173 posts in the last 30 days

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Last comment sunday, dec 20 2020

Jan LSAT Flex?

LSAC hasn't sent out options for scheduling your time slot for Jan LSAT-flex, right? I remember the September LSAT I took, I'd received scheduling options by the 15th-- Just wanna make sure I'm not missing something.

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I've found that the games I struggle with most consistently involve conditional logic. I don't have any trouble understanding the logical relations themselves, but the complexity of the rules gets me very confused. For example, when a rule says something like, if A is before B, then C is before D. An example of a game that gives me trouble is PT78.S2.G3: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-78-section-2-game-3/

Does anyone have any advice on how to approach these games?

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Last comment sunday, dec 20 2020

Consistency in LR

I am having trouble with consistency in LR sections. Some days I will take a PT and go -3 to -5 on the LR sections, and other times (like today PT 84 section 2) I will get -12... I am wondering if anyone has figured out a method that helped them do constantly well in LR.

#help

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Hello.

I am studying, in particular, the logic games section. As I am watching the reviews for the games by J.Y, I am noticing that almost all the games can be divided in two ways in their approach.

One of them is where you make the sub game boards and find out all the possibilities before going to the questions while the other approach is making only one gameboard, and then going straight to the questions.

My question is, how do you know whether you should just go to the questions, or just try to get as much sub-game boards without taking up too much time?

Is this just something you naturally pick up as you familiarize yourself with the questions? Or are there more concrete signs that the game is a, as J.Y puts it, a "rules driven game".

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Saturday, Dec 19 2020

"Good" Arguments

What is the difference between these 2 arguments?

1.

It is heavily raining

Thus, traffic will be bad

2.

It is heavily raining

The ground is wet

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You could say the second argument “flows” better or is more "supported"; however these labels are skin deep and do not get to the heart of what makes a good argument.

A good argument is one where when the premise is true, the conclusion is highly likely or certain to be true.

A useful technique is to think about when the premise is true, can you think of more possible worlds where the conclusion is true, or are there more possible worlds where the conclusion is false?

We reason with our imagination and past experience. For example, in evaluating the first argument, I draw upon all the times I have experienced heavy rain. Sure, some of those times traffic has become backed up, but not every time. Moreover, the rain probably was not the cause of the traffic-- the traffic would have happened anyways.

I can think of more times and imagine more hypothetical worlds where rain is heavy and traffic is normal. Thus the premise being true does not really correlate with the conclusion being true.... so the argument is weak.

A good argument contains a premise that when true, means that the conclusion is more likely than not to also be true.

For the second example, I have trouble thinking of a world where it could rain heavily and the ground does not get wet. Drawing on my experience and imagination, every time it rains heavily, the ground must get wet. When the premise is true, the conclusion is extremely likely to be true.... so we have a good argument.

Another way to think about it is viewing the premise as an input. When that input is true, how often do we get the conclusion or output? Do not be afraid to use your imagination!

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Two More Points:

Strengthening/Weakening questions merely ask you to take the premise (or input) and increase/decrease the likelihood that it will produce the output. For example, to strengthen the first argument, we would just say that water greatly inhibits vehicle speed and handling. If this is true, the input becomes more likely to yield the output or conclusion.

Good reasoning is human nature and evolutionarily advantageous. Those who can see connections and properly anticipate the future better than others are more successful. For example, if you can make the connection that sun causes crop growth, you can manipulate the world to your benefit. However If you reason poorly, thinking that interpretative dance creates crop growth, you will not have many crops and will be disadvantaged!

Also, I will be available again for tutoring between now and February when my courses start back up. My apologies to those who reached out via DM the past couple months, 1L chaos prevented me from being able to keep up with my inbox.

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Last comment friday, dec 18 2020

PT 89.S2.Q7 - Dire wolves

After reading this stimulus, I thought the author was assuming the dire wolves were trapped in the tar pits while hunting and scavenging. Is that correct? I was confused about the use of language in answer choice D; what does most frequently actually mean? I tried negating it and it still didn't strike me as correct? Is "most frequently" synonymous with typically or usually?

Help.

Admin Note: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-89-section-2-question-07/

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To current law students / law school grads: how have the analytical lessons from Logic Games transferred over to your work?

I’m confident LG will help me as a law student (although right now how it will help me still belongs to this abstract mist of “it’s good for me, just keep your head down, and keep doing it!”), but I’m curious how exactly. If anyone who is now doing something law-related has been seeing the effects of their LG training (the spatial elements of LG, manipulating rules, etc) play out in their law-related lives, I’m curious to hear your thoughts!

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Last comment friday, dec 18 2020

Score Conversion

Hi everyone! I am taking the January LSAT flex and had a quick question about score conversions on PT's. When I get my actual score back after taking a PT, I usually go look at the "score conversion" beneath in and find that specific PT with my matching number of incorrect answers. However, there is a wide gap between those two scores. For example, I just took PT 70 and made a 163 actual score, but the conversion score is a 169. Which score is correct?

