I just wanted to clarify when to use not both (F---->/C) vs a bi-conditional (F/C). My current understanding is that if the in/out game has only two categories, I should use the bi-conditional representation because it represents the only possibilities because the two variables, in this case "F&C", cannot be in or out together. Whereas I should use the not both representation when there are more more than two groups because while the variables do not have to be together, there are other categories that they will be able to go in.

I’ve been doing some logic games in my head, the level doesn’t really bother me, but in/outs and sequencing are easier to do than grouping, I’ve been doing this out of laziness but also as mental test. Obvi I won’t be doing this on test day and be assured I’m good at splitting/representing rules. And for the most part I get these games perfect, but I’m not really sure how long they take me Bc I don’t time myself, some i finish rather quickly and some take me a while. I think it’s helping my short term memory and making me quicker w forming inferences, what do you guys think about this strategy should I keep going or maybe not?

hi, guys!

if possible, i'm looking for some advice - thank you so much in advance :) i have taken the LSAT four times and canceled one of my scores last october due to extenuating circumstances.

my fourth score, the nov. 2023 LSAT, is much lower (:/) than my highest score and i'm worried would put me in a disadvantageous position considering that i'm applying this application cycle, which i was planning to in the next couple of days but hadn't expected this. considering that i already have one score cancellation on my record, do you think that also cancelling my nov. 2023 LSAT score would be harmful to my application?

any and all thoughts are appreciated!!!

So for the past couple of PTs I took, I always did well on the first LR section (avg -2) and got a couple more wrong on the second LR section (avg -4 to even -6). I noticed that on the second LR I get even some of the easiest questions wrong. This doesn't happen when I take a long break between my first LR and second LR. Also, I tried taking the second LR first and the first LR later, and the same thing happened. I scored better on the first LR section I took, even though it was technically the second LR section. I'm assuming this is because I get worn out and lose concentration. Any advice on how to fix this?

P.S. My LR BR score is about -2 in total.

Hello 7Sagers!

I'm looking for some tips to help improve my reading comprehension score. I am currently scoring around -12 which is of huge concern given I take my second LSAT in January. While practice is, of course, key to improving my RC score, I need to see lots of improvement in a relatively short amount of time. At present, I seem to be struggling the most with my speed. I take too long answering the questions, which indicates to me that I need to spend more time analyzing the passage. Perhaps some tips on low resolution summaries might help? Any insights would be greatly appreciated!

Hi all - I'm in about month 8 of studying with various breaks and hiatuses along the way. My last section to master is Reading Comp. I can go anywhere from a -1 to a -9, but it's very dependent on timing. How have you all mastered timing for the reading comp section and balanced that with accuracy? It takes me 3-4 minutes to get through the passage. It would be great if I could get through in 2-3 minutes, but even if I tell myself that's my goal it usually doesn't happen and I end up running out of time on the last passage. Any tips would be helpful and thank you in advance!

Hi All! I will be taking the writing portion this week, is there any recs on how to tackle this part of the exam?

#help

I answered this question correctly but approached the stimulus differently than J.Y. I interpreted the part that says “who receive unsolicited advice from someone whose advantage would be served if that advice is taken” to be a description of the kind of “people” the stimulus is referring to. Therefore, I teased out the logic in this way:

People (who receive unsolicited advice from someone whose advantage would be served if that advice is taken)

Interest NOT coincide → Regard advice with Skepticism

so

NOT IC → SK

Therefore, I approached the answer choices in this way:

A – Even if the interest of H and F do not coincide, the stimulus does not suggest a rejection;

B – Perfectly resembled my interpretation since S and R “NOT IC” then R should not reject the least expensive models. So, he must be skeptical about S’s advice;

C – In this case M and Y interest coincided so it did not trigger my conditional;

D – In this case S and R interest coincided so it did not trigger my conditional;

E – Even if we can infer that M and J interest did not coincide because M wanted to purchase a more expensive fish while J wanted to sell her a cheaper one, in no way we can conclude that M should follow J’s recommendation, so “NOT SK”.

What do you think?

Thank you in advance to whoever is going to answer.

Best,

Marco

Admin Note: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-18-section-4-question-19/

Biologist's argument: DF (deforestation continues at its present pace) -> KAE (the koala will approach extinction)

Politician's argument: /DF (stop deforestation) -> /KAE (save the koala)

So the politician's argument is a mistaken negation of the biologist's argument.

(A) is wrong because we do not know whether deforestation continues at its "present pace" so we do not know whether this is consistent with the biologist's claim.

(B) is right because even though deforestation is stopped, the koala could go extinct because deforestation could have stopped as a result of complete destruction of forests.

