Hi All,

I've seen many explanations regarding this infamous Han purple question--none of which have addressed my specific confusion:

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-74-section-1-question-17/

I chose the correct answer A during my timed take, but hesitantly changed it to E during BR. I'm still confused and I'd love for someone to read my reasoning and give me some guidance as to where I am going wrong.

CTX: How the ancient Chinese of the Qin and Han dynasties synthesized Han purple has confused scientists.

P1: A common type of white glass and Han purple were produced with the same chemical ingredients.

P2: Both were produced by similar processes involving high heat and lead.

C: Han purple was probably discovered by accident during glass production.

One thing I noticed was the how the premises give us similarities regarding how white glass and Han purple were produced, but then the conclusion randomly brings up how Han purple was discovered. My thoughts were that the correct answer will probably have something to do with this. Either that, or the wrong answers would exploit this subtle distinction.

Another thing I noticed was that, except for the contextual information about Han purple confusing scientists, every piece of information that was given in the stimulus equally applies to both the white glass and Han purple. All we know is that they both have the same properties--we don't know if one was better than the other or that one was more prevalent. So the conclusion could also very well be that "White glass was probably discovered by accident during Han purple production." We have the same exact support for that conclusion as we do the conclusion we are given. So I figured the correct answer choice could assist with this by creating some sort of supporting distinction.

A- I originally chose this because I did not initially notice the produced/discovered distinction in the stimulus. Upon BR, I noticed it and figured that A was wrong because where Han purple was produced does not seem play into how it was discovered. Something can be discovered intentionally in the middle of a forest (anywhere really), but then the following production of that thing can be in a factory once it had been improved and commercialized. To me, production and discovery are two clearly distinctive events. Also, this just contributes to the similarities between white glass and Han purple. There is no distinguishing effects of this answer choice, so, like I pointed above, the conclusion could still just as reasonable be: "White glass was probably discovered by accident during Han purple production."

(B, C, and D were easy for me to eliminate. For anyone interested in seeing my reasoning for these answer choices, feel free to ask!).

E- I never loved E, especially since it ambiguously used the term "more" without telling us how much more (1% more or 80% more?). I also didn't love that E qualifies the artifacts as "surviving artifacts." I initially figured that, the fact that white glass was more prevalent in surviving artifacts could be because 1) it was more easily preserved or 2) it was more commonly used. Then I realized that if it was more commonly used, this answer choice could be introducing the possibility that white glass was used longer than Han purple was. I thought that that was what they were trying to get us to see? That white glass was produced and discovered first and that is why there is more of it than Han purple? If that was the case, then I guess it supports the conclusion. It weakly supports it, but it presents us with a new possibility that would render the conclusion more likely. Also, this does point out the supporting distinction between white glass and Han purple that would lead us to the conclusion we are given rather than the alternative conclusion: "White glass was probably discovered by accident during Han purple production."

Between A and E, I do not like either of them. I really struggled between both of these answers, but I finally concluded that A requires us to assume that discovery and the following production process are the same event. To me, that's equivalent to saying that the birth of a child and the child's following life events are the same event. They just are not. E also wasn't a great answer. I recognize the steps and assumptions needed to choose E. But given the remaining 4, I figured (and still consider) it to be the best option because it at least slightly introduced a possibility for the conclusion to be true.

Help! Thanks in advance!

I find myself struggling with Disagree questions. It's difficult to keep the moving parts together and find the overlap. Especially when there are embedded clauses which obfuscate the domain of discourse or in particularly loooong questions such as this one.

I think my recent focus on Disagree questions is starting to cause me to get worse at them lol. If anyone has a question analysis or feedback for this question or Disagree questions in general, I would love to hear it.

