https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-35-section-1-question-17/

In BR, I realized that the proper interpretation of the occurrence of severe climatic warming (SCW) or volcanic activity (VA) was through the Inclusive "Or", which says and/or. But that would mean one of them must occur. /A-->B. However, in reading the sentence it's clear that neither of those events must happen. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I realized that the presence of "could" alters each of those ideas because we're talking about what's possible and not what occurred.

Temporary melting = TM

Could = c

TM --> SCWc or VAc

If TM, then either could happen, but neither must happen.

Hello, all:

Just so you don't have to bring up the curriculum or your notes, argument form six is as follows:

A → B

A → C

B ←s→ C

I don't have a question about why we may infer "B ←s→ C" from the premises above, but rather, I have a question about the inferences we can make from the individual premises themselves, inherently.

From what I understand, without a background in formal logic (or informal logic, for that matter), it seems we assume that universally quantified statements imply the existence of their subjects on the LSAT. This is what allows us to infer "most" and "some" from "all" on the LSAT - correct? If this is the case, then can't we infer "/B -m→ /A" and "/B ←s→ /A" from "A → B" (or /B → /A) and "/C -m→ /A" and "/C ←s→ /A" from "A → C" (or /C → /A)?

I'm not sure whether we'd be tested on these inferences if we're indeed able to infer them, or if past LSATs have tested them at some point, but I thought I'd ask. Presumably, LSAC is testing our ability to see that the premises above, "A → B" and "A → C," allow us to infer "B ←s→ C."

Thank you all for your time! Best wishes to you all in your studies!

Hello everyone,

While going through my last few practice tests , I have noticed that I have two consistent problems regarding LR sections.

I tend to re-read the stimulus at least twice, and sometimes more than twice, which wastes a lot of time. How can I fix this? Is there a way to make sure that I understand the stimulus well with one read? Also, how do I keep myself from being obfuscated?

This problem is similar to the first one. A lot of the times, when I get a question wrong, it is because I read the stimulus wrong, or misunderstood, or missed an important phrase here or there. How do I improve paying better attention to the finer details?

Thank you for your help!

Hi there,

I'm beginning studying for the September test and I'd like to focus on logic games. However, I took the February test and have written on all my preptests (approx 36-60). I'd like to go back through the logic games I've done and rework them for practice, but I need clean copies. Any advice on where to fine some?

Thanks so much!

Hey 7Sagers,

I had someone write in with concerns about adjusting their schedule for the June LSAT (since it's in the afternoon and not in the morning) and I thought you guys could help! It's a very brief question, so here it is:

I have a specific concern regarding June, namely, I know for a fact that my mental focus fades really bad mid-afternoon, while being sharpest mid-morning. Any suggestions that you may have would be most greatly appreciated.

Anyone in the Houston area taking the LSAT in December? Send me a private post so we form a study group if youre interested!

Hi guys, could someone explain to me why answer choice C is correct for Q24? It doesn't explicitly say in the passage that the English "allowed" Parliament to make constitutional changes by legislative enactment. I guess this is correct because we can safely assume this was the case? I originally chose (A) but I guess A is wrong because nowhere does it say that the English were uncomfortable with institutions that could claim absolute authority. They were against absolute powers of kings, but not the Parliament. Am I right?

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-9-section-1-passage-4-questions/

Also for Q27, I was between A and E, and ended up choosing E correctly. But during BR, I got confused for some reason and changed back to A. Why would A be wrong and E be correct? Any input would be appreciated!

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-9-section-1-passage-4-questions/

When I took my diagnostic test, reading comp was my best section , -3. I am an avid reader and thought this part of the test would be the least difficult for me. For a few months, my RC score was consistently my best.

As my studying has intensified, my RC score has suddenly tanked. I recently PTed and got a -9(!!!) in RC. All my other areas have improved significantly, and my PTs are in the high 160s/low 170s. But somehow, my RC score keeps dropping.

It's true that my studying has focused primarily on other areas (formal logic, etc. from the CC, drilling games and LR) but I predicted that this would keep my RC score stagnant, not cause it to collapse.

Has anyone experienced this? What mistake could I be making that wrecks my RC score?

Ok, so I am almost done with the NA portion of the CC and I am lost. I am hit and miss on the "assumption" made in each question. While understanding the conclusion helps, I still can't consistently connect the dots each time. I'm not even timing myself at this point and am still missing theses questions. My mind either can't seem to make even remotely close predictions of what the assumption may be or I just overlook answer choices that I want to hit myself after checking for the correct one because they are so obvious.

Any tips that helped you overcome NA questions?

Struggling with this. I'm stuck between how D is correct over C. See below for a break up of the stimulus.

