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So I am doing terrible with RC, terrible, and I started trying the memory method. I don't usually finish all of the passage in time or all of the questions. Should I review the passages after---since the goal of the method seems to be improving speed and short term memory -and I have a long way to go I'm wondering if I might be better off to not review after and just keep trying to work on speed and memory...what do you think/recommend?

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Completely missed this one; I really don't see how B is a necessary assumption. Can someone breakdown by B is necessary?

People on the Internet sometimes can't tell the difference between good medical information and bad medical information. The bad stuff is written more clearly than the good stuff, which makes the bad stuff more appealing to people with zero medical experience. Thus, people who rely on the Internet when diagnosing themselves are probably going to do more harm than good.

What I am looking for: Our conclusion is about diagnosing and harming yourself, which are new ideas, so I expect the correct answer choice to bridge that gap. Specifically, the first sentence talks about how people are going online for "medical information," but the conclusion talks about "diagnosing themselves," which is a part of that more broad idea. Are people going to rely on the quackery when they diagnose themselves? What if they use something else instead? Additionally, the idea of people having zero medical background is talked about as a premise, but the conclusion is about people in general. Do people in general not have any medical background?

Answer A: This is what I picked since it was left after POE. I didn't love it, but I was pretty confident in eliminating the other answers. This answer is wrong since "typically" is too strong. We only need people to diagnose themselves sometimes.

Answer B: Not exclusively rely on scientifically valid info--->Likely do more harm than good. This is for sure a sufficient assumption, but I don't see how this is a necessary assumption. If you negate it: Not exclusively rely on scientifically valid info SOME Not likely do more harm than good, then so what? Our conclusion is about reliance on the web in general, and our premise only states that quackery is appealing to people with ZERO medical experience. How does this answer choice bridge the gap between that people vs. people with zero medical experience? Can't there be people that use primarily scientifically valid info pared with some quackery and not likely do more harm than good? I don't see how that is inconsistent with the argument. I was pretty confident getting rid of this answer choice for that reason. Specifically, I think the idea of "exclusively" is way too strong; can't Not exclusively (sometimes, primarily/but not all, etc.) still work?

Answer C: No harm? Too strong.

Answer D: We don't know what people assume or how they weight the importance of clear writing.

Answer E: Only if? Way too strong.

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On Saturday, I had my worst, worst case scenario happen... I have epilepsy and I had a full-blown seizure the day of the exam. Since I live across the street from my testing site, I dragged myself out of bed and showed up to the exam but ultimately decided that I wasn't going in the mental state to take an exam and that it would be unethical to screw up everyone else's testing experience should I have another seizure. I talked it over with the proctor and it was decided I should take an absence instead of a cancellation so it wouldn't count towards my 3 takes in 2 years. I still plan to apply to law school this year, though. Will an addendum be sufficient to explain the absence? I'm in the process of obtaining official documentation from my neurologist and I have an LSAT score from October that is alright, but was trying to raise a few more points? I worry that they will think that if I'll have a seizure on such a big day like the LSAT that it could happen again. Super bummed because this is my first one since high school.

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I've heard arguments for both. I'm naturally inclined to read the argument before the question stem but I wrote the 12/5 LSAT today and probably got one of my worst scores ever. Since I will probably be re-writing, I'm looking at switching up my strategy for a better performance on the next go 'round.

What's your approach?

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I got this question correct (D was the flaw I anticipated), but during the exam and BR, I couldn't come up with a reason to eliminate E. According to the video explanation, E is explicitly supported in the passage, but I'm just not seeing it. Here is the video: http://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-63-section-3-question-02/

Almost everyone I know hopes to make a living as painter, musician, etc. if they currently work as dishwashers or store clerks. Therefore, almost all want to be artists, even though they might have to work other jobs to make money.

What I am looking for: Big sample flaw here. The sample the author uses is not varied enough and extremely limited: the people the author knows that are dishwashers or store-clerks. The author uses that as evidence to make a conclusion about "almost all" people in general.

Answer A: The argument isn't circular.

Answer B: The argument sort of makes a part to whole flaw, but it isn't as extreme as this answer choice. The argument never talks about what is true of EACH person (we only have "almost all" relationships) and even then, the evidence is only about people the author knows, not everyone in the country.

Answer C: Is the view widely held? We don't know.

Answer D: This is exactly what I anticipated, so I picked it over E.

Answer E: I read this, and got held up for second. Doesn't the argument do this? The conclusion is about "wanting to be an artists" while the premise is about "making a living as a painter, musician, or poet." Sure, there is an assumption that painters, musicians, or poets are types of artists, but that seems like an OK trivial assumption to me. If those people are not artists, the who are artists? I think the crux of eliminating it is that you don't "need" to make a distinction, but why not? Isn't there a pretty sizable difference between "wanting" to be something (like being a perpetually lazy college kid that doesn't have to wake up until 1:00) vs. making a "living" doing that? I don't see how it's OK for the argument to equivocate on these ideas.