Thanks

For those of us 7sagers that have done countless PT's and drilling packets, I think it would be safe to say that we all can round about guess what difficulty a question would be---from 1-5 (how it is shown in the analytics). Because of this, I recently started guessing, on each blind review question I did, what the question difficulty might be. I have really found this to be a valuable tool to see what exactly my confidence is in a particular question compared to the community's results in the analytics. At least for myself, I found that my own perception and biases of how difficult the question was tends to skew the 1-5 difficulty guess. Where the questions I got right and I am confident in are usually lower then the actual analytic difficulty. On the other hand, on the questions I got wrong, my guess tends to be even or of a higher difficulty then the actual analytic difficulty. The most helpful part of this process is finding out the questions I got right both in timed and in BR, but I still rated the question higher then the analytics. These questions are ones that would slip though the cracks as the analytics are unable to capture this.

Using the 1-5 metric difficulty guess has started exposing question types that, although I got it right both times, I need to work on more to drop my perceived difficulty. It shows were I am quick and confident, but it also shows where I am lacking this.

I am not sure if this would be useful at all for anyone, but I wanted to share a little something to the community that I learn a lot from. Thank you!

P.S. - I do know there is a 'circle the question' confidence method, but I redo every question in blind review over again so this didn't work for me.

So i see why AC (B) demolishes the argument and is clearly the correct AC. But does AC (A) weaken it as well?

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-44-section-2-question-20/

This is a MMS question that just doesn't make sense to me.

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-71-section-1-question-15/

In the stimulus you are presented with this;

Vitamins A and D can be toxic if you exceed the daily recommended intake.

Some foods, as stated by the manufacturer, have 100% daily recommend value per serving.

Many people over estimate what counts as a serving, sometimes eating 2-3 times more.

I follow it so far.

Here is the issue;

Correct Answer says;

B.) Some people who consume vitamin-fortified foods, exceed the daily intake of Vitamins A and D.

What? How is this supported? Vitamin A and D were never said to be in those foods. It could be Vitamin B and E that are in the foods that people over eat. How do I know some of those foods contain vitamin A and D. It never says anything about that.

The answer choice I picked;

D.) Most people who eat vitamin fortified foods should not take any vitamin supplements.

Isn't this more supported. If many people eat more than they should of vitamin fortified foods, then they need to avoid even more of those vitamins because it's unhealthy. This could be ANY vitamin, A/B/D/E. This seems logically way more supported than AC B. Even with J.Y.'s explanation I still don't understand how B is more supported than D.

I have been studying since May rigorously and have gone through the whole LG Bible as well as done PTs and have been working through 7Sage's curriculum as well. LG is just not clicking. I keep trying, but it seems every game besides a simple sequencing game (which I still may have -1or -2) I am simply not making the inferences either correctly or quickly enough. Let's just say I never get LG, though I'll keep trying, what's the worst case scenario here? Pick one game on the LSAT, hope I get them all, then just...what...guess on the rest? Do as many inferences as possible and...what...guess on the rest? Pulling my hair out over here. JY's videos make so much sense and I'll think, hey, it's finally happening for me. Then I'll look at a game, work through it, think - that wasn't too bad, bu then I'll get -4 and it took me 15 minutes. Any advice??

I eliminated answer choice D because it says, "fails to exclude...." As I see it, answer choice D would perfectly address the flaw in the argument if it said something like, "excludes the possibility..." or "fails to consider the possibility...." Am I missing something?

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-77-section-2-question-18/

I know this is usually said to be a huge no-no, but in my studies (poli sci and sociology student) i skim read all the time and find it super helpful to save time.

When it comes to RC, I find I struggle the most with the wordings of the questions as opposed to the passage itself, so when I take 3-4mins to read the passage, I don't have enough time to answer all the questions properly and usually range anywhere from -7 to -10 on an RC section in the 60+ PTs.

Any ideas on how to overcome this? Even when I use the Memory Method, I still feel like I don't have enough time to answer the questions. Would skimming over specific details be beneficial or detrimental?

