Hi all

I cannot find any reason why (C) is wrong here.

It seems to me that (C) eliminates one alternative cause (genetic cause?) and thereby strengthen the argument that P-fat is responsible for the development of eyesight.

I compared (C) with (A) in S4Q17 in the same PT. (A) eliminates one possibility alternative by saying that "Earth did not pass through clouds of cosmic dust earlier than 800,000 years ago. This is because it negates an possibility that something other than fluctuation might have caused ice-age if the ice-age had occurred earlier than 800,000 years ago when the fluctuation started to happen. (A) turned out to strengthen the argument. Then, why does (C) not strengthen the argument? (I mean Q14)

Thank you very much

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-44-section-4-question-14/

From BR'ing, I've noted fundamental concepts of of strengthening/weakening cause and effect arguments. For instance, you can strengthen the argument by saying that in the absence of the cause, we don't have the effect.

My question is where this was in the curriculum - I watched the videos on causation theory but couldn't find it there, nor did I find it in strengthening/weakening lessons.

Hello everyone,

I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice on what to do regarding getting better with LG. As of right now, I am working through the Powerscore LG Bible. I am struggling with making inferences to basic linear games and am consistently missing at least 1-2 per game of that nature.

I was wondering if I should be going through a different book in conjunction with this program? Also, where would you recommend I start in the course in order to get right into LG. I bought premium access and have the general concepts of logic down from the Powerscore material.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I was only able to answer this Q correctly by process of elimination.

I am still unsure why A is right on its own merit, however.

Isn't it too much of an assumption to say that Chopin thinks that their idealization was "misguided?"

I know that Chopin does not "agree" with them and does not "share" their nostalgia.

But how do you infer from "not sharing" to "misguided?"

I may disagree with someone else's opinion, and can still think that someone's opinion is valid/ worth its own merit etc.

"Misguided" just sounds too strong for me and kind of out of character for the LSAT.

Could anyone explain further? Many thanks.

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-63-section-4-passage-2-passage/

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-63-section-4-passage-2-questions/

Hi everyone,

I recently participated in J.Y.'s LR Crash Course Workshop #3 and wanted to share some of the key takeaways from the discussions we had over the course of four days. It was humbling to realize that there is so much to learn and understand about logical reasoning. At the same time, it was great to see that it is very possible to gain that understanding and internalize it to develop a strong intuition for the test. Thanks so much J.Y. for the opportunity to participate in the Workshop!

#Overall Takeaways from the LR Crash Course

##Read everything slowly and carefully, even when you’re trying to go fast!

##To reiterate, DON’T RUSH!

##Grammar

##Logical Reasoning questions are very interrelated

###“Cookie Cutter Review”

##Cookie Cutter Answer Choice: Sole-Focus or Over-Focus on the Phenomenon

##Conditional logic

##Some and most relationships

##Key tasks for doing well on Reading Comprehension (RC) and Logical Reasoning (LR)

##Name or personify concepts that are abstract to gain a more concrete understanding of them.

##Practice ruthlessly eliminating all five answer choices

*Eliminate all the answers, then read the stimulus again and look for any details that you might have missed in your initial reading.

These notes certainly aren't all of what we talked about, but I hope you find some portion of them helpful for you in your continued studies!

In PT42.S2.Q15, there is an answer choice (A) that says "contains a premise that cannot possibly be true"

The argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it

(A) contains a premise that cannot be true

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-42-section-2-question-15/

This is not the correct answer choice in this question, but are there cases in which this answer choice can be correct? In other words, are there cases of flawed arguments in LSAT that contain premises that cannot be true (contradiction)?

