@3993 - Thank you for your reply. It's been a dark couple of hours but I really appreciate your kind words. Unfortunately, my breakdown per section is pretty consistent. From beginning to end (around 20 PTs) I've averaged -5.8 in LR, -4.9 in RC and -4.2 in LG. BUT, the last number is incredibly misleading. I've made remarkable progress on the logic games going from getting -7+ per section to consistently -2 in the 60s series. Now, admittedly, the 70s series threw in some changes and caught me off guard (both in 70s PTs and my actual test) so I can go back to the method to shore up my skills.

Game four. Why.

http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/emote.gif

I was seriously exactly where you were just a month or two ago - I can totally relate to how you feel. I will so though that all of the advice that you have heard both on this discussion and in other posts is 100% dead on; you just need to trust the process. I kept looking for a silver bullet that would make LG completely clear up for me and I never found one. I was waiting for a moment where I could 'feel' or 'sense' something click and it never came. I listened to the advice and methods that people suggested on here and all of a sudden it just happened. I didn't have an "A-ha!" moment and I didn't feel any different one day versus another; it just sort of happened. Trust yourself and trust the process and I'm confident that it'll eventually click for you. You WILL get there, you just really have to push yourself and stick to your guns.

I'd like to see what other people say on the topic. @jhaldy10325 had really solid advice when I was struggling with LG a few months back. He might have some really solid insights.

I also know that @jclaridge202.gill.sanford talked in a webinar about the bizarre miscellaneous games giving her trouble. I would try watch it and figure out her methods for tackling the weird ones.

Wait, where did the idea of success come into play?

Ahhh I needed this. Thanks, J.Y :) Good luck everyone!

@jhaldy10325 - Solid predictions. Are you predicting this because of when the test is occurring ( a trend for September tests) and or/what happened in June and how that affects the next test? Or is it because the 70s series represents a repeated pattern? I felt like the 50s all felt like very minor variations of the same test. In the case of the circle game it sounds like that's simply a matter of being overdo.

@jhaldy10325 +1 for you, good sir.

I'm working full-time while trying to study so my studying has been pretty irregular. With that said, my boss has been out of town for 2 weeks so I've been studying closer to 4 hours at least every day. I saw some strong improvement at first but then started regressing. I took the weekend off after a solid 5 days of >4 hours and scored a PB on my PT this weekend. My advice would be: don't try to conform to a certain amount of time, do what you can and do what feels right.

A) This is an answer choice that I fell for. The stimulus says that the press agent did not tell EVERY reporter everything about the accident. So why must it be true that the press agent did not tell everything to ANY reporter? We don’t know that. Scooping reporters is the necessary condition for a reporter knowing more than everyone else. Telling one reporter everything is perfectly compatible with this argument.

B) I fell for answer choice B during BR because I was rushing and didn’t pay attention to the distinguishing element between the two. The stimulus is talking about the fact that the reporter “can scoop” whereas the answer choice is talking about reporters “need[ing] to scoop.”

C) If you’re given a list of 10 facts from the press agent as a reporter and you tell one of them to the other reporters – you can still have a scoop on the breadth of the information. So why would this be a flaw to overlook this?

D) What? This doesn’t make any sense.

E) This is the correct answer choice. I can see why this is right with time. All we know is that the press agent did not tell every reporter everything about the accident. That means that our conditional chain is not triggered because you’re denying the sufficient condition. It’s like a conditional chain in a logic game – when you deny the sufficient condition the rule falls away and becomes irrelevant. Therefore, it’s more than possible for the reporter to not tell a reporter everything about the accident AND for him to not know more about the accident than any other reporter. Him not knowing more than the other reporter means that he doesn’t have to scoop out other reporters with information.

A) This answer choice is correct although I spaced on it. Because this argument is so short any necessary assumption will be the sufficient assumption simply due to logistics. So, in the future, don’t freak out over this – it happens. This answer choice is able to correctly link the actions of dismissal/praise to being able to pass judgment. We know from the conclusion that R cannot pass judgment. And from the premises we know that R cannot dismiss and she can’t praise. So we need something that suggests that if you can’t dismiss or praise then you can’t pass judgment. This answer choice does that.

B) This is an attractive answer choice because it preys on a previous NA questions that have a dichotomy element to them but this isn’t what the stimulus says. The stimulus says that there’s a balance point of understanding. If you understand art above a certain point then you can’t dismiss it and you must pass a certain point of understanding art to be able to praise it. This answer choice conflicts with the former.

C) What? How do you get that from “she does not understand it well enough to praise it”? Very bad answer choice.

D) Bingo. We know that the level of understanding on the sliding scale is not where it needs to be. It’s perfectly in the middle between not understanding it to be able to dismiss it and the upper threshold where if you understand something well you can praise it. Thus, S’s art is stuck.