I'm looking for a timing/accuracy strategy for my timed LR sections. I've noticed that I'm a notoriously slow starter; that is, it takes me some questions to fully focus on what I'm reading and to fully analyze what I'm reading. Since the LR questions don't get particularly difficult for me until question 12 or so, I only then notice that I'm not fully engaged in what I'm reading. This leads me to get questions wrong that I don't think I should be getting wrong; I believe this because during BR I'm surprised that I wasn't able to get the correct answer. This has hurt me specifically with Weakening, Argument Flaw, and Necessary Assumption question types from about question 12 through question 20, more or less.

Also, I do realize that I'm not getting these questions correct because my conceptual understanding of them isn't strong enough. In an effort to address this, I'm going back to the curriculum and reviewing these specific question types. Additionally, I believe that I’ll just need to spend more time on these question types. That means I’ll likely need to exceed the average 1 minute and 24 seconds on the questions. So, what I'm considering trying is circling these questions and skipping them during my first round through LR thereby allowing myself to get fully engaged and making sure I have enough time to complete them.

If anyone has any thoughts on this approach, then I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!

For some reason, regardless of the rest of the test, my first LR section is always worse than my last.

The past 3 tests have been

LR (sec 1) -5 LR (sec 3) -2

LR (sec 2) -4 LR (sec 4) -1

LR (sec 1) -6 LR (sec 3) -2

The difficulty of each section doesn't seem to matter. LG and RC stay fairly consistent.

What could this be? Fluke?

Reading comprehension is my worst section. Relatively speaking. But on the situations where my timing is a little off and i don't have much time on the last passage or even the last two passages, i'll just speed read through the passages and quickly answer the questions. I'm talking doing a passage and the questions in 6 minutes. As crazy as this sounds i get most of the questions right when i do this. Maybe missing one per passage. And i always check to see if that passage was an easier or harder passage and regardless of the difficulty, i always always always do well when I'm in a rush and just trust my gut and answer. When i do this i don't really even eliminate, i just look for the right answer. But when i have time I'm not as accurate on harder passages.

Does this happen to anyone else? I'm always shocked at how many i get right when i didn't even fully grasp the passage and just ran with what i could gather quickly.

I'm a little confused about why the video explanation shows the first sentence as PISM --most--> /DOR. I thought that the "without" would negate the first part of the sentence and it would look like /PISM --most--> DOR. If someone could explain that to me, I would appreciate it! Thanks!

I was wondering whether you guys read the question stimulus or question stem first? Powerscore says stimulus first, but the Trainer says the stem first, and I'm trying to figure out which would be better to improve my LR score

In approaching those "most vulnerable to criticism" question, do you guys think I can treat it as a weakening question and if the AC is correct, it will weaken the argument? Any other suggestion to solve this type?

Ok, so I can see right away as i'm doing the CC that NA Questions will be the death of me.

I completely understand the theory, but i'm having a hard time applying it to pull out the question answer. When I read the stimulus i'm projecting that, "This must be the NA". Get to the answers and none of them even talk about my NA. Even when I guesstimate the right topic or area, it's still off. I have not run into this problem with any other question. While I struggled through a few, I still was able to successfully apply the theory after a little while and some practice with 90%+ accuracy. I'm genuinely missing these consistently.

Anyone have some serious tips or tricks?

When I watch the video explanation I get why it's the answer but i'm having a hard time making those inferences ahead of the explanation.

I find it so strange that this should be the question type I struggle with in RC. After all, isn't this what RC boils down to? "What did that passage say?". And yet, it's by far my most missed question. I am only getting 69% of these correct, which crushes me because they are the most prevalent question type.

My other weak spot is Recognition - Main Point.

I am quite strong on all other types, but these 2 make up about 40% of my misses and What Is Stated is the lion's share of that. I haven't put much effort into RC yet and I've got 3.5 months until December. Right now I miss anywhere between 3 and 7, but usually 4-5.

If anyone has specific strategies for addressing these QTs, that would be really helpful. But I suppose I just need to develop a consistent approach to RC, which I haven't done yet. I don't like notating very much, so I guess I need to improve my internal organization for the passage. That should help me to quickly confirm on "what is stated" questions.

