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Hello I have a question regarding the method of identifying an assumption. This is a strengthening question.

Context: Therapeutic intervention before the occurrence of mental disorders can mitigate factors known as major contributor to them.

Premise: A much more comprehensive research program is necessary to verify these results and allow for the design of specific health care measures.

Conclusion: In order to explore a potential means of cost-effectively helping people prone to mental disorders, we should increase funding for intervention research.

In order to find an assumption, I tried to see the gap between the premise and conclusion and found one gap that increase in funding for the research could lead to a much more comprehensive research program. With this in mind, I went to AC. But I could not find an answer that matches the assumption I drew. In the second shot of POE, through (C) I found that the author is assuming that by saying that the intervention research is cost effective the author is making an assumption that the research program is inexpensive compared to long-term treatment.

My question is, how come do I find the assumption that the right answer actually requires if that assumption cannot be drawn from the gap between the premise and the conclusion? Here, the claim that the research program is cost-effective seems to have nothing to do with the premise.

This question is part of CC.

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-33-section-3-question-04/

Thank you.

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I practiced a lot of LG questions and I got a huge improvement on it. However, my timing is terrible.

I want to ask for help on LG timing!

Please drop your advice!

Thank you so much :)

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I always have a difficult time answering these kinds of questions because

A: I'm not sure how to graph these kinds of questions, and

B: The clock is ticking down, so I wouldn't have time to graph anyway.

The assumption is obvious in both questions, it's just that when I get to eliminating all but 2 answer choices, I often pick the falsely negated AC. Is there a way I can improve my ability to spot the incorrect answer in this situation without spending 3+ minutes graphing? Any helpful tips/techniques? Thank you very much!

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Would anyone be willing to review the May 2020 LR with me? There were a few tough questions, and I would appreciate talking with someone about them. I'd prefer to talk with someone who does well in LR.

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I thought I diagrammed this correctly, but I can't figure out how E is "properly concluded" or must be true.

Here is my diagram:

Explanation--->Must Distinguish from justification

Human action--->potentially has an explanation-->Can give an accurate description of the causes of the action (I don't think you can link these up to the first sentence)

Action justified--->person performing has sufficient reason to act

Action justified SOME justification forms no part of the explanation (These you can link together).

Generally, rational--->justification/reasons form an essential part of the explanation

What I was looking for: Since the only thing I could link up were those two middle statements, I thought the answer was going to be Person performing has sufficient reason to act SOME justification forms no part of the explanation. This isn't an answer choice though.

Answer A: This isn't in any of my chains.

Answer B: This isn't in any of my chains.

Answer C: I ended up picking this one even though I didn't see any support/I had eliminated all of the other answer choices. It was the "closest" to what what I was looking for, but it still wasn't in any of my chains. Explanation isn't part of the linked up middle statements.

Answer D: Discovered? Totally irrelevant idea.

Answer E: This is the answer choice, but where is the support? The only time "cause" is mentioned is in the second conditional statement. But even then, it is only talking about giving a "description of the cause." Rationality does imply reasons forming an essential part of the explanation (last conditional statement), but why must they be causes? Shouldn't this answer choice be "If any human actions are rational, then the reasons must be given an accurate description of the causes of the action?" I don't see how this is the same thing as what answer choice E states.

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This question asks us to find an answer choice that matches the flaw in the stimulus.

The form of the argument in the stimulus and the form of the argument in the correct answer choice are not at all identical, and this is the difficulty of this question.

The argument in the stimulus says:

Stallworth claimed that [A]

A+B --> C

/C

Therefore, /B

A = Stallworth supported the proposal

A+B = Henning also supported the proposal (the "also" was referencing Stallworth's support)

C = proposal received government approval

Answer choice A says:

TV news claimed that [A and B]

A --> /B

Therefore, /B

A = the traffic accident occurred on Aylmer Street

B = Morgan witnessed the accident from his kitchen window

The TV news made two claims (claim A and claimB), then a not both rule (A --> /B) is stated. Since both A and B can't be true at the same time the author concludes that B must not have happened. However, the author is ignoring the possibility that it was A that didn't happen.

