was right. I didn't like elimination = avoidance, but I decided to move on and scan the other answer choices.
B) okay, sure. It does this. But remember the conclusion! We are trying to break the conclusion from the premises and show how they don't line up. This doesn't show how maintaining good health is not increased by avoiding dairy foods
C: the argument does provide some kind of justification through the premises. This isn't really what the argument is doing anyway and why the premises don't support the conclusion
D: it did show it's relevant though. Or it tried to. But it made the major assumption good health = avoiding heart disease and that it isn't bad for you to avoid dairy
E: I don't even know what to say to this. Maybe heart disease or not having good health is most likely to occur! We don't even talk about this in the passage
====== my thoughts after going through the answer choices: well A is really the only thing that makes some kind of sense. It requires that small assumption but it's not necessarily unreasonable. It shows how avoiding dairy/= good health because avoiding dairy could have other negative effects on your health!
My # 1 tip: focus on the conclusion and try to come up with alternative explanations, is it a causation/correlation error, can you compare the numbers, etc.. I used to suck at flaw questions. Sometimes I still do. But keep practicing and get to know the common flaw answer choices the LSAT uses.
These questions are weird for me. One 4 star question I get the answer in under a minute. Next 2 star question I take 5 minutes trying to decide between 3 answers and still get it wrong.
Was debating between A or B and chose B... this is my entire LSAT experience. Narrowing it down to two choice answers but picking the tempting answer over the right
Same here! I'm always a little encouraged to know that at least I'm stuck picking between two of the best answers. I'm able to eliminate the obviously wrong answers more quickly now. That's progress!
Does anyone else feel like this is way out of the general "logic of the lsat"? I mean... we're coming into this question with a massive assumption that's far beyond the assumptions made in other questions.
I just do not see how arguing "milk could have other possible positive effects" necessarily makes the argument vulnerable to the argument that "reducing dairy helps maintain good health." If dairy does indeed have positive effects, it does not eliminate the fact that "the probability of avoiding heart disease is increased with less fat intake, and less fat intake could be performed by reducing dairy".... Taking the example in the video, just because there is "calcium, which is good in dairy" doesn't mean that heart disease is suddenly not a possibility if one does not lower dairy intake. The two are mutually exclusive, both can occur, and it seems like we are treating these as an "either/or."
Like, FINE, drink the milk. One is likely to benefit by getting calcium, protein, etc., so eliminating the milk may have negative consequences (a claim based on the assumption there are other causal factors of milk)
BUT does that really challenge the original argument? Dairy = one is likely to consume fat, which can have the possibility of increasing heart disease, which lowers the probability of maintaining good health?
I understand that one could use process of elimination to probably get the answer right, however, I just thought this question was off-putting from all the other lsat questions because the question goes directly against the LSAT's own rules: it makes the largest assumption jump (that there could possibly be other factors without listing or implying this in the paragraph, that such factors in dairy are have good effects, and that these good factors positively impact the maintenance of health in such a way that it eliminates or reduces the risk of heart disease). More importantly, the answer's wording "[dairy's] elimination may have negative consequences" does not challenge the argument itself in any way: what are the negative consequences of removing dairy? maybe loss of protein or calcium. Ok. But does this change the probability of maintaining good health since drinking the same dairy also causes heart disease? (the two are almost like they are exclusive)
#feedback It is so disappointing that not one person from 7sage has responded to your comment, especially considering it's been up for a MONTH. This program is woefully inept when it comes to addressing actual questions students have (as opposed to answering every single minor spelling error).
I guess we're just supposed to "get it" and move on, huh? Feeling really let down by 7sage as a whole the more I progress through the CC.
@hello84939384 Thanks for the feedback. The intention of the 7sage forums, which these comment sections are an extension of, is to provide a space for students to help one another, leave their thoughts/feelings on the LSAT or 7sage, etc. In general, the intent is to help propel self-studying and communal learning.
@ batu.buyukbezci, I think you’re paraphrasing the argument incorrectly. The conclusion of the argument is that the “probability of maintaining good health is increased by avoiding dairy foods”. The argument doesn’t say that the probability may increase, or could increase; it says “is increased”.