I realized that the biggest problem holding me back is rushing to answer choices without fully and precisely understanding the stimulus in LR.

But since I've used all prep tests (used multiple times) I remember almost all questions and thus am really not sure how to effectively address this weakness. I tried to practice not moving on to answers until I fully understand the relationship between the conclusion and support and find out what is wrong with the argument. But since I've seen every question before, I remember the flaw and I am not sure if I can truly improve via such method.

My weaknesses I'd like to work on are:

For the past week, I drilled untimed focusing on honing in to the core but I have no problem identifying the structural role of each part of the stimulus during untimed practice. As you know, time pressure changes everything...once the timer is set on, I suddenly begin to rush and fail to efficiently prioritize the information in the stimulus. So I am not sure if untimed drilling would help at this point.

Does anyone have suggestions? Thank you so much! :)

Good morning. This is a recurring thought that I've had and trying to find a framework/rule of thumb that I can use, although it may not work for every question, I'd like to have a go-to base to start from.

One of my toughest things, on the LSAT, has been trying to come up with how JY have what the potential answer may look like. An Answer Choice Framework (this is what I call it), as you think about which answer choice maybe correct before you get to them. I think I've found what JY may use as a basis, other than just gut intuition, as an Answer Choice Framework (as I summon my inner JY), please tell me if I'm wrong: A caused B; B caused A; C caused both A&B; or total Unrelated/or off topic?

I'm thinking, if I label the parts of the argument as 'A' or 'B', etc., then simply look for reversals or alternatives, etc.

What I'm thinking is, that should be my ground rules or rule of thumb, to formulate what a potential answer may look like. Please tell me if I'm totally off base?

PS

On the logical indicators, "Is/Are", they introduce subsets, JY didn't say this but it seems to me that the Subsets these words introduce should be the Sufficient Condition. Am I wrong in thinking this way when speaking of them as Logical Indicators?

First of all, sorry I post so much, we are very slow at work during this time of the year. I spend all my time studying, on this form and on Reddit.

Secondly I would like to know, for you personally, do you find arguments easier to strengthen and build up/support or easier to weaken/destroy/rip-apart.

Then depending on your preference, which kind of question type do you prefer?

Hi all,

I'm new to the 7sage community, so its my first time posting! I made a big mistake and missed the deadline for the September exam. (It's like a nightmare come true) I'm currently on a 2 month study leave (aug 1 - sept 30) from work. Now I'm taking the December exam. That means I'll be studying full time for 2 months, and then working full time 2 months before my exam.

The thing is, the work I do requires alot of reading and by the end of the day, my brain feels exhausted and I have a hard time studying because my intellectual energy is spent by the end of the day. Does anyone have recommendations on how I can maximize my study time? Currently, I'm doing 2-3 exams per week. My major focus and goal during my FT study period is to meticulously analyze the exams I take to see my weak points.

But once I start working, I might only be able to do one exam per week (on the weekends). Is that enough to keep me going for the 2 month buffer period before the Dec 2 exam?

Any help is appreciated!! Thanks!

Hi. My first post and was just wondering if JY has done anything like a concise summary (cheat sheet .pdf) that distills the initial "plan of attack" for each of the various LR question types. What I mean is, after reading the q-stem and determining q-type, a "go-to" guide for just the first few steps to take on that specific q-type, just so we can get rolling as fast as possible once we know q-type. This would be so helpful for developing and perfecting solid approaches for all of the various q-types, and it could be referred back to while working to improve strategy, reduce time per question, etc. With so many different LR q-types out there, something like this would be... awesome! If such an "LR q-type attack plan" cheat sheet already exists in 7Sage's materials (or elsewhere), please let us know; if one doesn't yet exist, please (JY, if you can hear me) do one for us ASAP. Thanks!