Answer choice B says:

City government claimed that [A]

A private institute claimed that [B]

Therefore, the city government is to blame for A

A = 15% of city residents are behind on their property taxes

B = property taxes in the city are higher than average

The flaw here is that the author assumes B caused A, rather than a number of alternative possibilities such as high unemployment or people being distracted by studying for the LSAT every day and forgetting to pay their property taxes. The other unwarranted assumption is that the city government sets the taxes. Maybe the citizens vote to determine the tax rate. It's even possible that the county determines the property tax rate in this city. It would not be logical to blame the city government for something they have no control over.

Answer choice C says:

According to Kapoor [A]

According to Galindo [B]

Therefore, if B --> /A

A = haz waste site does not pose danger to the community

B = haz waste site is on an unsuitable tract of land

Two different ideas (danger and suitability) are discussed but assumed to be the same idea. We don't know why Galindo thinks the land is unsuitable. Maybe it's because this land is really rocky and it's expensive to dig holes in the ground for burying waste. Maybe the hazardous waste just smells bad and Galindo doesn't want to drive by the waste site on the way to work every day.

Answer choice D says:

According to rivals [A]

B --> C

Therefore, Harris is a poor choice for mayor

A = Harris favors the interests of property developers

B = a good mayor

C = willing to stand up to property developers

This argument assumes that Harris is not willing to stand up to property developers. Again, this is an argument that conflates two different ideas (favoring the interests of developers and being willing to stand up to developers). There is no reason Harris can't do both. Also, even if Harris isn't "a good mayor," he could still be a better choice for mayor than anyone else who is willing to do it.

Answer choice E says:

Latest government figures claim [A]

B

Therefore, /A

A = regional unemployment rate declined in the last six months

B = the region lost thousands of manufacturing jobs

The assumption is that the unemployment rate can't go down in a period when manufacturing jobs were lost. However, maybe it was Amazon that bulldozed a factory in the region and put up an office building. The two ideas (regional unemployment and jobs in a specific industry) are not the same.

Admin note: edited title

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Hello!

As I am drilling various question types, I have noticed a pattern in how I'm getting questions wrong. My main strategy with LR is that I drill the questions I need to work on most and slowly increase the difficulty. I was drilling specific flaw/ descriptive reasoning questions and as I'm getting to the 4/5 level difficulty questions I have noticed the AC have become very abstract. Even though I'm getting the assumptions right, and understanding the stimulus and where I have to look I'm still struggling to make sense of what they mean and often times that is why I end up picking the wrong AC.

Does anyone have any ideas where I could practice this specific drill? Or any ideas of how to improve this skill?

Thank you!

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Do you guys scan the answers or just jump right in and try out games?

I realize this is very game dependent. I usually scan the answers choices quickly, but if nothing jumps out I force myself to jump right into trying out all the answers. I found myself wasting time on open ended game boards trying to think about why an answer choice could be correct, and coming up with nothing for all my "thinking" time. So know I try to just jump right into testing the answers.

Today I came across a game, LSAT 10, Game 4 http://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-10-section-2-game-4/, that has me rethinking my strategy. I didn't make the inference at the start that Y must be in, though I DID make the difference that at least one of X/Z must be out. When I got to question 23, I quickly looked at my master game board didn't come up with any that must be in, so just jumped right in to trying out the possibilities. I got through A and B, before scanning the remainder of the choices and quickly realized that Y must be in.

The game took way too long in general, not just because of this question, but still interested in how you guys handle "thinking" about correct answer choices, or just jumping in and trying possibilities.

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Any tips for flaw questions? It seems as the harder I try, the worse I do for these questions. :,-(

Given that they are the most common LR type, I need big time help.

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Hey all,

I've been gradually improving on RC over the last 10 PTs (-6 to -8) to (-3 to -5) by spending more time upfront understanding the passage content/structure/emphasis and less time wastefully deliberating over answer choices. Generally, I feel pretty efficient about how much time I spend on each question based on the question type and its respective difficulty.