To make that claim, we have to be very sure that it (the probability of maintaining good health) absolutely will increase by avoiding dairy foods. What all goes into the calculation of the probability of maintaining good health?
Imagine it like a math problem. Probability of maintaining good health = Numerous factors. For the probability to be higher, “Numerous factors” must increase in the positive direction (e.g. 10 –> 20).
The stimulus says this: By avoiding dairy foods, Numerous factors necessarily increase. With dairy, Numerous Factors is lower than Without Diary.
But that is not necessarily true. Dairy, presumptively, brings benefits as well. For (avoiding dairy foods = numerous factors increasing) to be true, it HAS to be the case that the negatives of eating dairy out way the benefits. Why do we assume that?
Whether or not dairy actually has benefits is irrelevant. The argument has to consider the possibility that it does to make the conclusion that it does, and it fails to do so here.
This question is confusing, so please let me know if you have further questions.
Thank you for this explanation - personally, this explanation helped me to reframe how I can look at these questions more than the video did. Video was helpful too, but your explanation was more helpful for me personally and I think it will help others too!
Thank you for your response to my comment and batu.buyukbezci's comment. I understand that my frustration was completely unwarranted and misdirected and I apologize for the harsh critique. My shortcomings are not the fault of the curriculum and I really appreciate the effort the entire 7Sage community has put into teaching this test. If it is possible, I would like to delete my comment as I do not see how it can be beneficial to others moving forward.
As soon as the author transitioned from discussing "avoiding heart disease" to "maintaining good health" I knew A had to be correct. Assuming one leads to the other is quite unreasonable.
#feedback It feels like I am completely unprepared to answer the questions presented in this section. I can't POE successfully or move through any of the stimulus' in any meaningful way compared to how JY does it.
I do not think 7sage or JY have done a good job preparing students for this section. Every new question feels like were going at it blind and then JY just comes in with his usual nonchalant reasoning for wrong answers that make sense to him but leave us non-enlightened students feeling like we're so far off base that we need to start the curriculum over.
Can't say I feel confident about what I'm learning at this point.
Thank you for sharing your feedback with us. I'm sorry to hear that the current materials and explanations haven't met your expectations, leading to feelings of unpreparedness and frustration. I take your experience seriously and have shared your concerns with our product team. Your input is crucial for us to ensure our curriculum supports every student effectively.
Please know we're committed to enhancing your learning experience and appreciate any suggestions you might have.
Thank your prompt response. I am sorry for venting about my own issues instead of contributing to the community at large. My frustrations are with my own performance and are not a reflection of J.Y. or the curriculum. It was completely unfair for me to attribute my shortcomings to J.Y. or the curriculum and it was incorrect to assume my situation mirrored others in the community. If it is possible, I would like to delete my original comment as I do not see how it would benefit anyone else in the future.
What helped me out with this question was the word health. By saying that you can maintain good health if you avoid dairy foods, it completely negates the possibility that your health can decrease by not eating dairy foods. When I saw the word health in reference to heart disease, I immediately saw that fault.
I feel like every time I find a pattern for the right answer it changes. I don't undersand how you are supposed to choose between the different hypotheses from questions question because all the questions feel like they're written the same way.
Starting to get really confident with this LSAT. Let me explain two years ago when I first started studying for the LSAT and then stopped I would get confident when I got the answer correct. Now I am starting to get really confident not just because I got the answer correct. But also because I am able to accurately eliminate wrong answers and explain why I got the right answer correct, and why the wrong answers are wrong. Also because im really understanding the stimulus, and I am really starting to see the patterns the test writers do in the stimulus and the wrong answers choices!!! Anyone else feel the same way!!!
Me too Cameron! I have been half-heatedly studying the lsat for years, and would just bounce between feeling good and bad whenever I studied. But now I feel like I am starting to really understand why I get questions right, and then also why I get them wrong. It is exciting!
130 comments
throws laptop across the room
Love sitting between 2 answers and both of them end up incorrect haha
@GavinMartin17 That was me this question.
@GavinMartin17
@GavinMartin17 glad I wasn't the only one
Did you know it's possible to overthink LSAT questions?
It feels like a completely unwarranted assumption that avoidance of dairy may cause negative health effects. How would we have made that guess without appealing to outside knowledge (which is the last thing we ought to do on the LSAT)?
