How is the last rule of the first game valid? It says if L is 6, J is 3. But L can never be 6, because L is a leader of K and F. Does that mean this rule is invalid?

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Im not sure I understand the stimulus, i picked E because I thought it was circular reasoning. Even after analyzing it for a while I'm not sure what the stimulus is saying...

I could really use some clarity on Game 2 from PT 91. For some reason I was completely drawing a blank and as a result I missed 5 of 6. Has anyone ran in to the same issue? If so, how did you setup your game board and/or solve the questions?

Can someone explain that why is D wrong and why is E right?

How is D the answer? Why could genetics not be a possible way to determine schizophrenia in the future? - I selected C, but now see why that wasn't right, but not why D is the correct AC... #Help

Hi, I'm doing problem sets and for whatever reason there are no explanation videos for the answers. I enjoy watching the videos because I like to know what I did wrong and right. Why aren't there any explanation videos available? Maybe I am not looking in the right spot, but there aren't any for the practice test answers eithers. It seems as if the explanation videos are only on the syllabus. Can y'all help a sister out?

I need advice on how I should go about studying. I plan on taking the June LSAT and am starting studying now. I have three other materials outside of 7Sage that I will be using too, and I want to study 18 hours each week. How should I get through everything I can and set up a study schedule? I tried going through the syllabus, but this will take a really long time. My weakest suit is the logic games, then logical reasoning, then reading comprehension. Should I start with lessons on logic games even though the syllabus has these near the end?

Hello good people,

I've been receiving lots of PMs here and on reddit asking more details about the things I posted. Now that the shock has worn off, I'm going to take the time to give back and share some of the things I considered 'game-changers' in my prep. Hopefully it will help you too!

Today I'm going to share a conceptual framework for analyzing arguments. I believe this helped me limit LR mistakes and go -1/-2 sometimes -0 consistently. How? it helped me get the question types below correct most of the time, and it saved me time I would have otherwise wasted deliberating between wrong ACs and still got them wrong anyway––time I used to get to the other questions I would've otherwise never got to.

It is particularly useful for STRENGTHEN/WEAKEN/NECESSARY ASSUMPTION/SUFFICIENT ASSUMPTION questions (all the fun ones!)

Here is it:

Traditionally on 7sage, we look at arguments from the 'vertical' model:

A––>B

A

–––

B

As I progressed on my prep journey, I started to also look at arguments as such:

1 + 1 = 2

(Math? what the hell?!?!) stay with me!

As we know, arguments are PREMISES ––> CONCLUSION.

The mistake we commonly make however, is to attack the premises or the conclusion. That's what we do in day to day conversations. These are the type of LSAT errors that are so frustrating because you know they're wrong, but you're stuck between 2 ACs and you decided to go with the one that 'seemed right' but deep down, you knew something was off.

So, let's look at it again.

1 + 1 = 2

When you are asked to analyze an argument, you NEVER attack the 1s or the 2. Those are the premises and conclusion.

Rather, you attack the = sign. That is the support

In LR, i'm constantly telling myself, "BE SENSITIVE TO THE SUPPORT [STRUCTURE]" so I stay disciplined and stick to what the question type demands of me by addressing the = accordingly.

Let's run through the types:

WEAKEN

Task: you pick an AC that weakens the support [the = sign]

Approach: So you look for an AC that adds a -1

1 + 1 (-1) =/= 2

Great! you just weakened the argument!

STRENGTHEN

Task: you pick an AC that strengthens the support [the = sign] In other words, you further affirm the equation-relationship or block premises that undermine the 'equation'

Approach: You look for an AC that blocks a potential weakener, a (-1), or you look for an AC that further affirms the relationship like a (+1)

1 + 1 (+1) = 2 (or more––so it affirms this relationship)

or you see that -1? yeah that's not applicable like -(-1) which is: 1

Great! you just strengthened the argument!

NECESSARY ASSUMPTION

Task: you pick an AC that the equation (=) NEEDS to remain 1 + 1 = 2.

Approach: Find an AC that enables the equation to hold. How? by blocking competing premises that would subtract from your premises (1+1) and destroy equation's ability to = 2

These are similar to how you do STRENGTHEN, and it's something the Ellen's LOOPHOLE really made clear to me

If I made an argument like:

"X washing machines are better than Y washing machines, because X washing machines dissolve soap detergent faster than Y washing machines"

A loophole would be something like: "wait, what if the rate at which washing machines dissolve soap doesn't matter in evaluating the quality of a washing machine?"

a NECESSARY ASSUMPTION blocks this by saying: it's not the case that (the rate at which washing machines dissolve soap doesn't matter in evaluating the quality of a washing machine) OR it matters.

Back to our equation:

"what if -1?"

and you negate it so: -(-1). which is 1. so the equation remains protected.

