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these two games are a perfect example of why I get confused as to when I should set up my game board as a grouping sequencing game or a regular grouping. What throws me off is that they both have inherent order (game 1: 1 3 5, and game 2: 1 2 3).

I would appreciate any insight as to how some of you are able to determine what type of game board is needed in these situation. Thanks!

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Does anyone consistently approach weakening questions like RRE and see consistent results?

I just took PT 85 S3 and on Q24 JY shows how to resolve the question using an RRE method. I see exactly why this question is right now and have a great understanding for RRE questions (it's my favourite question type as I can often get them right even if I have no idea what's going on lol).

So I was wondering if it might be good to leverage my strengths and try it out , but thought I would ask to see if anyone else does this. :)

Admin Note: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-85-section-3-question-24/

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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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Before entering the PT's in the 80's, I used to blaze through the LR questions and would get -4/-5. Obviously, not perfect but a solid result.

But once I entered the 80's, my LR started dipping and I end up getting -7 to -9. I took a step back and tried to see what's going on.

I'm starting to find that a lot of the flaws and assumptions in LR in the 80's are still the same, but they are disguised with more convoluted language, both in the stimulus and in the answers. This has forced me to have to slow down now and really untangle the language in both the stimulus and answers now.

Is this something people have noticed or am I just going crazy? Lol.

I used to love blazing through the sections, but am wondering if I need to slow down now to attain accuracy on the more recent PT's.

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I dont know how to get faster. I've been doing RC practice for so long and I cant get faster. I easily do LG and LR on time but not RC, any tips on how to get faster that you did that worked for you? Skipping words made me do worse.

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Saturday, Dec 19 2020

8835

"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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I get that we are concerned about comparing the people that fall outside the weight bracket and people that fall inside the weight bracket, but I am still confused about (D). From the data collected from policyholders, we make a generalization, which looks like a flaw to me. I thought (D) acts as a flaw/gap protector by increasing the likelihood that holders are proper representatives of the population.

Help is appreciated! Thank you in advance!

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1- Is it still a good idea to do the classic LG bundle (1-35) or should I mix some games from PT 50-60 into the bundle?

2- Also another question, while doing the LG bundle I will do the RC CC as well. After I am done with the RC but still in the process of doing the LG bundle, should I incorporate timed sections of LR and RC or just wait and do a full timed PT?

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Flaw Type: Equivocation flaw

Premise:

P. Comparing health benefits with potential risk.

P. Benefits of "enjoyment" of drinking outweighs allergic reaction risk.

C: Therefore, do not ban.

Anticipate: the author is falsely equivocating "enjoyment" = "health related benefits". This argument is flawed because they mischaracterized as enjoyment with something health related. Maybe if the dye helps 100% cure flu than 2% of allergic reaction, don't ban it.

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There are two archetypes for answer choices: one that starts with something along the lines of "presume", "assume", or "takes for granted"; another that starts with something along the lines of "ignores", "overlooks", or "fails to take into account".

Most of us can do these questions based on intuition, especially if we use the method that JY taught us. I still visualize the goku doing his kamehameha blast on the car. But for some of the harder, more abstract questions, for me, it helps to realize what these two answer choice stems are saying.

  • When the answer choice says the argument assumes X, the best way to treat this answer choice is as if it were a NA answer choice, and negate it to see if that assumption was necessary, and if so, indeed, without it, the argument is vulnerable.

  • When the answer choice says the argument overlooks X, the best way to treat this answer choice is as if it were a standard weakening answer choice, and just plus the answer choices back into the argument, and see if the kamehameha beam gets bigger or smaller.

    • Hope this helps, cheers =)

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    Hi All,

    The last sentence of the paragraph 2 reads: '...they argue that as the quality of black schools improved relative to that of white schools....'

    J.Y. explains that from this, we cannot infer whether the quality of white schools remained the same, improved, and decreased. I understand this, but am wondering what the different interpretations of the sentence would be in the 3 scenarios.

    What I think (assigning numbers as indicators of 'quality'):

    Say the white schools originally were 10, black schools 5.

    (1) In the case that white schools improved to 15, the net increase in quality for them would be 5. Therefore, whatever increase in quality of the black schools would have to be greater than +5, whether it be 11 or 12 (must be at minimum 11)

    (2) In the case that white schools remained the same, then black schools can increase in any amount (but given the context of the passage, unlikely that it would supersede that of the white schools' original, 10)

    (3) In the case that white schools decreased, say to 8 (so -2), black schools can increase in any amount, say 1, because that is still a greater than a -2.

    Before J.Y.'s explanation, what I thought (1) would be meant if white schools improved to 15 (+5), black schools would also increase by +5 to 10. If this were the case, would the sentence have read: '...they argue that as the quality of black schools improved in parallel to that of white schools....'?

    Please let me know what you think!

    Admin note: edited title

    https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-15-section-1-passage-4-passage/

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    Hi, friends. I had a lot of trouble understanding the clay tablets passage in PT 74 and I'm wondering if anyone can think of or dig up any similar passages. It seems straight-up descriptive to me, like a history lesson, rather than posing a position or a hypothesis or theory. It only helps so much to reflect on this one example. Anyone?

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    Dear friends,

    I just missed your group study on Jan 8th. Here is one question I don't know why C is the best answer to Q13.

    As the two sentences are responses from Bordwell in proving musicals still fit into his theory, he mentioned that first musicals are derived from live theater, second, a structure from other genre makes viewers prepare for and thus accept them realistic. The author then attack him that "pigeonholing genres" is not necessary for viewers in watching films. So that is choice C is another way saying that "pigeonholing genres" is unnecessary? Thank you for helping me out.

    Admin note: edited title

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