It's a tough thing to do. All of the voices in my head (and there are lots!) tell me "just stick with it a few more seconds" or "if you're going to answer all the questions anyway, just do it now". Not to mention the time lapse one can easily undergo during a given question: "Oh my. It's been 3 minutes? It felt like 30 seconds". Employing a skipping strategy requires LOTS of discipline and practice. My goal is to skip a question without any anxiety. In fact, I want to skip with the same confidence I experience when answering a MBT in 30s. After all, we should be proud of a decisive skip. If you're not sure why this is the case, check out this 7Sage blog post https://classic.7sage.com/why-you-must-skip-questions-on-the-lsat/

Here is how I am overcoming this difficulty and establishing a 25 questions in 25m strategy.

I'm out of the CC and drilling the bundle. For LR, I am doing "timed" sections with a stopwatch to identify weaknesses which I'll eventually drill specifically. Because I'm using the bundle, I've seen almost all of these questions from the CC and performed detailed question analysis for any that gave me difficulty. So, I don't need to skip THAT many. Probably 3-5 per section. This allows me to dip my tow into the skipping strategy and build a foundation for it prior to PTing. It feels great to have 10 minutes to answer 5 questions (at the most) that I've read through and chose not to answer. That second read-through usually leads to the "click" which wasn't there during my first read and I finish questions in a minute or less. Then I even have time to review questions that I did answer but wasn't 100% on.

This approach is in its infancy, but I am feeling very comfortable with it. I am finding that I still have trouble skipping early questions because I feel like early questions shouldn't give me difficulty (fallacy) and I am not in a skipping rhythm. By halfway through the section, skipping is much more comfortable.

OK so those are my skipping training wheels. Maybe some of you are in a similar boat and find some use in this. Or maybe you've got your own style for skipping and would like to share. I'd love to hear about it.

One effective way that I discovered for myself to solve WEAKEN questions is the following: you have to set your mind in a way that can come to the argument's conclusion even without the provided premise(s). Or you can have the premise(s) and still not come to the conclusion provided in the argument. This way you basically do not attack the premise nor do you attack the conclusion. You agree with both parts of the argument. However, you show that both the premise(s) and the conclusion can exist without one another, e.i. you reach the conclusion without the provided premise(s), maybe by providing the conclusion where it does not requiter premise or you have the premise(s) but the conclusion may not actually happen. So in the LSAT world's WEAKEN region the premise(s) that the argument provide do not guarantee the conclusion. That's how you "damage" the support. Below is an example:

Argument: Because Mike likes rich life he works hard to make money.

P: Because Mike likes rich life

C: he works hard to make money

One way is to show that P happens but C still does not happen.

(A) Mike likes rich life but that fact does not motivate him to work (I know its a simple argument but you get the point)

Another way is to show that C happens without P.

(B) Mike works hard since he enjoys his job (he does not work hard for the sake of money).

Please share your thoughts!

Thank you 7Sage!

7Sage had Office Hours in my city, and I had the privilege to meet and talk to J.Y. in person! (perks of being one of the few 7Sagers in the city! :) )

I would like to share some of the advice I got from J.Y. about Reading Comprehension that might be helpful to some of you.

• Read for the structure

I'm sure 7Sagers already know this, and J.Y. stresses this point in videos too, but for RC, always you should **read for the structure**. J.Y. advised me that I should practice the following:

1) Have a **low-resolution summary** of each paragraph first and then think of a high-resolution summary second.

2) Find a **connection** between the paragraphs.

3) **Predict** what the author is going to say next.

Somehow it's harder to remember the structure and the main point when you first try to remember little details in the passage.

e.g.) Low resolution summary of S19 Passage 3

P1: Phenomenon; P2: Hypothesis 1 & the author's counter-argument; P3: Hypothesis 2 & the author's counter-argument;

P4: Hypothesis 3 & the author's counter-argument; P5: Hypothesis 4 & the author thinks this is most promising; P6: Mechanism of Hypothesis 4

• Dual Passages (A B Passage)

For dual passages in RC, J.Y. told me that we actually should read Passage A and answer the questions first and then read Passage B. There are questions which you can answer by just reading Passage A. Also, you can eliminate answer choices after reading Passage A, and after reading Passage B, you can choose among a few answer choices.