E) This does not need to be triggered

A) You sneaky, fiend. I didn’t choose A because I thought it strengthened the argument and seemed more PSA than NA (which is odd since I chose B and B is basically an SA on crack). A is denying an additional hypothesis and holding the argument’s dichotomy intact. The stimulus says that “oh, yeah people are really confused by broadcast news and it’s either because A or B” But we know it’s not A because of this one study soooo I guess it’s B then right?” A provides a foundation for this to stand on by denying an additional hypothesis. I reckon that an actual SA answer choice might say that those are for sure the only two possible explanations and because this only gives on hypothetical that’s why it’s the NA in this argument. This is also a really good example of an answer choice that could have been selected had I used the negation test which I tend to forget about. If you negate this answer choice then it triggers a new possibility for the explanation of people's confusion which completely destroys this argument.

B) I fell into the trap of answer choice B by selecting something that was WAY too strong to be a proper assumption. I didn’t like A because it caught me off guard a little bit by strengthening the question so I settled on B (damn). In review though I think it’s easier to see why B isn’t the correct response; it’s just way too intense. Because this is a necessary assumption question we are looking for an answer choice that is far more chill and easy going and B is just way too coked up. It not only gives you firepower to reach the conclusion but it also burns the entire house down. Impossible to understand? They have absolutely 0% of a clue what is going on when they watch? We don’t know that. We only know that they are confused by the information that they heard. If comprehension were to be put on a scale. 0% = impossible to understand 25% = doesn’t understand fully 50%= confused 75% = mostly understand and 100% = blind review level of comprehension – this argument is only talking about the people at the 50% level. B goes way too far and starts accounting for the people all the way at the bottom who find it impossible to understand which is just way too much.

C) This answer choice can be eliminated because it’s suggesting that the problem is that they are just not watching enough news stories. How in the hell would that help the argument out? How would that help the people out? It’s almost arguing that the sample of broadcast news stories is too small and therefore the argument can’t be accepted. This is a very bad answer choice.

D) Okayyyyyyy…. So what? People can cope with a very high information density. Most could have a very high information density but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they can understand the information from broadcast news. It’s basically just restating a premise that the news stories are lower in information density than people’s thresholds. Restating a premise doesn’t really do anything to allow the conclusion to be properly drawn and it’s certainly not an assumption. The threshold could be 25/100 and news programs are at a 3. This answer choice changes the threshold to 78/100. The news programs are a 35 or still 3. It doesn’t do anything.

E) Well, it’s too bad for those people but what does that really do to help us out here? People being overwhelmed? We’re talking about people who are confused…

A) Answer choice A can be eliminated because it doesn’t truly deal with our argument. The argument’s conclusion says that in today’s reality, publishers are MORE interested in making money. If this answer was actually going to weaken the argument I think it would need to say that book publishers have always been more interested in making money than publishing books in intrinsic value in the same amount as today.

B) I missed choosing B because I thought that it was too simple and couldn’t possibly weaken the argument. On second glance I realize that it does. Looking at B more closely it says that there is a decline in the quality of books written in recent years. In the stimulus it says that there were books with intrinsic merit (albeit few of them) that were published without consideration of their financial gains. The stimulus continues with an additional premise that fewer of these high-quality books are being published and that therefore it must be a financially-based decision. This answer choice breaks the support between the premises and the conclusion. It acknowledges that there are fewer of the books being published with intrinsic merit (those thought to be of a certain quality) but it denies the conclusion by offering an additional possibility. It basically concedes, “yeah, there are fewer of those books being published but there are fewer of them because there are less of them being written.” This reduction in the availability of books to choose from that have intrinsic merit would make it harder for publishers to publish their previous amount when there were better books being written.

C) Answer choice C can be eliminated because it also doesn’t truly deal with our argument. The argument is talking about publishers making the conscious decision to choose to publish books for a profit and to atypically publish books on intrinsic value even if these books were seen as unlikely to make a profit. All answer choice C says is that the books that were published on the basis of their intrinsic value were not prohibited from unexpectedly earning a profit. This does nothing to our argument.

D) Answer choice D does not accurately deal with the argument by suggesting that authors will not publish their works if they are not published. There is a gap between those people and the increasing numbers of them today that is not actually addressed in the argument and therefore cannot weaken the argument.

E) If answer choice E were accepted it would almost strengthen the argument as well. It’s suggesting that the profits of these stores have been declining. Well, then wouldn’t book stores be more interested than ever in trying to maximize their profits if they are in a pinch for money?

A) Answer choice A is wrong because it would strengthen the question. If you have few contemporary artists who have been exposed to the previous artwork then it would suggest that there is an inherent standard of beauty in people’s minds. Contemporary artists who are able to create this standard of beauty in their pieces and have it mirror older cultures’ beauty standard in their art WHILE not having been exposed to it indicates that there is a universal idea of beauty that exists in people’s minds and they are clearly able to distinguish it. Thus, because of this strengthening of the argument answer choice A can be eliminated.

B) Answer choice B is wrong because it’s completely irrelevant to the argument. For starters, while it’s great for previous cultures that they were more influenced by art than we were – it doesn’t necessarily give us any insight into this argument. Because answer choice B does not address anything related to the argument, answer choice B can be eliminated.