But hold on! what about the negation test? simple. If you applied a NEGATION to your AC, the -(-1) or just 1, what do you get? a -1

which is: 1 + 1 (-1) =/= 2 which destroys the argument

Great! you just found the NECESSARY ASSUMPTION!

SUFFICIENT ASSUMPTION

Task: you pick an AC that ensures the equation (=) works

Approach: You look for an AC that is sufficient to make the premises = conclusion

Say you are given

1 ____ = 2

You need a: (+ 1) so 1 +1 = 2

Great! you just found the SUFFICIENT ASSUMPTION

Notice how we NEVER consider poking holes in the premises (1s) or the conclusion (2). Rather we ALWAYS address the SUPPORT (=)

Why so abstract? because if you can see pass the details and understand what you are being asked to do on a simple abstract level, you can sift through the often confusingly-worded ACs and find the right AC confidently and quickly.

Also, are you starting to see how all LR questions are really just similar versions of each other? it's how you can easily turn a weakening question into strengthen, into an NA, or flaw, easily.

I hope this was helpful!

Feel free to PM me if needed!

The Real Mike Ross

I'm really curious to know some of y'all's process. Mike Kim talks about prioritizing the right information, not necessarily ALL of the information in an LR stimulus. Do you typically approach the answer choices with the premise and conclusion in your own words?

Would love to know your thoughts!

I found this one very tricky.

As for AC A, I think I understand that AC A meets the target by introducing a third party, stress, that could be responsible for causing both snoring and smoking. However, I am wondering that what if stress indeed causes both snoring and smoking, and at the same time, smoking causes snoring. A third party cannot exclude the possibility that smoking doesn't cause snoring.

As for AC D, I understand that it indeed doesn't infer any hard causation. But I think it is a quite soft one. The more cases are, the better chance that smoking causes snoring. I think in scientific research, it is indeed has such inference?

Could someone help me with this confusion? Thank you!

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Has anyone blown a whole study day fool proofing one LG? Disheartening, especially because I've been at this for a couple of years.

I got confused by one of the rules of this game.

The rule: if an issue has either finance or technology it must go in slot 1 confused me. i took this as if there is a technology/finance it must go in 1 and you can't have the other one because it wouldn't be able to go in slot 1. How do you know that you could have both in?

Thank you!

Admin Note: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-75-section-4-game-4/

This is my last time taking the LSAT (for various reasons, no retaking is not an option). I took a break from studying in December because I felt so burnt out.

I've been doing problem sets and reviewing some material to refresh my studying and feel like somehow I've gotten much worse? I took a PT today (the last one I am planning on taking before the real deal so I don't freak out) and...well...I'm freaking out. I took a PT today and scored lower than what I've been scoring ..I don't know what's going wrong or how to fix it in such a short amount of time. This January test is a make-it-or-break it for my career. Spiralling downwards FAST. Any tips? #Help

Can anyone confirm that we can use ctrl+f during the LSAT without getting in trouble? I saw this on reddit but I always assumed we couldn’t.

Why would A not be correct for this? Is it not true that a society with laws have crimes (SL -> C), since the stimulus establishes that a society with no laws has no crimes (/SL -> /C). Why would D be a more correct answer? Why does the "some" part matter for laws & crimes? This one has me stumped.

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a majority of my RC wrong answers are coming from these questions, like upwards of 5 lol. I feel like the reason I'm crossing off AC's is because it's not 'clicking' for WHY it could be supported. Does anyone have any advice on being more lenient with the correct answer choices?

I'm having trouble finding the balance of where to be lenient and where to be strict. Would love to fine tune this a little more before next weeks exam. :)

Please help.

I am currently finishing up the core curriculum and have been struggling with the fact that a lot of the circling/side margin notation strategies are no longer applicable to the current state of the LSAT :(

I know myself to be a visual learner. So as someone who definitely would've been circling/scribbling little low res margin notes over the passage if it were still physical, i am struggling to find ways to break up the passages on the digital LSAT. My strategy for tackling the core curriculum has been to try and mirror J.Y.'s explanations/strategies. But personally i feel like all the circling and drawing lines between concepts that he does (that we are no longer able to do) plays a big role in that and my understanding.

Does anyone have suggestions on how they've adapted to this change for RC? or is it simply just training my short-term memory to adapt to this change?

Many Thanks!

Hi, could someone help me understand Lsat4.s1.question-18 better? I have several questions.

Admin edit: Please review our forum rules. Posting licensed LSAC materials is against our TOS. Sorry, duly noted

I think my problem comes from the fact that I didn't come up with the right 'antecedent claim'. I had thought the claim would be something along the lines of, 'intelligent life exists...' or 'intelligent life doesn't exist...' so when I got to answer choices I went with (C) because it seemed that the whole passage hinged on the ambiguity of the key phrase 'intelligent life.'