@MacSelesnick Yeah exactly, this question is a lot of baloney
@JohnDemmler Lol right? I'm dying for an explanation. This is the one and only question that I still disagree with the correct answer out of 100s and 100s of drills. It's throwing me off for the entire test, knowing that we may be expected to just make such a massive assumption from knowledge outside of the passage.
@MacSelesnick Same exact thought
@MacSelesnick, I'm real late to the party here, but this one threw me for a loop for a minute too, so I was reading through comments to get more perspective.
Came across yours and thought maybe this could help in reframing the question without it being necessary that we have outside knowledge to get it right.
I think it's easier to see with one simple change - we remove "dairy" from the stimulus.
So now, the stimulus reads as, "The probability of avoiding heart disease is increased if one avoids fat in one's diet. Furthermore, one is less likely to eat fat if one avoids eating food. Thus, the probability of maintaining good health is increased by avoiding food."
In this version, the premises are still technically true - you can decrease your fat intake if you simply avoid food altogether, but the author is ignoring the MASSIVE, negative implications of simply not eating food at all with his conclusion.
I suppose this version still requires the outside knowledge that humans need to eat food to survive, but I think we can consider that one common knowledge.
Anyway, hope maybe that helps a little bit - made it make more sense to me at least!
@MacSelesnick That's the thing, you do not need to know it. Being vulnerable to a criticism does not necessarily mean the criticism is correct. The text do not mention anything on negativity of avoiding dairy foods. In the meantime it connected avoiding dairy foods to increase in probability of maintaining overall health. It is then natural to question that, yes maybe it does increase the probability of avoiding heart disease, but is this the only factor that affects maintaining good health. Surely not. So the text should have considered other effects before connecting improvement of one health factor to overall maintenance of health.
bro wat
my reaction too
Most of the time I don't use lawgic, honestly. I think it is typically over complicated and yes, you should understand it for really difficult questions, but try not to use it. I think this is a flaw (lol) of the new 7sage curriculum that it has become so lawgic based (I also have done most of the old style curriculum as well). Here is how I thought through the question which may help someone else.
Conclusion: maintaining good health is increased by avoiding dairy foods
Premise 1: avoiding heart disease is increased if one avoids fat in one's diet
Premise 2: one is less likely to eat fat if one avoids dairy foods
------- my thought after I read the passage: Now can we really compare good health and not having heart disease and/or avoiding diary? Is this really the same thing? Red flag. Can I make the assumption having good health = avoiding heart disease/avoiding dairy? Probably not!
Now for flaw questions, you should try to predict the future answer choices. Many times you can, often you can't. But try your hardest too! At this point, I was thinking, well what if you avoid dairy and then this avoidance causes another problem for you not to have good health! Now I'm reminding myself to FOCUS ON THE CONCLUSION!
A) my prediction sort of lines up with this. I immediately suspected A was right. I didn't like elimination = avoidance, but I decided to move on and scan the other answer choices.
B) okay, sure. It does this. But remember the conclusion! We are trying to break the conclusion from the premises and show how they don't line up. This doesn't show how maintaining good health is not increased by avoiding dairy foods
C: the argument does provide some kind of justification through the premises. This isn't really what the argument is doing anyway and why the premises don't support the conclusion
D: it did show it's relevant though. Or it tried to. But it made the major assumption good health = avoiding heart disease and that it isn't bad for you to avoid dairy
E: I don't even know what to say to this. Maybe heart disease or not having good health is most likely to occur! We don't even talk about this in the passage
====== my thoughts after going through the answer choices: well A is really the only thing that makes some kind of sense. It requires that small assumption but it's not necessarily unreasonable. It shows how avoiding dairy/= good health because avoiding dairy could have other negative effects on your health!
My # 1 tip: focus on the conclusion and try to come up with alternative explanations, is it a causation/correlation error, can you compare the numbers, etc.. I used to suck at flaw questions. Sometimes I still do. But keep practicing and get to know the common flaw answer choices the LSAT uses.
I studied for this test in 2020, and my overuse of lawgic caused many wrong answers due to overthinking so I definitely agree!
This was a good explanation!