• YouTubing

When I told him that I sometimes freeze when I see scientific passages, J.Y. suggested that I should go YouTubing about an unfamiliar scientific topic in RC for just 30 minutes after every PT. I watched some clips about "latitudinal gradient" on YouTube for 30 minutes, and it was fun and educational!

I'm a low scorer (especially bad at RC) so I don't know if these pieces of advice apply to you, but I wanted to share these with you because I'm grateful for the opportunity of having met him :)

Hello all! I thought I'd share some tips on my personal approach to Flaw questions. I've really struggled with them in the past but I've done every single Flaw question from PT 1-35 so I think I have a good grasp on how they function. Some of this information may have already been stated in the past or covered in the CC but feel free to take what you need from it!

Hone in on the premise/conclusion relationship -- I circle key words in the premise/conclusion and quickly scan the answer choices for obvious eliminators (outside the scope of the argument, descriptively inaccurate, descriptively accurate but not the flaw, refers to contextual or other people's argument).

This process usually leaves me with two attractive answer choices, where I usually got stuck. I started to pick the one that I COULD NOT definitively prove wrong. The correct flaw answer choices are so abstract sometimes that I can't necessarily parse out what each part refers to during the timed test. So I just go for process of elimination. During BR, I definitively prove why it's right but trying to do so on the test can trap you into a time sink. Often, just moving on despite not being able to fully articulate in my head why it's the flaw precisely has been helpful. On the flip side, articulating why the second attractive answer choice is wrong (i.e. pointing to the specific word/phrase that's incorrect or cannot be definitively proven) has guided my POE process with more confidence.

Another thing that's really helped me is not to be locked in on my prephase before heading into the answer choices. In other words, just keeping an open mind. Even if you commit all of the 19 common flaws to memory (which I have), there isn't enough time during timed tests to actually think through all 19 and prephase. Instead, I ask myself an open-ended question that addresses the GAP in the reasoning --- i.e. What if X causes Y, and not the other way around? Wait what, how is X even relevant to Y? This helps me keep the general gap in my mind but not be so stubborn about my idealized answer choice. The LSAT can take that gap and do with it what it wants -- so it's harder to anticipate what they might try to get at. Instead, just having a general idea of where the hole is helps to stay focused when going through answer choices.

I think Flaw may arguably be one of the hardest question types, because it's so broad in scope. They can literally ask you anything because the flaws are so open-ended with so many variations. When you start developing a tunnel vision for the premise and conclusion relationship and STOP WASTING TIME on deliberating wrong answer choices, these can turn into that low-hanging coconut on the tree.

Hope this is somewhat helpful!

I am Completely stumped on this question. I am not sure if I am correctly negating the statement nor understanding the some relationship here

Stimulus Statement: "No laws has No Crimes", Because no laws can be broken.

Makes sense to me. However, I am confused with the Negate necessary rule being applied here since we are given two "No" Indicators.

How I would do this: Laws - Crime

Why? Since we are given a double negative. However,

How this is correctly diagramed is: /Laws - /Crimes

Why? Can some one explain that to me?

Also What do we do when we are given double (negate necessary or negate Sufficient conditions)

Now the negation aspect of this question. Since we are given a no statement and this is a must be true then,

How I would negate this no Statement is: A society has some laws and some crime.

However this is not correct, this is what answer choice (C) says "A society that has many laws has many crimes"

But my Second question then is WHY IS (D) Correct?? " A society has some crimes and some laws"

Thank you so much to anyone that can help

I had a quick question - based on the 7sage lessons on weakening, you never directly attack a premise or conclusion; rather, you take support away from the premise(s). So, a lot of trap answer choices will seem like they're attacking a premise when they're not.

However, is there ever a case where an answer choice DOES directly attack the premise? And if so, is it right?

I ask because I think I remember JY saying in a video (and i can't remember which - I was BR'ing an exam): "When answer choices seem to attack a premise, 9 times out of 10 they're not actually attacking the premise, it just looks like they are. For the 1 time out of 10 though, it's a great way to weaken an argument."