(C) is wrong because no one talks about reforestation.

(D) is wrong because it is consistent with the politician's argument rather than the biologist's

(E) is wrong because the biologist's argument says that the koala does not approach extinction only if deforestation does not continue at its present pace

Is my explanation correct for this question? Could anyone add explanation for this question? Thanks

Admin note: edited title; please use the format of PTx.Sx.Qx. Existing threads on PT2.S2.Q11: (1); (2)

Is the reasoning flaw in the stimulus that it concludes what makes something not censorship from the sufficient condition for censorship?

If A or B, then Censorship exists.

From this, we cannot conclude that censorship does not exist.

Similarly, in (D),

If A, then heroic.

From this, we cannot conclude what's not heroic. A is a sufficient condition for being heroic, not its necessary condition. If it were the necessary condition, we have a way of concluing that something is NOT heroic. Is this all there is to see in this question?

I initially chose C. This is a good trap answer, a very good trap answer indeed. The trap comes when they say that rural people communicate less. The passage talks about communicating ELETRONICALLY less, not communicating less in general. If you read this quickly, it makes perfect sense. Rural people communicate less electronically, so answer C is correct. However, because answer C is missing electronically, it is wrong. This is very sneaky!!!

Answer A is a classic difficult answer. It perfectly summarizes, which is the job of a good principle answer, but it does so in verbose language that is different from the passage.

Answer B is irrrelevant and introduces new information

Answer D is irrelevant and introduces new information,

Answer E is irrelevant and introduces new information

Watch out! Trap answers are very sneaky!

Admin Note: Removed PT questions. Please do not post the entire question and answer choices for the LSAC question. This is copyrighted content and is against the Forum Rules.

Hi all,

I would like to know how do you dissect the principles of the answer choices which has no conditional indicator or universal quantifier?

I've some trouble in correctly dissecting the principle behind answer choices A, B, and D, since none of them has a conditional indicator or universal quantifier. I understood they are wrong because none address the situation when parent should not encourage their children to outdo others. Here, my focus is solely on how to dissect the principles of the answer choices which has no conditional indicator or universal quantifier.

I had tried to interpret their principles as below:

A- If something can make their children happy about it that they do well, parents should encourage their children to do so.

B- If something can help their children have easily satisfied desires, parents should try to ensure their children do so.

D- If something can help their children have important achievements, parents should ensure their children do so.

But in my review, I felt I had pigeonholed these statements into conditional statements. So, perhaps, their principles are just assertion without premises, like "Human should be kind." Assuming such statements are all valid, they would imply that any subject mentioned should follow the prescribed advice irrespective of circumstances. Again, I am not sure whether this is the correct way to discern the principles of A, B, and D.

I am sorry for the long post. Any helps would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Leon

Admin Note: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-88-section-4-question-17/

I couldn't see how the term "normal" was used differently between the two speakers? Would someone be able to clarify how to focus on that? I completely brushed over that.

Admin Note: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-40-section-1-question-10/

I was consistently getting -2 on my PTs and after the April exam, I can't seem to get a PT with an RC score higher than -7. Any advice about how to get out of this rut (soon hopefully)? Any drilling advice for these next couple of days would be beyond useful!

I started out with a diagnostic score of 153 and have been scoring 168-172 for the last 5 practice tests, and my main struggle is consistently LR sections. I have begun doing flashcards with the logical indicators to drill which group they go with, but want to gain a lot more confidence with arguments and logical relationships. Does anyone have tips they have used to better comprehend logical arguments and practice to become more confident in these sections? Thanks!!

Hi,

Based on all the discussion online, this question seems to be very infamous, so anybody who can help me here would be a genius.

I was stuck between A and E here-- they both looked so good, so I ended up sticking with E (the wrong answer) because E had slightly more accurate terminology (I thought that maybe "environmental consequences" in A may not be the same thing as "environmental degradation" as stated in the stimulus and E). A ended up being the right answer (not surprised there), but how is E wrong?!?

My prephrase here was that: "Thus, the electric car will not result in an abatement of environmental degradation caused by auto emissions"

E looked right to me because abatement (according to the dictionary) seems to mean the same thing as "net reduction". As a result, E looked like a perfect answer almost word for word.

Can anybody explain why E here is completely wrong?

Thanks!

Best regards

Still feeling super iffy about taking the June LSAT. Can anyone confirm when is the last possible chance to withdraw from this test? LSAC says "June 8th 2014", so is it safe to withdraw on that day anytime before 11:59??

Thanks!

Hello,

This question took me a while to understand why A was not the answer. Anson concludes that Dr. Ladlow isn't a responsible psychologist. The question stem asks: "Anson bases his conclusion about Dr. Ladlow based on which of the following?"