These questions are brutal
+1
Me: *reads AC A* "ha ok so its definitely not that one!" ._.
@Bayside Lol this was me at first, now I understand why it's A. I originally chose B.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4X-AJtALk4
omg I watched this video before doing this question and it literally couldn't have been better timed!! plz watch this it will help you so much
good video ... now I have to see if it works so easily as I understood
this was so helpful!!! thank you for sharing it!!
may you be blessed
These questions are weird for me. One 4 star question I get the answer in under a minute. Next 2 star question I take 5 minutes trying to decide between 3 answers and still get it wrong.
Was debating between A or B and chose B... this is my entire LSAT experience. Narrowing it down to two choice answers but picking the tempting answer over the right
Same here! I'm always a little encouraged to know that at least I'm stuck picking between two of the best answers. I'm able to eliminate the obviously wrong answers more quickly now. That's progress!
the difficulty level seems like BS. level 3's sometimes feel like level 5's and level 5's sometimes feel like level 2's.
Does anyone else feel like this is way out of the general "logic of the lsat"? I mean... we're coming into this question with a massive assumption that's far beyond the assumptions made in other questions.
I just do not see how arguing "milk could have other possible positive effects" necessarily makes the argument vulnerable to the argument that "reducing dairy helps maintain good health." If dairy does indeed have positive effects, it does not eliminate the fact that "the probability of avoiding heart disease is increased with less fat intake, and less fat intake could be performed by reducing dairy".... Taking the example in the video, just because there is "calcium, which is good in dairy" doesn't mean that heart disease is suddenly not a possibility if one does not lower dairy intake. The two are mutually exclusive, both can occur, and it seems like we are treating these as an "either/or."
Like, FINE, drink the milk. One is likely to benefit by getting calcium, protein, etc., so eliminating the milk may have negative consequences (a claim based on the assumption there are other causal factors of milk)
BUT does that really challenge the original argument? Dairy = one is likely to consume fat, which can have the possibility of increasing heart disease, which lowers the probability of maintaining good health?
I understand that one could use process of elimination to probably get the answer right, however, I just thought this question was off-putting from all the other lsat questions because the question goes directly against the LSAT's own rules: it makes the largest assumption jump (that there could possibly be other factors without listing or implying this in the paragraph, that such factors in dairy are have good effects, and that these good factors positively impact the maintenance of health in such a way that it eliminates or reduces the risk of heart disease). More importantly, the answer's wording "[dairy's] elimination may have negative consequences" does not challenge the argument itself in any way: what are the negative consequences of removing dairy? maybe loss of protein or calcium. Ok. But does this change the probability of maintaining good health since drinking the same dairy also causes heart disease? (the two are almost like they are exclusive)
#feedback It is so disappointing that not one person from 7sage has responded to your comment, especially considering it's been up for a MONTH. This program is woefully inept when it comes to addressing actual questions students have (as opposed to answering every single minor spelling error).
I guess we're just supposed to "get it" and move on, huh? Feeling really let down by 7sage as a whole the more I progress through the CC.
Exactly. I wanted to pick A but I thought it brought a lot of 'real world assumptions' to the question and I opted for B.
Hi there,
@hello84939384 Thanks for the feedback. The intention of the 7sage forums, which these comment sections are an extension of, is to provide a space for students to help one another, leave their thoughts/feelings on the LSAT or 7sage, etc. In general, the intent is to help propel self-studying and communal learning.
@ batu.buyukbezci, I think you’re paraphrasing the argument incorrectly. The conclusion of the argument is that the “probability of maintaining good health is increased by avoiding dairy foods”. The argument doesn’t say that the probability may increase, or could increase; it says “is increased”.
To make that claim, we have to be very sure that it (the probability of maintaining good health) absolutely will increase by avoiding dairy foods. What all goes into the calculation of the probability of maintaining good health?
Imagine it like a math problem. Probability of maintaining good health = Numerous factors. For the probability to be higher, “Numerous factors” must increase in the positive direction (e.g. 10 –> 20).
The stimulus says this: By avoiding dairy foods, Numerous factors necessarily increase. With dairy, Numerous Factors is lower than Without Diary.