So, if it does actually attack the premise, it would be right, but it's highly unlikely that they would do that, so they're probably just trapping you?

Thanks guys!

Damn... I was doing PT23 S2 Q9, and have no idea to connect and translate the words.

If I were to look in the question bank, how do I separate the conditional logic LR questions from the other ones. I can't seem to find it in the categories.

It's hard for me to explain what my problem is, but I hope someone understands. It's not the logic I am having problems with, it's translating logic from words!!! After looking at the process and answer, I found that some words and statements were the different in the argument, and I treated them as same variables!

PLEASE BEAR WITH ME, here is the logic translation text in order, with quotations, and answer process of question PT23 S2 Q9 :

ARGUMENT: Every action has consequences, and among the consequences of any action are other actions. And knowing whether an action is good requires knowing whether its consequences are good, but we cannot know the future, so good actions are impossible.

every action has a consequences

Action --> consequence (okay I got that part)

And among the consequences of any action are other actions

consequences --> action (what? How is "other actions" the same as "every action," it doesn't like they are talking about a different category)

And knowing whether an action is good requires knowing whether its consequences are good

Know if action good --> know if consequences are good (okay, got that part)

but we cannot know the future, so good actions are impossible

NOT knowing the future consequences good --> good actions are NOT possible (Okay, I see how this we done)

Now the answer I was reading goes and chains the rest of the answer like this:

NOT know if future consequences good --> NOT know if good --> good actions are NOT possible

MY PROBLEM #1: I can't see how a contrapositive of Know if action good --> know if consequences are good can turn into NOT know if future consequences good --> NOT know if good (this was done to chain up the statements, and I don't the how the heck these statements are the same).

MY PROBLEM #2: the answer chains up conclusion with a chain of three, and I don't understand how:

NOT know if future consequences good --> NOT know if good --> good actions are NOT possible

To me, that to me cuts into the other conditional statements.

How do these two statements below combine into one conditional chain? What rule allows this!?

NOT know if future consequences good --> NOT know if good

NOT know if future consequences good --> good actions are NOT possible

According to the answer, both statements above combine to this:

NOT know if future consequences good --> NOT know if good --> good actions are NOT possible?

Hey guys,

Had a 7Sager email me with a question that I thought you guys could help out with. Here it is:

I was wondering if you could tell me what the phrase "or else" means in logic sequencing games? For example, a rule given is "H is assembled on line 1 or else line 7"

There is a really tough and confused question I have: IS No effective law(A) is unenforceable(B) = All enforceable laws(-B) are effective(-A) RIGHT?

Due to the first sentence is a double negative one, should I reverses it directly like -B→-A? Then it becomes like that: Enforceable is effective law and it is the same as the sentence in my question.

However, if I change the double negative sentence to an affirmative one, then it becomes: Effective law is enforceable. Then reverses it: Unenforceable is not effective law, which is not the same as the sentence in my question.

I have no idea which one is correct, should I change the double negative sentence first? Or should I reverse the double negative sentence directly?

In general, I got 2 wrong for each passage. In total, 8-10 wrong. I need some suggestions on how review the RC passage efficiently.

Hi 7sagers... I've noticed that in my recent PT's I have finished the LR sections with approximately 5 - 7 minutes left at which time I will go back to the questions I circled because I was not completely confident with my answer. When I go back through the section to these questions, I get worried about time and tend to spend no more than 45 seconds on them before usually confirming my first answer and going on to the next circled one. I am missing an average of 5 questions per LR section and mostly on these circled (curve breaker) questions.

How do you approach your second time through a section? Would it be better for me to hone in on 2 or 3 circled questions and absolutely get them right at the expense of not double checking all of the circled questions? Any light you can shed would be greatly appreciated.

Hi all,

I just began the RC section of the curriculum, and I'm finding it sort of pointless to study along with the videos without having the passage in front of me. I've heard legends of a time when pdfs were available, but now that that's not a thing, I was hoping some of you had suggestions on how best to get my hands on study materials. How do you ensure you're not "wasting" material from PTs while just trying to learn/perfect the study methods?