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I just finished the 12/5 test. I don't know whether I should cancel my score.

I have two major concerns that persuade me to cancel my score:

1. I did not do well on this test at all. This is my first time taking LSAT, except for pretests. But I am sure I could do way better than this if give me more time to practice.

2. The proctors told me they had to report me because I was rewriting my name on the bubble sheet after the first 5 sections were done. I explained to them that my name was slightly erased by my hand when I filled out the bubbles, so I had to rewrite them just to be safe. They said they would send a note to LSAC and let them know I was rewriting my name instead of making marks on questions. So, they let me sign my name on the surface of the booklet, and I did. I don't know how much negative influence will this cause. I felt very upset about it.

Also, I am struggling not cancel the score, because this is the last chance for me to apply 2016 fall admission. I don't really want to take a gap year. But I do want to attend a really good law school.

So, right now, I am struggling! Really confused.

Please give me some suggestions. Also please let me know if you have any similar experiences and how you handled it! If you have any ideas about what to do during the gap year, let me know!!!!

P.S: I am an international student. I don't know how much difference will this make. So let me know if you have any ideas.

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Should you?

and if so, What would you do?

to everyone tomorrow... We have been busting our butts off studying for this. Blood, sweat, and beers (i mean, tears) have gone into this exam (13 months now, for me).

Release the inner monster in you.

I got my game-face, war-gear, shotgun loaded with Flaw exposers, ammunition full of conditionals transitions, A full-body armour composed of 27 Layers of confused-passage blockers, 4 dynamite sticks packed with Game-destroyers,

and most importantly...

A #2 PENCIL WITH THE NUMBERS 170 WRITTEN ALL OVER THAT MOTHER******.

LETS GO. LETS GET IT. YOU ARE READY.

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This question is taken from the Group 1 Group 2 Translation exercise but I'm finding recurring instances of odd translations into conditional lawgic. For example, how come for sentences like “Bravery is essential to overcome adversity” (Translated in the video explanation as: If Overcome Adversity then Brave) “is essential” points back to “bravery” as the necessary condition but for sentences like “Beauty is always in the eyes of the beholder” (Translated as: If Beauty then In Eyes of the Beholder) “is always” doesn’t point back to “beauty” as the necessary condition?

I would think that translating any statement that says "X is necessary for Y" would be "If Y then X" because it plainly says that so I don't understand why there's an exception for "is always."

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Thursday, Dec 3, 2015

bluebeans328

PT76 S4 Q9

The question is a "which of the following propositions is best illustrated by the situation described in the passage?"/ a principle one.

I'm not sure as to why (D) is not the correct choice, and why it's (C).

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I am having a pretty hard time explicitly ruling out C on this one. I correctly chose E during the exam, but on a second viewing of this question, C seems attractive. Here is my breakdown:

This is a strengthen question.

Biopsies taken on people who have had throat surgery show that people who snored had a higher probability of having abnormalities in their throat muscles relative to those who didn’t snore. Thus, snoring damages the abnormalities.

What I am looking for: This is a typical causal flaw: what if the throat abnormalities cause snoring? In other words, what if the causation were reversed? What if something else caused snoring and the abnormalities? What if it is a coincidence? We need to deny these cases.

Answer A: Does this do anything? This might actually weaken the argument because you need to assume that people were being truthful. Is someone going to lean towards honesty when talking about snoring? Maybe not.

Answer B: Who cares what the surgery was for? We want to strengthen the idea that the snoring causes the abnormalities.

Answer C: Doesn't this rule out the possibility that age, weight, and health are a potential alternate cause? Wouldn't this strengthen the argument? It obviously doesn't since it isn't the correct answer, but I don't see how it does not.

Answer D: We don’t care about people who haven’t undergone surgery. Our biopsies deal only with people who have undergone surgery. Plus, this is sort of similar to B. We don’t care about either the intent of the surgery (answer B) nor the effect of the surgery (this answer choice).

Answer E: This is exactly what I anticipated, so I chose this and moved on.

Link to the video: http://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-62-section-2-question-16/

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Hi All,

I'm interested in how other people feel about this topic, especially from LG vets.

I'm practicing LG with the assumption that, as I do more of these, I'll eventually begin to recognize patterns (similar keyboards, rules, conditionals, etc.). Is this true? I was talking to my roommate (who killed the October LSAT with 170+), and he told me that after 100 LG games, "I have never seen one that's similar."

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Just making sure "sufficient" follows "the only" below and is "true wisdom"? How you diagram this with contrapositive?

"The only true wisdom is in knowning you know nothing "--Socrates

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17.4.2 #15 The author is primarily concerned with…

So this is what I got from the passage.

Paragraph 1 presents as intro about the law’s completeness or its lack thereof when it comes to had cases.

Paragraph 2 details Hart’s model.

Paragraph 3 is about Dworkin’s view that’s contrary to Hart’s.