Thanks!

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Hello!

I'm looking for a mentor / coach to guide me through the ~month before I take the January LSAT.

My weakest section is LG.

I'm pretty strong in LR and RC but could use some fine-tuning.

My highest score on a PT was 174, but I've only crossed the 170 barrier once thus far. My average score is a 162.4.

Please DM me here or comment if you're able to coach/mentor me!

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Ok so I feel very confident at identifying these errors in conditional logic, however when they are in abstract terms in the flaw questions it slows me down because I get a little unsure.

I just took PT64.S3.Q4 and was stuck on a mistaken negation where the correct AC says: "does not present any evidence that the document names every member of the trade group"

How exactly does that indicate a mistaken reversal? I was stuck on this question for 2 minutes when I had the right answer selected by process of elimination the whole time.

What are the other common written examples that I should keep an eye out for? I'm looking for common answers or key words to look for that indicate: mistaken negation, mistaken reversal, as well as confusion of necessity versus sufficiency.

Are there any other than these three that I should be aware of?

Admin Note: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-64-section-3-question-04/

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Hello!

This questions is LR and QS ends in "logically completes the argument" making it a MSS or MC question (I believe MSS but I could be wrong about that.

"Rate of inflation and Rate of Return."

If anyone has a good understanding of the question and the answer choices, I am very lost as to how to get to the correct answer.

Thank you!

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Could someone help me to see if I reasoned this out properly. This test really testing my patience in life. I didn't even know lake trout was a fish.

Conclusion: If anglers are looking for lake trout in deep temperate lakes while they are partially iced over the winter, their best bet is to avoid lake trout's summer haunts and fish for the shallow parts or close to the surface.

The premise tells us that there are four seasons:

Winter-the coldest water is at the top (goldmine for lake trout)

Late Winter- the "turnover" period when the coldest water is transitioning to the bottom

Summer-the coldest water is at the bottom (goldmine for lake trout)

Fall: another "turnover' where the cold water is cold water is transitioning up

Another premise: We can find lake trout in the coldest water.

If they're partially iced over the winter, it means they're not fully cold yet for anglers to find lake trout - and if the author is concluding that they avoid the summer haunts and fish for the shallow parts, it ought to be that when the deep temperate lake is partially iced, the coldest water is still at the top, and that the partially iced status isn't a full indicator of the turnover that's supposed to happen which will transport the cold water to the bottom.

A. I thought A could work but the stimulus doesn't address anything about the ease at which we could catch them. Whether it takes me 4 hours or 30 minutes to catch, this assumption doesn't need to hold because so long as I am able to catch my fish during the time of the year when they are expected to be abundant, then I'm good. The conclusion precisely advises anglers to avoid the summer haunts if they are looking to catch any lake trout in deep temperate lakes.

B. Heavy, light, denser, we don't care. I eliminated.

C. They are only found in deep tempreature lakes? Groundbreaking. Eliminate.

D. I literally do not care about how they feed. I want to know why the author is make such a specific recommendation. If their feeding habit was connected to their ability to get caught, we would take a second look. Because it's not, we gracefully, eliminate.

E. This is the last contestant in the running towards becoming my next top answer. As they are partially iced over the winter, the expectation is that the cold water is making its way to the bottom where I can get lake trout butttttttt the author is telling me to avoid it. Why? It ought to mean that the partial ice is a false alarm and that the cold water isn't ready yet to make its way to the bottom (summer) where lake trout can be found. If we negate this, "in deep temperate lakes with the ice residue, the turnover has occurred" which will put the coldest water at the bottom. That would mean the author is sabotaging us, and destroys the argument.

This question took me a good 30 minutes to break it down but typing it out actually help. Can anyone let me know if I overlooked anything. And more important, how do you quickly attack such a heavy stimulus under time constraints.

Admin Note: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-80-section-1-question-17/

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Hello,

This question took me a while to understand why A was not the answer. Anson concludes that Dr. Ladlow isn't a responsible psychologist. The question stem asks: "Anson bases his conclusion about Dr. Ladlow based on which of the following?"

A ) If anything, the attack on his character would be the conclusion, not the support for the conclusion. Furthermore, from what I understand a personal attack would be more along the lines of: "Dr. Ladlow smokes cigarettes; we shouldn't believe anything he says"; not a professional criticism.

B ) Is correct because it takes the general principle within the stimulus of that responsible psychologists need to consider the potential of evidence that could refute their own findings, which Dr. Ladlow fails to do. Thus by failing to adhere to a general principle, Anson states that Dr. Ladlow's incorrect.

C ) There's no ambiguous term within this stimulus.

D ) Anson doesn't dispute Dr. Ladlow's facts (i.e. that the Dr.'s theory about rats isn't correct, its just that Anson adds to the notion that he must also consider the possibly that it might NOT be correct)

E ) Anson doesn't reject the Dr.'s theoretical explanation.

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