I'm finding myself getting -1 or -2 wrong for some of the (LR)... Even though for the majority of the ones I am getting incorrect, I understand the reasoning for the answer choice and why the right one is the correct choice and why the wrong answer choices are incorrect, but I still end up going with the incorrect answer choice... It's almost a letdown because it makes me question my abilities and doing really well on the LSAT. Is it because I may not have as much confidence in myself?

(P.S., I know this is a long and dense post, but there's an opportunity at the bottom for anyone reading this to get paid, so hopefully that's an incentive to read this :P)

Hi guys! I wanted to get some feedback from you smart people on the LR question about brown dwarf stars.

We're asked for an assumption on which the argument depends, so this is a NA and the right answer should strongly undermine if not completely discredit the argument when negated.

The claim is that any star found with no lithium is not a coolest brown dwarf (CBD.)

The support is that all stars except for CBD are hot enough to "destroy lithium completely."

The right answer, A, is that "None of the CBDs have ever been hot enough to destroy lithium."

Formal logic wise, I get CBD ---> Not(Hot enough to destroy lithium)

Negating it, you get that not none (so, some) CBDs have ever been hot enough to destroy lithium.

I don't understand how this even undermines the conclusion, let alone discredits it as we would hope for in a NA. In fact, this sounds perfectly congruent with the argument. The support says that CBDs cannot destroy lithium /completely/, completely being a deliberate word choice that does not appear in the answer. If "completely" had no bearing on the meaning of the text, it wouldn't be included.

Therefore, our negated answer, suggesting that some CBDs have ever been able to destroy lithium in some capacity, does nothing to undermine the claim that a star found without lithium cannot be a CBD.

Maybe in being able to destroy lithium in some capacity, said stars are still not hot enough to destroy lithium content in full. Even if you need to make a small assumption jump for this question, I think the most reasonable assumption is that CBDs being able to destroy lithium by some means does not really even scathe the claim that it can't finish the job. This would be a stretch for a weaken question in my opinion, let alone a necessary assumption.

My other question on the matter regards the rules for dangling modifiers in LSAT texts. In this question, a sentence reads "All stars but the CBDs are hot enough to destroy lithium completely by converting it into helium.

I'm a bit confused about how a dangling modifier would apply here in the absence of context. Does the clause following "destroy lithium" imply that the dwarfs cannot destroy lithium in full, (the process by which happens to be by converting to helium,) or that they cannot accomplish the task exclusively by converting the lithium to helium (implying that in order to complete the task in full, CBDs must destroy it in some other way than converting to helium.)

As a native English speaker, I probably wouldn't even have second thoughts and assume it was the former option, if reading or hearing that sentence. However, as an LSAT student who is actively analyzing precision of language, I find myself confused. I feel like I've seen other situations on the LSAT where failure to consider the precision of language, instead using traditional colloquial interpretations, in fact leads you to the wrong answer. Why is it different in this case? (Assuming there isn't some grammar rule I'm not aware of, which I'd love to discover!)

I realize that there is a degree of "picking the best answer" with LSAT questions, and NAs in particular. With that in mind, I still felt that B was a better, albeit still lacking answer.

Negating B leaves us with the statement that it's not the case that most stars too cool to burn hydrogen (TCBH), (which concretely includes CBDs,) are too cool to destroy lithium completely. This still leaves open a wide range of possibilities for some (but less than 51%) TCHB stars to indeed be able to destroy lithium completely. If we know that this class of star may very well have members capable of destroying lithium completely, and that CBDs are a member of that class, we at least have a hint that maybe some CBDs can destroy lithium completely, undermining his support and damaging the argument consequently.

Do I like answer choice B? Definitely not. However, it matches the specific, important diction of the prompt ("destroys completely") whereas A does not, and it gives concrete reason, when negated, to suggest something that directly contradicts and soils the argument. A, when negated, simply refrains from counting out a possibility that would damage the argument, rather than in any way suggesting that the argument is in fact damaged. Knowing that some CBDs have ever been hot enough to destroy lithium at all leaves the possibility that they can destroy it all the way, which we would want to be the case for this answer to be right since that breaks the argument. But, it just as neutrally, it allows for the possibility that they still can't go all the way, which would leave the argument in tact and reaffirm the support from which the conclusion is derived.