(I'm sure this has been asked before....sorry for the repetition)

THANKS!

Hi everyone!

I am studying full-time (was studying part time, 10 hours a week from last Sept to Feb, and began studying full time last month). I really hope to write in June.

I feel pretty comfortable with LR and RC, but NOT LG...

I've never taken a timed diagnostic, but when I took it untimed last September, I was about 4-5 wrong/ LR section, 4-5 wrong / RC, but l didn't even measure my performance on LG because I was just so lost. Many questions I couldn't do even untimed.

Right now I am going about 0-2 on LR and RC, timed. I just need to have LG under my belt to feel ready...

I did start prepping for LG quite late; I began fool-proofing about 4 weeks ago, for about 4 hours a day.

I did the CC and foolproofed the entire CC and have moved onto the PT stage for LG for the first time today.

I missed 8 on LG for PT62, timed.

I know that I should be foolproofing from now till June. My goal is to solve one PT section a day, foolproof it, and review/foolproof the section I did the previous day. So about 8 games (4 new, 4 old) per day. Is this reasonable? Are there any more tips on this stage of the prep?

I don't mind moving taking the LSAT in September, but because I already feel pretty comfortable with RC and LR, and have 2 months full-time just for LG, I am hoping to at least take a shot at the June one.

Many thanks in advance!!!

I got this wrong because while I did see the author was appealing to authority, I thought it was reasonable to assume that if the author says what an authority figure says, then it can be said that the author would say that too.

Answer Choice E basically says that the Meteorologist did not evaluate the merit of example from the Statistician. I thought by citing experts who are saying that no single thing can cause climate the Meteorologist was evaluating the merit of the example from the Statistician. But then I thought about it some more and it occurred to me that you can't necessarily say the Meteorologist evaluated the merits of the example just because he cited experts who cite a general principle that speaks to the counterexample.

I know this is a rough evaluation of the question and answer choice, but what I wanted to get clarity on is what I concluded above:

If an author cites what someone else says without saying it themselves can that author be said to have said the same thing?

This question makes me think the answer is no, but I was hoping someone could verify that.

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-21-section-2-question-25/

@"J.Y.Ping" or anyone who really understands this and can explain: PT20 S1 Q6 and PT23 S3 Q6

I have listened to the explanation and on the Q6 from PT 23, I understand that E is incorrect, which I knew that going into the answers, but was frustrated, because it seemed to break all of the rules we are told to go by with avoiding "absolutes". The purse with the gold coins HAD been Brought to the ancient city by a pilgrim on route between M & M". The absolute assertion that it was not just "likely" brought, or even "most likely" bothered me and therefore made me feel it couldn't be correct. On the flip side, I knew all of the others were also wrong. E looked like it could have been very close if not for the use of the word "interacted". I could hear JY in my head saying, how do we know if they actually interacted, does that mean speaking, eating together?...So I ruled it out also, but all others looked so wrong as well. Why can the absolute assertion be ok sometimes, but we should stay away from it (in MSS) in almost all other scenarios?

**The Q12 from PT 20 is my BIGGEST issue. I hated this question and I am still arguing that the LSAC people are wrong. They are supposed to provide all you need in the stimulus and I do not feel as though they do. I do not own wood ducks or know anything about building their boxes etc. The majority of the Stim discusses how a female will lay an egg in another nest if they see the other female leaving, but that is so rare in nature bc the nests are so well hidden. Then the stem completely shifts its line of thinking, it goes into the "However, when people put up nesting box to help the ducks breed, they actually undercut the ducks' reproductive efforts. The nesting boxes become so CROWDED..."

So when I am looking at the answers, C looks immediately more correct. The boxes do have less "space" for the eggs than natural nesting sites, IF by space it is understood that when something is "overcrowded" there isn't enough space, or there is reduced space. Eg: There are 30 4th graders in my 2 bedroom apartment for my daughter's birthday and it is very crowded" I clearly have less "space" than I do when the 30 kids are not there. The missing 30 kids would be "my" natural environment.