A ) If anything, the attack on his character would be the conclusion, not the support for the conclusion. Furthermore, from what I understand a personal attack would be more along the lines of: "Dr. Ladlow smokes cigarettes; we shouldn't believe anything he says"; not a professional criticism.

B ) Is correct because it takes the general principle within the stimulus of that responsible psychologists need to consider the potential of evidence that could refute their own findings, which Dr. Ladlow fails to do. Thus by failing to adhere to a general principle, Anson states that Dr. Ladlow's incorrect.

C ) There's no ambiguous term within this stimulus.

D ) Anson doesn't dispute Dr. Ladlow's facts (i.e. that the Dr.'s theory about rats isn't correct, its just that Anson adds to the notion that he must also consider the possibly that it might NOT be correct)

E ) Anson doesn't reject the Dr.'s theoretical explanation.

Hey everyone, so I wrote my first ever LSAT in November and I am pretty happy with my score. My first diagnostic was a 141 and now on the November Flex Exam I scored a 163. What I was hoping for some opinions on is my next move from here. Currently, I am signed up for the January flex exam (I signed up immediately after writing the November exam in a somewhat state of panic lol). I am happy with my score as it lands me in a good spot with the schools I have applied to (I am a Canadian student), and my GPA for my last 20 is also pretty good (3.695/4.0). I am torn on whether I should keep going with the January flex or withdraw. My average scores for my prep tests leading up to the exam ranged from the mid to high 150's to mid 160's, which is why I feel happy with my performance on exam day and feeling a little uneasy about whether I will be able to improve upon my initial score of 163.

Let me know what you guys think, I don't have many resources or people to draw from so I am interested in what the 7sage community has to say!

Thanks :)

Any Tips on getting better at LR. I'm not doing so great on this section of the test and need help. This section is keeping me from my target score.

Hi,

So I can see why C is definitely a better answer choice than all the rest. However, I find myself confused by the fact that I am not sure how we can tell that the author thinks that doctrine of precedent is a "useful tool" here. Can anyone #help me with this?

Thanks!

Best regards

Admin Note: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-38-section-3-passage-2-questions/

Any tips on Specific Reference RC questions? These are consistently the only questions I miss when doing RC passages and if I can improve my efficiency on these I'll see really solid improvement on my RC section scores. I've been reading passages from my monitor while notating on scratch paper to accommodate for the Flex but I recall seeing that Specific Reference questions will be different in some way on the Flex but don't quite recall how. Thoughts?

Hope this helps others:

#1. Weakening (Except)

○ I assumed that the correct answer choice (which would need to be the one that did not

weaken the argument) needed to be one that strengthened the argument. In reality,

something that is neutral suffices as something that does not weaken

#2. Flaw

○ I failed to realize that words like (to) promote, elevate, develop, forward, advance, stimulate,

assist, foster, boost, catalyze, nurture and encourage are NOT synonyms for sufficient nor

necessary.

○ Instead of choosing the answer choice that attacks the argument, I chose the answer choice that

merely validated the opposing argument. Just because an argument is true that does not mean its

opposite is false.

○ I failed to realize that the correct answer choice was subtle which lead me to choose the best

incorrect answer choice since it appeared to say what the correct answer choice is saying.

#3. Main Conclusion

○ I chose the context and/or intro statement instead of the conclusion

#4. NA

○ I skimmed the stimulus

○ I did not choose the correct answer because it was a pretty strong statement which the correct NA

answer choice usually is not. Sometimes the NA is strong.

○ I did not see how the correct answer choice helped to connect everything up. Focused way too much

on looking for those ACs that when negated, destroy the argument. I did this at the expense of

looking for those ACs that when negated burn down the bridge formed by the correct AC.

○ I failed to correctly identify what the implication would be if the assumption inherent in the

correct answer choice was reversed.

○ I failed to focus on the conclusion and instead mistakenly focused on the premise/support that is

integral to the conclusion

○ I assumed that the correct answer choice would need to, when negated, be able to destroy the

argument but it merely needs to make the argument irrelevant.

#5. Parallel Flaw

○ I failed to ensure that all of the elements of the flawed argument I chose amongst the answer

choices aligned with all of the elements of the stimulus' flawed argument including modifiers such

as "safely" or "obviously conclude" versus "must conclude".

○ Sometimes does not mean some

#6. Strengthening

○ Only appears to be strong but does nothing to strengthen the argument

For anyone who doesn't have access to an appropriate device and needed the LSAC to send you their tablet loaner to take the FLEX, did you have any problems with it? Did it come with a charger, keyboard, etc? Any thoughts on the experience overall?

.