1970-now --> Oil use decreased by 40%

Why? 2 reasons:

1. Increases in the price of oil

2. Government policies promoting energy conservation

Because of this, many people switched to natural gas for heating, which required investing in equipment.

Because of this investment, it is unlikely that a significant switch back to oil in the near future will occur.

So the argument is relying on this idea that an investment in natural gas equipment is enough to deter a large switch back to oil. If we were to take away that "investment" element, we would weaken the prediction, no?

C- I confidently chose C during BR because C takes away (or at least severely weakens) the "investment" aspect and allows for natural gas equipment to be cheaper. (Keeping in mind that the cheapness of the equipment is not why people will continue to use it. The investment made in the equipment is why. If we were to make it so that investment no longer was required, then this supporting premise would no longer be sound). Furthermore, it also takes away reason 1 presented above for why people shifted to natural gas in the first place. With the truth of C, we are only left with one supporting premise about "government policies promoting energy conservation" to support the conclusion.

D- Just to recap: the "investment" aspect of natural gas is WHY people are committing to long term usage of it. D says that oil equipment is cheaper, so that "investment" aspect is not present for oil. Therefore, if anything, all the first part of D suggests is that there are no widespread commitments to oil, at least in the same respect as there is for natural gas. Furthermore, with the second part of D, we know that the price of heating with oil is NOW cheaper than the price of heating with natural gas. Admittedly, this does challenged reason 1 for switching from oil to natural gas. However, we don't know that the investment put into the equipment for natural gas does not exceed the current savings of switching to the now-cheaper oil over gas.

For example, if we spent $10,000 on natural gas equipment, and natural gas cost $15 per month (making this up) and, according to D, the cost of oil is now $13 per month, it will take a very long time for the switch to be worth it.

Another point on D, we have no idea how expensive the oil equipment was BEFORE this sharp decrease. The stimulus gives us no information regarding whether the investment in oil equipment was more or less than the investment in natural gas equipment. All we know is 1) oil was expensive, 2) the government wanted us to decrease our usage and 3) the investment in natural gas equipment was significant. It could very well be that the oil equipment was EVEN MORE expensive than the natural gas equipment, but that, the increase in oil price was enough to warrant a switch. So that brings me to my second issue with D...D says the cost of equipment for oil has fallen sharply...okay? Are we supposed to assume that it is now cheaper than natural gas equipment? Are we supposed to assume that this fall in equipment price is substantial enough to convince people to revert back to oil?

Thanks in advance.

Any suggestions for keeping all the flaws straight? Or improving intuition for which flaw will be the winner?

Sometimes the arguments are so bad that I can pick out 3 or more errors in reasoning. This can make it difficult to stay focused in the ACs.

Recently, I've been PTing around 164 -167, and my goal for the June test is 170+. LR continues to be my weakest section, and I am remarkably consistent in missing around 5 questions per section. I BR and study the question types I miss after each PT, but I am not finding any patterns in the types of questions I miss. I feel like once I study and master one concept, I miss a question for a question type I previously thought I understood. In my blind review, I am generally able to score -1 or -2 per section.

Any ideas on how to study since I can't exactly pin down one question type as problematic?

So while I'm studying for this monster of a test, I sometimes can't tell if I'm getting burned out , or if I'm just not getting it. I'm on strengthening questions currently. When I went through weakening questions, I felt like i grasped the concept fairly easily, but I'm not catching the assumptions nearly as well as I did in the weakening questions as the strengthening questions. Does anyone have any tips/suggestions/diagnosis?

Does anyone else find themselves mistakenly solving flaw questions as weaken questions when considering certain answer choices?

What I will find myself doing when evaluating certain answer choices is saying to myself, "Well if this were true, it wouldn't necessary weaken the argument, so it isn't the flaw of the argument"

I think this is incorrect because the best method for answering those two question types are different, but I don't actually know on a deeper level why the two methods don't sometimes overlap. Or maybe they do and I'm not always wrong in doing that.

Instead, I just accept that that is the wrong way to go about answering the question and try to catch myself when I do it and revert back to the correct method to answering a flaw question.

I know this is a bit abstract, but if someone could help explain more clearly why those two methods don't overlap sometimes when considering certain answer choices that would be helpful.

Earlier this week during a Sage/Instructor chat on Discord with Jonathan, argument structure came up. The following link is the only list of LR questions I've been able to find with argument structure. This list mainly groups LR questions by flaw type (circular reasoning, false binarism, appeal to authority etc). If you CTRL+F you can search by "correlation/causation" for that subset of phenomenon/hypothesis questions and for conditional logic search "formal logic" or "necessary/sufficient". This is the closest thing I've found to a list of LR questions per PT by argument type. http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=108425

I understand that "ALL" is a sufficiency indicator word, and "REQUIRE" is a necessity indicator word.