However, I notice that for harder meaning/synonym and author's attitude questions, I find myself spending a longer period of time debating answer choices (~1 min+) than I should be (~30 sec). For author's attitude questions, I circle key words that reflect the author's opinion as I read the passage and write an A next to the longer parts of the author's opinion. For meaning/synonym questions, my strategy is to replace the word in the stimulus at its respective location with the answer choices and see if it fits.

Usually, 2-3 of the answer choices can be easily eliminated, but when the remaining two answer choices have the correct type of tone (i.e. both positive/negative) and only differ in degree, I end up spending way too much time debating between the two by looking at the passage for textual evidence and eventually end up going with my gut. I know JY's advice for difficult RC questions is to cut your losses, go with you gut, and rack up points on easier questions, but I feel like there's a better way to approach these questions more confidently to minimize time spent and improve accuracy.

How do you guys approach these question types?

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I often read arguments in the Flawed Assumption stems in LR and find myself regarding them as things I hear often. I don't even mean to be all that nice in this observation.

I wish option E was literally always, "The argument has no flaws."

I guarantee that even if the LSAC issued a blanket statement saying that hypothetical option E was NEVER the correct answer, people who commonly use these hypothetical flawed techniques in day-to-day arguments would still pick E.

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How do I become better at identifying referential phrasing? I feel like I'm very slow and inaccurate at identifying them and being able to point them out. I would appreciate any advice or help given!

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This is from PT 46 LR 24.

For this statement "Anything that exists would continue to exist even if everyone were to stop believing in it", I know that to write it in a conditional, it would be:

If exists --> continue to exist even if everyone were to stop believing in it.

My question is on contraposing this conditional. My question is what to do with the "even if" in the negated form. Would this be the correct way to read the contrapositive of the above conditional?

If it does not continue to exist even if everyone were to stop believing in it --> does not exist, or could you also say,

If it does not continue to exist after everyone were to stop believing in it --> does not exist?

I know at this point this is a very cosmetic difference, but something about "even if" makes it sound like you're limiting certain possibilities, whereas "after" makes it more open-ended. I would love to hear some thoughts on this!

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I currently scoring in mid-160s, and the main issue holding me back is missing 2-3 level 1/2 questions at the beginning of the LR section. Any advice on how I can improve this? I initially thought it was due to rushing or overthinking, but I'm not completely sure at this point. Does anyone have any advice on how I can improve this?

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Hi 7sagers,

I just recently solved the question referenced above, a MBT question with heavy conditional reasoning. I understand why TCR is what it is, but it took me WAY too long to solve this question. Even in hindsight/BR, I don't know how I could get through a question like this in 1:25.

I ordinarily feel comfortable with conditional reasoning - I can picture contrapositives mentally, can twist around unless statements without diagramming, solve some conditional stimuli without diagramming (though generally they don't have a ton of sufficient conditions), etc. Even some of conditional-heavy stimuli that have several statements/premises tend to link up in a linear fashion and can be pictured without diagramming.

I think that what threw me off in this question is that between the two conditionals in the stimulus, there are just a million sufficient conditions to keep track of!

Do you guys have any tips/shortcuts for cutting through a question like this relatively quickly?

TIA!

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-50-section-2-question-09/

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So I chose C, the conclusion is that the scientist said that kids need learn how to draw curves first then they can move on to angles. So my reasoning: I chose C because it explains a reason as to why they cant just jump into angles

a) were not talking about straight lines

b) theyre not answering the question as to why they need to learn first how to copy curves before they can draw angles. I

c) this is correct because its saying that they need to be able to discern what an angle is before they can move to angles so it gives us a reason why

d) this weakens the argument

e) this I don’t think will support the hypothesis because yes they have the ability to but CAN they do it, I have the ability to sing but can I actually sing, NO lol

So can someone walk me through why Im wrong? Thank you!

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