But that is not necessarily true. Dairy, presumptively, brings benefits as well. For (avoiding dairy foods = numerous factors increasing) to be true, it HAS to be the case that the negatives of eating dairy out way the benefits. Why do we assume that?
Whether or not dairy actually has benefits is irrelevant. The argument has to consider the possibility that it does to make the conclusion that it does, and it fails to do so here.
This question is confusing, so please let me know if you have further questions.
Ryan Lattavo
Tutor at 7sage
Thank you for this explanation - personally, this explanation helped me to reframe how I can look at these questions more than the video did. Video was helpful too, but your explanation was more helpful for me personally and I think it will help others too!
Thank you for your response to my comment and batu.buyukbezci's comment. I understand that my frustration was completely unwarranted and misdirected and I apologize for the harsh critique. My shortcomings are not the fault of the curriculum and I really appreciate the effort the entire 7Sage community has put into teaching this test. If it is possible, I would like to delete my comment as I do not see how it can be beneficial to others moving forward.
Why do we care about dairy's outside consequences, good or bad? There just didn't feel like a good answer for this one
As soon as the author transitioned from discussing "avoiding heart disease" to "maintaining good health" I knew A had to be correct. Assuming one leads to the other is quite unreasonable.
Achieving this through avoiding dairy products is whats unreasonable ^^
#feedback It feels like I am completely unprepared to answer the questions presented in this section. I can't POE successfully or move through any of the stimulus' in any meaningful way compared to how JY does it.
I do not think 7sage or JY have done a good job preparing students for this section. Every new question feels like were going at it blind and then JY just comes in with his usual nonchalant reasoning for wrong answers that make sense to him but leave us non-enlightened students feeling like we're so far off base that we need to start the curriculum over.
Can't say I feel confident about what I'm learning at this point.
Hi there,
Thank you for sharing your feedback with us. I'm sorry to hear that the current materials and explanations haven't met your expectations, leading to feelings of unpreparedness and frustration. I take your experience seriously and have shared your concerns with our product team. Your input is crucial for us to ensure our curriculum supports every student effectively.
Please know we're committed to enhancing your learning experience and appreciate any suggestions you might have.
i feel the same
Thank your prompt response. I am sorry for venting about my own issues instead of contributing to the community at large. My frustrations are with my own performance and are not a reflection of J.Y. or the curriculum. It was completely unfair for me to attribute my shortcomings to J.Y. or the curriculum and it was incorrect to assume my situation mirrored others in the community. If it is possible, I would like to delete my original comment as I do not see how it would benefit anyone else in the future.
if you want we can study together, i started very low too and just started to get better.
I would like to study together as well!!!
Same!!
bruh
What helped me out with this question was the word health. By saying that you can maintain good health if you avoid dairy foods, it completely negates the possibility that your health can decrease by not eating dairy foods. When I saw the word health in reference to heart disease, I immediately saw that fault.
My problem is I get the correct answer, but then waste time second guessing myself. RIP
am i the only one that feels like his reasoning behind this was a reaching?
@watersam10151992 absolutely. Feels like a completely unwarranted assumption that avoidance of dairy may cause negative health effects.
I feel like every time I find a pattern for the right answer it changes. I don't undersand how you are supposed to choose between the different hypotheses from questions question because all the questions feel like they're written the same way.
Yup, I agree. That's why I chose B here, since the conclusion acts as if avoiding dairy will indeed yield a better chance at good health.
Whyyyy am I second guessing myself in BR omg
Praying I don't break my streak 🤲🏼 i need this
Having just done the previous question, I got baited into choosing B
Starting to get really confident with this LSAT. Let me explain two years ago when I first started studying for the LSAT and then stopped I would get confident when I got the answer correct. Now I am starting to get really confident not just because I got the answer correct. But also because I am able to accurately eliminate wrong answers and explain why I got the right answer correct, and why the wrong answers are wrong. Also because im really understanding the stimulus, and I am really starting to see the patterns the test writers do in the stimulus and the wrong answers choices!!! Anyone else feel the same way!!!
Me too Cameron! I have been half-heatedly studying the lsat for years, and would just bounce between feeling good and bad whenever I studied. But now I feel like I am starting to really understand why I get questions right, and then also why I get them wrong. It is exciting!