TL;DR, I see A suggesting an ambiguity that reads neutrally: If negated, A only weakens the argument by indicating that the opportunity for the argument to be undermined exists, not that it likely does or does not.

B, when negated suggests an ambiguity that, while still concluding nothing, leans towards something that would hurt the argument. Obviously that's a fine distinction that the question doesn't even mean for you to consider, but I don't think it can be avoided if you read the text precisely, and reasonably interpret "destroy completely" and "destroy" as meaning different things. If they meant the same thing, they would say the same thing.

Lastly, any question I ever get wrong on LR is similar to the conundrum I have with this one. I overanalyze the question, but even when I recognize that I'm overanalyzing and need to read a little more simply, I cannot for the life of me figure out when it's appropriate to make which particular little assumptions. If I redid this question 1000 times, I'd think that the logic leap in choice B is more realistic than the choice B counterpart all 1000 times.

Are there any tutors who would be particularly well suited to help me with this very specific challenge? It's frustrating because I literally have no clue what I need to change in order to get these questions write. I'm a native English speaker, born and raised in the midwest United States, and so I don't know what other factors could be causing me to be so clueless when it comes to figuring out which little logic leap/assumption is the right one. If I'm not overlooking some other caveat to this problem, how can the LSAT justify the correct answer if there isn't a concrete reason why their leap is more valid than mine.

If anyone thinks they would be able to help me remedy this conclusion, I'd be more than happy to pay for your time. I'll take help any way I can get it, so don't hesitate to take my money even if you're not a tutor and are a fellow student! Thanks guys :)

At first, it was quite easy for me to identify and correctly label conditional statements. But, now that I am nearly 60% through with the CC (currently working with flaw questions) and questions are no longer in the "identify" phase, but, rather, have increased into the difficult world of description and analyzation ... I find myself getting tripped up with the direction of my statements (confusing necessity for sufficient, and vice versa). I realize that I need to now slow down my progression with the CC until I am able to really drill this concept in my head. Any suggestions/advice/tips/examples (preferably harder examples) would be greatly appreciated!

(Or point me to that resource that does explain it)

I recently purchased the Starter package, almost exclusively for the LG fool-proof method. I am debating a refund though, bc I am not able to see or understand how the benefits come from this method (NOT at all saying it doesn't work, I realize 2 weeks is not enough time to reap the benefits- but that is why I'm inquiring here!).

Everytime JY says to repeat the game + inferences from memory, my mind goes all mushy, bc I don't see how that will help me (THAT much) on test day? I know the games are all pretty similar in structure, etc. (Have been studying for over a year and a half, probably have done abt 3/4 of the games that exist), but I feel like I would benefit from drilling into my mind how each inference came to be, vs. just writing an rule down bc I literally remembered writing it down the last time I did it? JY explicitly says to do straight from memory and NOT based on remembering how each rule kicked in to create that inference. (Seems similar, for ex., to learning the word "lackadaisical" bc my Ex's band name is Lackadaisical, & he is a really lazy person, instead of learning what the actual word means)

I guess I am getting pretty frustrated with the course too bc JY fails to explain this--the "How"--in his videos (at least as far as I've gotten so far. If it's in a certain lesson, pls let me know!!). Also, he doesn't address how to do the LG Questions, either. Do I choose those answers from memory, too ?? Do I read each word in the question stem?? (Same thing with the game set-up, do I read each word there, too, As if it was test day??)

I've just heard so many great things about his videos, strategy, & explanations, and I guess I just had a very different expectation. I would seriously seriously appreciate it if someone could help me out. Would love to get to ~2/3 wrong on LG as so many people here have mentioned here, but my frustration / confusion with the method is really keeping me from being motivated enough to continue with it.

Thanks for listening / reading !!