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Tuesday, Jan 29 2019

mayra863

LR section

I had LR RC LR LR LG - Not sure how much we are able to share about answers but did anyone else get a weird string of Ds toward the end of one of the LR sections? I think it was the third or fourth...this totally threw me off. I saw it posted in another discussion thread too...

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This necessary assumption question discusses the treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) with a newly developed drug. CFS is associated with three different symptoms, and we don’t know if these symptoms are the effects of only one virus or of multiple different ones. Tests of the new drug indicate that this drug lessens the severity of all three CFS symptoms. The stimulus takes this to provide evidence to the effect that CFS probably is caused by one single virus, not by multiple different ones.

Pre-phrase / anticipation: We need an assumption to the effect of ‘If a single treatment lessens all of a given syndrome’s symptoms, then it is more likely for this syndrome to be caused by a single virus than by multiple ones.’

The pertinent answer choices are (B) and (D). (B) states: “It is more likely that the new drug counteracts one virus than that it counteracts several viruses.” This matches the consequent in the anticipated assumption but leaves out its antecedent. (B) thus does not make the argument valid and would fall short of being a sufficient assumption. But is (B) necessary? If negated, (B) would indicate that it would be equally likely or even more likely that the new drug affected several viruses. This is not at all what the author is trying to argue and thus would seem to rob their conclusion of any support.

(D) states: “Most syndromes that are characterized by related symptoms are each caused by a single viral infection.” This in itself might be right, and arguably (D) would be a good strengthen answer choice. (D) gets at the conclusion and points out parallel cases where similar correlations have been observed as well. A number of things seem off though: (1) Do we know that the alleviated symptoms in fact are ‘related,’ as this answer choice suggests? We certainly know that they all are effects of one or more causes, but does that also render these effects related to one another? (2) The conclusion in the stimulus takes the results of the experiments with the new drug to provide evidence to the effect that CFS has a single cause, but (D) does not contain a connection to these experiments. Instead, (D) is just making a general claim that arguably strengthens the conclusion in isolation but that does not also connect it to the other parts of the argument.

As an NA answer choice, (B) thus seems better than (D). (B) is essentially saying: In probabilistic terms, the new drug’s acting on three different effects indicates that these three effects likely have a single cause rather than three different ones. By contrast, had the drug only affected two of CFS’s three symptoms, it would have been likely that there are at least two causes for CFS, one virus that triggers two of its symptoms and another virus that triggers the third one. (B) is thus hinting at a sort of appeal to simplicity behind the author's reasoning. The author seems to assume: If two different hypotheses about the causal relationships behind a given correlation are possible, the simpler hypothesis is more likely correct.

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I guess the reason why its true is because its strengthening the reason to use sugar on the wound, best explained because of its dehydrating effect. I originally choose E but then switched it to A and got it right in a blind review.

Admin Note: Edited title. Please use the format: "PT#.S#.Q# - brief description of the question"

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Hey everyone, so I just got my January 2023 lsat score back and it's one point lower than my current highest score. I have taken the test 3 times very spread out over the years as I've navigated being a student/working throughout my studying. My highest current score is 156 (June 2021), and on my most recent test, I scored 155 (January 2023). Any advice would be so helpful as I really don't know what to do!! I really wish I had seen more progress over the years as I was practice testing in low-mid 160s prior to my January test. Should I cancel or is one point not worth a cancellation showing up on my record?

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(1) Most profitable investment: The rate of inflation EXCEEDS the rate of return by a given percentage (say, x%). That is, in real terms, the investment generates a loss; the inflation rate overcompensates whatever profit is being made here. According to the stimulus, this means that the VALUE of this investment declines by the same percentage (x%) at least. Value thus is presented as a function of profit.

(2) Any other investment – that is, any investment that is LESS profitable than the one described in case #1: The value of this investment declines by MORE than x% – that is, the differential between the inflation rate and the rate of return must be even greater than in case #1. Inflation overcompensates the rate of returns even more than in the first case.

Answer choice (C) suggests: The second investment (any investment that is not the most profitable one) is LESS profitable than the most profitable one. If VALUE is a function of PROFIT, and if VALUE in the second case declines more than in the first case, then the second case cannot describe the maximally profitable investment described in case #1.

I’m not sure I’m getting either the economics or the logic behind this right, but it seems to me that a lot of the information presented in the passage is redundant. To conclude what answer choice (C) says ("Case #2 does not describe the most profitable investment"), we only would have needed to know (1) that case #1 is the most profitable investment, and (2) that case #2 can be distinguished from that investment. Is this right / is there a more efficient way to solve this, especially under timed conditions?