Paragraph 4 refutes Dworkin’s views and reiterates why hart’s theory of hard cases is still the most persuasive.

After hearing JY’s explanation, it’s become quite clear why the answer is E; my guess is the point of the whole passage is to convince the reader that Hart’s model is still worthy of respect and refute an argument(dworkin’s) that attacks it; “It would be a mistake, though, to dispute Hart’s

theory of hard cases on this basis alone.”

So, where I went wrong it seems was with the way I understood the question stem. How do you tend to interpret :”The author is primarily concerned with?” For the sake of simplicity, could we rephrase it and understand it as “what is the purpose of the author writing this passage? Why did he/she write it?” “what is his/her objective or goal?” “what is he/she trying to convince us of?”

For this question, I chose D. When I looked at E- I did want to choose it because I got the author’s position; siding with Hart and not Dworkin. I went with D because, the amount of “real estate” -if you will- occupying the passage is bigger for Hart. (silly reason, I know. It reflects my difficulty in distinguishing the way I go about doing main point/idea questions from this kind of question) I also figured “ critiquing” means to evaluate objectively in this context and not necessarily to take a critical stance on a view. By mentioning Dworkin’s views, could we say the author technically does (D) but it’s not what he’s primarily concerned with? That is, he does (D) in order to do (E)? Also, does he in fact do (D) ?

Thanks.

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Hey guys,

I was going through Advanced Logic: Quiz on Mixed Conditionals and got mixed up on #20. Hopefully someone could help me out here.

Except for the days where there is a zombie apocalypse, every day is a good day to study for the LSAT.

JY diagrammed it as

GSLSAT ↔ /ZA

Contrapositive: (/GSLSAT ↔ ZA)

However, I thought that "every day is a good day to study for the LSAT" is a conditional statement (embedded conditional), so you would instead diagram it as

(D→GDS) ↔ /ZA

Contrapositive: /(D→GDS) ↔ ZA = (D←s→/GDS) ↔ ZA

When I translated my diagram back to English it still makes sense to me.

Please let me know what I'm doing wrong. Thanks!

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I don’t get this problem. Please tell me where my logic flawed.

JY's explanation is here FYI, http://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-20-section-1-question-24/ and yet I still don't get this.

So according to the explanation,

X—Y= Z

X= the amount that’s been mined.

Y= the amount consumed

Z= the remainder , that is what was mined but not consumed

I plugged in some random numbers and I couldn’t get the logic to follow satisfactorily.

So if we say the Z is 1990 is 50 and the Z in 1991 is 30, then couldn’t the following scenario be possible?

X in ’90= 70

Y in ’90= 20

Z in ’90= 50

Let’s say

X in ‘91= 200

Y in ’91= 170

Z in ‘91= 30

It doesn’t seem 170 is greater than 200. My set up must be wrong.

What I am missing here? Is there something in the "Furthermore, Country Q has not imported or exported coal since 1970" that I am not picking up on? Thanks in advance.

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Hi all,

I guess I'm looking for some encouragement, but I'll gladly take advice too :)

I've gone through the LG curriculum on Sage, and proofed ~70 games (mostly the ones in the curriculum and problem sets plus some extras from the first 35 PT's). I can do the games I proofed and new "normal" games with very good speed and accuracy. I've now started going through the rest of the games sections in PT's 1-35, by section, and while I do OK on games similar to what I have done before, I freeze badly on games that have an unexpected twist. It's like my mind goes into panic mode and everything just jumbles in my head. I usually end up -4/5 for the section because the freeze up and subsequent brute forcing causes me to run over time. The thing is, once I'm finished, before looking up anything, I go back and redo the whole section, timed, and get -0/-1 with time to spare. It's like a veil lifts from my brain when I look at the game a second time, and the setup and inferences become clear. Anyone else feel like this, and do you think it's curable with practice? Any tips on achieving the "clarity" at first sight?

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http://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-59-section-1-game-3/

I don't understand what is the difference between the biconditional used in the video G(-) /W and when you write the conditional G-> /W? If the biconditional means never together and always apart why can't we use the conditional. The conditional is going from positive to negative, which means you can't have both, and can only have one or the other.

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Alright ladies and fellas, we have 6 days until game day. Just wondering what people think of the study regimen for the last few days.

Crunch hard? Rest hard? Day-On/Day-Off?

I'm thinking of going way hard until Thursday, and a very light day Friday, but I have also been advised not to.

Opinions? Your plans?

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For example:

if N or M is selected, S is out.

Since or is in the sufficient condition, N and M are INDEPENDENTLY sufficient for S. So does that mean we can have just N selected, just M selected or both selected?

Also another example:

If S is out, N or M is selected.

Since or is in the necessary condition, N and M and JOINTLY necessary for S. What does that mean? Does that mean we need N and M BOTH to be selected? We can't have just N or just M selected? I'm so confused about this concept when applying to logic games... Please help, thanks!

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