C) Full disclosure: I really struggled with answer choice C but I’m going to try and explain it the best I can. I think C is correct as the answer choice because it shakes up the idea that the creation of art happened in a vacuum and that the contemporary results perfectly mirrored the beauty standards of the past out of sheer happenstance and that because of the similarity of the two – therefore there is an objective, universal standard of beauty. Answer choice C challenges this directly by breaking the notion of creating art in a vacuum and says, “Well, actually, the reason that the two are similar is because contemporary artists have been strongly influenced by the previous works of art and want to incorporate some of those elements into their paintings.” This tripped me up during the PT and in BR because I thought C was strengthening the argument by showing that they were similar. However, the argument doesn’t have “the two are similar” as its conclusion – that’s a premise. The argument argues that the because of the similarities that shows that beauty is objective and universal. This answer choice wrecks the support between the premise of similarities and the conclusion of universal beauty standard by acknowledging the similarities exist but suggesting that they exist simply because contemporary artists were influenced by the previous artists and adopted their styles because they thought they were beautiful. That is a subjective adoption of techniques and challenges the argument. For these reasons, answer choice C is correct.

D) Answer choice D is wrong for a multitude of reasons and it’s hard to pick a defining reason. First of all, it introduces the concept “important artistic work” which was nowhere to be found in the stimulus; the stimulus only talks about beautiful works of art – nothing to do with “important ones.” Because of this mix-up in what the topic of the argument is, it’s not able to actually contribute anything to the argument – either strengthening or weakening. There is an argument out there that could be weakened by this statement but it’s not our argument. Important artistic work does not imply that it is or should be inherently beautiful – that is an assumption that you have to make in connecting this answer choice to the argument. For these reasons answer choice D can be eliminated.

E) Answer choice E trapped me when I was going over this question because I thought that if the elite owned the wealth it was actually suggesting a type of aristocratic standard of beauty in art that would make it unrepresentative of broader society. This answer choice however doesn’t say anything about who is MAKING the art (which could have the effect I thought it did) but rather who possesses the art. Well, the artists can make art with previous beauty standard and the rich can own the art. Where is the weakening of the argument? For this reason answer choice E can be eliminated. – Need to read the answer choices more carefully and not inject in assumptions to bend an answer choice to be the correct one.

I'm failing to see how in Q22 - the main point of the passage is that the understanding of scientific knowledge is somehow lacking and that this theoretical question would make knowledge better

"Sorry, concerned Grandma, no one cares what you have to say" XD

I initially fell for answer choice C. However, after looking at it more here's my reasoning for why it's not an analogy.

There is no actual analogy made because there is no language directly connecting two dissimilar items together (taking the LSAT is like medical surgery). Rather, it shows that having limited soda options illustrates the concept (as an example). Language for analogies usually come with forms like: "similarly, likewise, that would be like saying, you might as well argue that..." etc. Something can be an example of an argument if it is a subset of the topic/claim and indicates that. Examples can still be examples and not analogies EVEN IF THEY ARE HYPOTHETICAL.

Thanks for the response @jhaldy10325 ! You really think four weeks is too limiting for a consistent increase? I guess I wasn't expecting that I would have to push my date back. I was hoping to be one of the early applicants to a lot of places to increase my chances in the admissions process. December will be towards the middle-end of UVA's timeline and there will be less spots. Looks like I have some thinking to do.

I can somewhat understand the arguments against going but not really. I mean, either way, if you're committed to going to see the school before you enroll you're going to go at some point. You should definitely consider going. This past winter I went to visit schools and I had some very surprising revelations about a school that I thought was in my top-3. I HATED it there and couldn't really figure out why and it's not something I would have picked up on just by looking online and reaching out to the admissions counselor to 'get the formula' for admission (which most upper-tier schools do not provide - or they claim they do not exist). Conversely on the same trip I fell in love with one of the schools that I went to visit and it made me more committed and determined to get into that school in particular and not just any school. Both of those are important things to learn before you pay $100 to send out an application or stick with a particular LSAT score in your application process. With the cost of law school approaching 250,000 over three years at some of the upper-tier schools, why would you not want to visit it and make sure you're going to be happy there earlier rather than later?

1.) I'm a typical All-American boy from Tacoma, WA raised by a single mom in the rougher parts of town in the Hilltop neighborhood. I went to Washington State University (Go Cougs) to obtain a degree in political science (which I did - in addition to history) - originally so I could immediately run for public office and become a career politician. Then I realized that in today's day and age you need a lot more capital than what a 22 year old can use for campaigning and I refocused my passions in the pursuit of law.

2.) My biggest concerns are finding a way to describe myself in a personal statement so admissions committees can see the type of applicant they'll be getting and how I will impact their law school's community, as well as my LSAT score (yikes).

3.) Idea a) Talking about my drive and motivation being a constant throughout my life from wanting to be a professional baseball player to having a handwritten note of the oath to become President of the United States hanging on my wall at 14 years old.

Idea b) The work I did with my mentor at WSU working on teaching English skills to folks in the regional prisons and my concomitant experience in becoming more racially-conscious.

4.) I attended the first one but not the latest one and have not been reached.

I read "study of managers" to mean that they were surveying managers about employees re self-deprecating humor, thus I COMPLETELY missed A as the obvious answer choice. Should have read this more carefully.