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Why is it that for MBT questions we do not try all scenarios before picking an AC? For example, question 3 reads, “If K sits directly between L & P, then M must sit between..” for this in the live commentary, she writes PKL but doesn’t try for LKP. I understand that both scenarios lead to the same AC. However, shouldn’t we try all scenarios before selecting an AC? A MBT AC should apply to all scenarios, not just one. Just trying to figure out what’s best practice. #help

Admin Note: Edited title. Please use the format: "PT#.S#.Q# (G#) - brief description of question"

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I can't parse out or understand the assumption being made in this question below:

Paleontologist: It is widely, but falsely, held that life began in the ocean and did not exist on land until half a billion years ago.

The answer is D but I do not understand why

Admin Note: Deleted the question and answer choices because it is against our Forum Rules to post the entire question and answer choices on the forum.

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#help why is E the correct answer? I am confused because there seems to be nothing in the stimulus that alludes to E being correct, and it seems as if one would have to have prior knowledge of mussels/their chemical transformation abilities to know this. I do not necessarily think any of the other choices or very strong, but this choice E seemed very random to me. I'd appreciate any insight of what I'm missing!

Admin Note: Edited title. Please use the format: "PT#.S#.Q# - brief description of the question"

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[I am posting on behalf of a 7Sage user. Please feel free to leave your comments below. Thank you for your help!]

Could you please help me with Main Point questions. What I am most confused by is the "how do I know this" approach. It seems that whenever I ask, "how do I know this?" for a potential conclusion statement I answer the question wrong because I am really not understanding this approach but it seems it would help the most when torn between two possible conclusion statements. Thank you.

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Hi, I've been on a hiatus for a few months and came across a problem while reviewing NA questions on the syllabus and remember having this issue in the past as well.

https://classic.7sage.com/lesson/computer-emotions-na-question/?ss_completed_lesson=1791

Here JY attaches a noun (computer) to another noun (emotions) instead of writing it as, and as I wrote it, C->/E he writes it as /Ec

Then he wrote the conclusion as follows /Ic, I wrote it as C-> /I

So how can I know when to attach one thing to another in conditional reasoning? Is there a general rule to this? Because it lead me to the following issue with this problem.

I created a chain where both E and I connect to /C however I'm not able to see which comes first inorder to validate the conclusion, the /E or the /I

(diagramed below)

P:C - > /E

SA: I->E or E->I

C - >/I

JY, and the correct answer choice, both did it as I->E - I understand how they got to that when he attaches the c to /E.

Im not sure if my conditionality is off or what, but I would have assumed that it wouldn't matter if I attached the two nouns together or just created it the relationship in the chain as above. If anyone needs more clarification on anything please let me know.

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(spoiler alert if you havent taken PT41) :

its the question that begins with "poor nutrition is at the root....."

the logic in the argument seems to me to look like "high nutrient diet ---> improved behavior ".........but the credited response was answer choice E which states " ~high nutrient diet-----> ~improved behavior"

intuitively, this answer choice feels correct, but wouldnt this be whats called "denial of the antecedent"?? other books call it illegal negation or denying the sufficient condition, but the point i guess is that its logically invalid. and yet that invalid logical structure is present in the correct answer choice for this question. Can someone explain that to me? thank you

Explanation Video: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-41-section-1-question-14/

Admin Note: Edited title. Please use the format: "PT#.S#.Q# - brief description of the question."

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I learned a subtle but crucial characteristic of necessary assumptions today, and am excited to share it with you:

Be careful when dismissing a Necessary Assumption answer on the basis of it appearing to be irrelevant to the argument in the stimulus. "Relevance" is more the domain of Sufficient Assumptions. With Necessary Assumptions, the correct answer is relevant in a structural sense, which might not jump out at you without a careful read.

In the rattlesnake question, I saw "food" and dismissed it too soon. I picked A, even though I felt uneasy about it. It felt too obvious. Perhaps a good question to ask of the answer in the NA context is not 'what does it say' but 'what does it do'.

Admin Note: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-30-section-2-question-22/

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I am saying this because there are some terms that I dont know what the question means. Like am I supposed to know what a generalization, alternative explanation, or evidence is? Could someone please explain this. There was this one question in the AP lesson that talked about Crime and Media coverage. I chose A for the answer because the explanation was supporting the conclusion. However the actual answer was E which was an "Alternative Explanation" What does that mean?

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Hey there fam,

So I was just doing some NA drills when a question struck me. In LR generally, we're looking for the assumption or flaw, and then want to set about our assigned tasks based on what we find. More specifically the flaw in the argument (between the premises and the conclusion). Does this mean then that when we notice an assumption in between the premises (which we are supposed to take for granted) that we just ignore said assumption or integrate said assumption into the group of things we take for granted?

Stated differently, can we think of any scenario wherein that assumption between the premises is something we need to account for, strengthen, weaken ect?

Thanks!

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