I'm wondering then, what does the phrase "ALL that is REQUIRED" indicated? Does it indicate a biconditional relationship?

Specifically, I'm struggling with the sentence "All that is required to create conditions of economic justice (EJ) is the redistribution of wealth (ROW)" ( PT15, Section3, Question 7, Answer choice E).

Thank!

I always see J.Y. breaking down argument structures in the video explanations, but I was wondering if it is a recommended process to do during the timed portions. I have got to the point where I can naturally tell/take mental notes of what exactly is context and where the various arguments begin and end. That said, is it worth the time spent?

Edit: I also do not break down the structure in BR. The same question applies for that as well.

Thank you!

Still trying to tease out the stimulus on this one. I don't understand what the two different DNA tests are or how they are confused or what the assumption is.

Premise: DNA tests can't distinguish among samples from different people. Samples A and B are both different, but test says they are both A.

Conclusion: You can't exonerate someone because their DNA did not match the DNA at the scene of the crime. Sample A did not match Sample X (crime scene), thus, one would expect A and B to be exonerated since they were both identified as A. Or that B would be exonerated anyways because the tests says his DNA is also A. But the author is saying, no, you cannot exonerate sample B because B was misidentified as A, so B could still be the assailant.

I was able to eliminate all the other answers. This is just one where I can't understand why AC B is correct. Let me know if I misunderstood the premises here.

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-45-section-1-question-24/

I am a bit confused on how come some Strengthen questions require us to use the Assumption skills from PSA and SA questions. However, there are also some strengthen questions that did not require us to draw out the conditional chains and only requires us to affirm paraphrased "assumptions".

Is it only for questions that have "principle" that we automatically should treat them as PSA or SA questions? Or is it safe to use the PSA and SA method for ALL Strengthen questions?

Any insight on this matter would be greatly appreciated!

Hello,

During In-Out Games, I am consistently getting confused between the Not Both Rule and the Biconditional (Always Together/Never Together) Rule. I am aware of the fundamentals, but get quite confused when the wording is sometimes difficult to fully grasp the meaning.

For instance, in PT29 S3 Game 1, the second rule states "Bill 1 cannot be paid on the same day as Bill 5."

In PT26 S1 Game 4, the first rule states "Gibson and Vega do not serve on the panel in the same year as each other."

Both look quite identical, and I initially incorrectly interpreted the first statement as a Not Both, and the second statement as a Never Together. So my questions are:

Can anyone explain why the first statement is a Never Together while the second one is a Not Both?

I was wondering if anyone had some advice on how to quickly determine a rule as a [Not Both Rule] or a [Never together/always apart Rule], especially under timed conditions.

Thanks in advance!

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-29-section-3-game-1/

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-26-section-1-game-4/

This LR section killed me. I spent all day BRing questions 22, 24, and 26 in this section. This is another one that I am just lost on. I eliminated every answer choice, so I pretty much guessed 1/5 on this one. Can someone break this one down completely?

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-47-section-1-question-22/

Wtf, back to back LR questions I just can't figure out during BR. Can someone breakdown the answer choices? I eliminated all of them during the timed exam and during BR, so I completely 1/5 guessed B. I am surprised that C is the answer since doesn't it make the absolute vs. relative flaw? In other words, just because most consumers find assembling the product "very easily," why can't the instructions make it even easier? I don't see how C would be at all inconsistent with the principle.

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-47-section-1-question-24/

I've only come across this type of flaw a few times, but I'd like to understand the structure behind it. The explanation and example offered in the curriculum are not very clear. Is this similar to an is vs. ought flaw? Can someone offer an additional example?

https://classic.7sage.com/lesson/19-common-argument-flaws/

@"J.Y. Ping" or others that have an answer:

How do you know, in LR questions where some Q stems require us to identify the main point of the "Argument" and others ask specifically to identify the main point of the "conclusion"; when, such as in the "Camera Lens" LR question JY explains, to include the (P) in the paraphrased answer or only the (C)? Or are all of these "Main Point Questions" only wanting us to single out the conclusion and paraphrase it?

I bet this has been asked before, but as June gets closer, I'm wondering if I should give myself the summer and put off the LSAT until September 16. My only issue is that I plan on applying to T14 schools this application cycle (this Fall), and I'm worried that the rolling admissions process of most schools won't work in my favor if my score isn't available until October. Any thoughts? I would hope to have the rest of my application completed by the time my score was available. Any advice would be much appreciated!