The part I so whole heartedly disagreed with was the correct answer wording. D tells that, "The nesting boxes would be more effective in helping wood ducks breed if they were less visible to other wood ducks than they CURRENTLY ARE". My main problem choosing this answer was the "Currently Are"; how do I know if they are currently being used? Maybe it was something people used to do or tried in a lab or are talking about in theory. The writers never exactly say they are still in use and not to mention, the stim spends more of the time actually leading to the opposite...that the ducks are more productive in natural nesting sites. If I knew that nesting boxes were being used, and that the issue with this being successful wasn't that they were overcrowded because of "space" but that they were being placed in nature too visibly then I would have seen what they wanted me to pick. I get it that its supposed to be hard, but this seems not accurate. This question seemed to leave far too much to inference and it seems like the CC reminds up that we may have to make some inference but not huge stretches. I just felt that I had to assume too much to make D work. I saw that many students struggled with this.

Can someone please help explain why these stim types are either exceptions, or what is the trick/wording I missed that would have given it away? I wanted to ask @"J.Y.Ping" this during one of those sessions but I didn't make the lottery. Maybe since this seemed to be a really debated question, you could do a deeper explanation for everyone.? Or how to avoid traps like this one.

Thanks in advance!

Hi, I am struggling with Inference questions in Reading Comp and was wondering if any of you had any tips or strategies on how you approach them. I have no issues with 'active reading' -- I manage to get all of the main point, detail-oriented, reasoning structure and author's view/tone questions correct during timed sections and PTs. I just have an issue with inference questions so I usually end up with a -5 or -6.

I struggle with making inferences -- either I don't go far enough or I extrapolate too far and pick one that's out of scope. Even when I BR, I can't quite see where the inference is being drawn from in the passage if I can't point to a specific line reference. Other times, I try to approach it like MBT questions in LR -- but then get stuck if I can't definitely prove an answer choice, OR I vacillate between the 'could be true' and 'this sounds like a stronger/better inference' answer choice and pick the wrong one.

If you have any tips on how to push out inferences from reading comp passages, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you in advance!

Hi guys,

Before my first take (February) I drilled Logic Games by type until I had a decent foundation of each type and then began drilling whole LG sections and full PTs.

I am wondering should I do the same approach the second time around? or go straight into writing whole LG sections without wasting time on drilling by type since part of the difficulty is identifying the type of game and drawing your game board immediately?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

PT 77, Section 2, #18 Answer Choices C and D. Does "fails to exclude" mean the same thing more or less as "fails to consider"?

I thought "fails to exclude" was incorrect because the author doesn't need to exclude it, he just failed to consider it.

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

Hey All,

The short question is: are any LG books compatible with the 7Sage LG method and/or categories?

The longer question is: I'm an imbecile at LG's. Like really, really bad. I have always tested low on any spatial reasoning stuff and I feel like LGs are kicking my butt. I can logic myself to the right answers most of the time, I've gotten straight 100% on some drill sets I've done, but one game can easily take me half an hour so I know I'm not doing it "right." I'm not seeing all the inferences I should be at the outset, or not setting up the diagram efficiently.

I'm probably going to purchase the 7Sage Starter, because I simply can't afford more than that, but since I'm likely (barring a miracle) testing in September I probably will not buy the curriculum just yet. I work as a substitute during the day, so I can read books easily, but can't easily watch videos or read explanations online, so I'm saving buying the curriculum until I leave school in late June and can use it all day everyday : )

What books can I study now that are compatible with the methods I'll eventually learn through 7Sage? I own the PowerScore LGB and am working my way through that, but every time I've watched video explanations for the questions, it seems like they make it a lot more difficult than J.Y. does, and sometimes even categorize their games differently. Are any other LG books out there closer to his methods?

Thanks!