Now, knowing the right answer is (D) I'm struggling. It's clear that LSAC are tricky bastards to put (C) as an answer choice. The nuance to the question lies in understanding how the passage challenges a claim that we are supposed to infer. Right now the only way I see (D) working is if the claim is 'The question whether intelligent life exists elsewhere is precise.' Is this right**?**

Typing this all out makes me realize what seems to be the proper claim is just the negation of the first sentence in the stimulus, but is that what we are supposed to go on**?**

I have the conclusion of the stimulus in lawgic as:

define life more precise -> !(find and recognize life -> leave definitions open)

conversely

(find and recognize life -> leave definitions open) -> define life less precise

With this all in mind, what part of the stimulus should I identify as arguing the claim is 'counter productive'? and am I right now looking back to say that 'cannot be adequately defined' is too strong and not what the passage is saying. When it's really saying that life cannot be precisely defined**?**

Admin note: edited title

I average -10 on LR and am trying to get that to -8 before test day next week. I am terrible at Sufficient Assumption and Necessary Questions. I struggle to determine the missing gap in both questions. Is there any advice someone could give me?

Since there's not an explanation posted yet, can anyone explain or point me to where Preptest 92 game 3 has already been explained? I feel so dumb, I know there's a major inference I'm missing. I didn't have problems with any other games on this exam! Gah! Any help would be so appreciated!!

I was approved for accommodations for the exam next week and it's my first time taking with accommodations. I've taken the LSAT twice before. For those of you that have done this already, is the proctor already aware of your accommodations when you begin? Do you need to confirm with them or show them anything? I want to make sure this goes as smoothly as possible.

This is the only question in passage set that I can't seem to resolve on my own. I was caught between AC C and E, ended up picking E timed and C in BR.

C) I thought it seemed likely that Sibley would think a good goal is to simply the classification systems by reducing the total number, because in paragraph 3 he talks about how there are too many criteria's complicating the species classification.

ie: "We must limit the number of degrees we choose to 'recognize' by names"

E) This seemed likely to me because of the arguments going on in paragraph 3, it just didn't seem like an easy issue to resolve so it seemed likely that disagreements would continue; especially given the fact that the critics seemed more concerned with the interpretation of Sibley's data rather than the procedure of it. ie: if more techniques like Sibely's are refined, they would still take issue with the arbitrary interpretation.

I just couldn't find a reason to eliminate C and direct support for E!

For Q8, I have difficulty deciding between B and C. I have some disagreement with some words in both of B and C, which makes it even harder to pick.

Based on my notes, I wrote down the MP of Passage A as "Intro to market and advocate for its abilities to forecast and efficiency to learn."

Mp of Passage B as "against to think market as too different from other polls. Fallible."

However, it does not help much to answer Q8.

(B) what can be learn from studying the movement of stock markets?

(C) Can markets be used to elicit reliable information?

For B, I understand that both passages discuss markets in general instead of stock markets. However, we do know the authors of both passages are mainly concern about what the movement of markets represent. For author A, the movement of a market forecasts, learns from collective wisdom. For author B, the movement of a market, the movement represents the populace opinion of a certain time period. But the main problem remains that they are not talking about stock markets, but markets in general.

For C, the question is about markets in general, which is a correct description of both passages. And I am confident that author A agrees and mainly focuses on illustrating the fact that market can be use to elicit reliable information. However, I am not quite confident about what author B thinks. Author B says that market is more of a reflection of people's opinion of the time, which means that it can either be right or wrong. And she also says that market is fallible. But I would not say author B argues that markets can't be used to elicit reliable information? It is too strong for passage B in my opinion. But it did come out to be the correct answer choice. Please help me out with this.

For Q22, I was completely lost after finishing reading the answer choices. I was attracted to D. Please help me with E!

Thank you for reading my post and discuss the questions with me. These are the only two questions I got wrong in the section, so if you have any questions about the section, I am glad to help! Good luck!

Hi 7Sagers, I've been wanting to write this post for a while. I've noticed as we approach LSATs, people get quite a bit of anxiety about ProctorU failing them on test day. When individual students do have bad experiences they tend to post on here (which I totally understand), but I suspect they're the exception rather than the norm.

I've personally had three LSATs and no problems with ProctorU. The only thing I had was the 5 second "connection issues" interruption window once, but that was it.

So I just want to say, go in expecting Proctor to work as it should. Leave that bit of anxiety to the side. People have definitely had horror stories but, statistically, I suspect you're much more likely to have no issues at all.

If ProctorU fails you, LSAT will absolutely give you another shot within a week or something (I can't remember).

Good luck.