(A) caught me off guard. On its surface, it is directly contradicting the premise: No active volcanoes have been identified on Venus. I assumed on the basis of this, that this meant there were no active volcanoes, but this reasoning in itself is a flaw. Ignorance of something is not evidence that it does not exist. By saying “Conditions on Venus make it unlikely that any instrument targeting Venus would detect a volcanic eruption directly,” (A) suggests that in fact there might be some activity, we are just unable to detect it. 

@Bartje Looking at this question again later, I also think paying special attention to the restrictor words in the question stem would have been helpful.

"Linked to positive musical experiences" is soft language. It does need to be the main factor at play, just something that contributed in some positive way.

If I noticed this then, maybe I wouldn't have been looking for the perfect answer.

(A) is saying "people with a genetic predisposition have the same or less iron levels as people without a predisposition." This strengthens because otherwise someone could say:

Genetic predisposition to Parkinson's -c-> Parkinson's AND

Genetic predisposition to Parkinson's -c-> iron-heavy food cravings

This would destroy the implied hypothesis of:

more iron intake -c-> more chance of Parkinson's

The work of the new art is outside the bounds of the European aesthetic theory, so there can never be an all-encompassing theory of aesthetic.

The author is saying: because we didn't get it last time, we are never going to get it.

However, what if there is another theory that innovates beyond what we thought was possible and accounted for all types of art in a way that euro theory couldn't.

Crucial to this question is recognizing that "the aesthetic theory" is referencing a specific theory and different from "theory of aesthetics"

What made this click for me under timed conditions was the fact that the conclusion says:

Honey-treated wounds healed faster than (1) wounds treated with antibiotics and (2) wounds cleaned but not treated.

The (2) part is basically a control group, which tells that Honey actually does have some benefits since it is better than doing nothing after cleaning.

(E) was tempting but it does not push honey treatment to the positives. All we know is that honey does not have a negative effect. It could be the case, if (E) were true, that the rankings would still be:

1. Doing nothing

2. Honey

3. Antibiotics

That's why (C) is right

I really hate this question and it's a reminder that there is a different between LSAT thinking and real-world thinking.

I chose (D) which seems too strong in hindsight, perhaps if it said "increases in workers' standard of living sometimes is accompanied by a decrease in how much they value their jobs." I feel like creativity and talent aside, if I am healthier due to changes in my job, I am happier about it.

(E) might sound better if it said "work processes that involve greater creativity and talent are sometimes less efficient," might work better.

I had felt like (B) was the way to go, since productivity causes increased standards of living, which might be because companies are making more money, so they can now pay more.

This is a tough one, but the more one thinks about it under timed conditions the harder it gets.

Again, I didn't read closely enough.

I read "there is more one valid explanation" and thought, that must be right

But in reality, I needed (B) to say " there is more than one valid explanation for the process in which bees share food information"

I fell victim to bringing an outside assumption into the LSAT. Having just read a novel from an author who writes exactly one book a year of a series, I assumed that we didn't have authors submitting multiple manuscripts a year.

@jasminesade220 same, recognizing how "dietary" impacts the argument changes everything.

(D) might be stronger if it said:

The physicians in the study had not been screened in advance to ensure that were not making deliberate diet choices as a result of a heart disease diagnosis.

Analogous argument:

Who missed their free throw yesterday in gym? College recruits probably will not miss their free throws, so it was likely someone who is not being recruited to college for basketball.

Answer choice (C) would say:

Well, 20 students are being recruited to college and Bartje is the only one not going for basketball.

This is a new consideration that suggests, at the very least, we should reconsider how confidently our premise leads to our conclusion.

(D) says:

The gym teacher, judging his students vibes that day, thought it was likely someone would miss.

In weakening a comparative argument that choses A over B, we need an answer choice that would suggest either B over A or not necessarily A over B. (D) just adds to the context, it doesn't give us any new information that might tip the scales.

I still dislike (E) because it requires the assumption that psychotherapists who provide psychotherapy on talk shows will satisfy these demands to be entertaining.

We don't know if they will. Perhaps we have a phycologist who won't bend the knee to the producers of the talk show.

With (E), "manner that makes it unlikely to be of high quality" clearly refers to "satisfying demands while speaking on a talk show," not "providing psychotherapy on a talk show," which is what the conclusion says.

I think (C) is better in this regard. Since we don't know whether or not psychotherapists will satisfy demands, all we can safely say is that there is SOME chance, so therefore, "any" is not too strong but rather descriptively accurate.

Think of some ancient Greek poem.

We don't have records or information on how people reacted to the poem when it was published (newspaper/scholarly articles) and we don't have information on how the author wanted people to react (journal entries).

Can we just decide that it is impossible to have an idea of the reactions the poem was intended to produce?

No, we can look at context clues in the language (does it sound sad or happy?) or in the culture (was it at a time of political upheaval?) or do we know about the author's broader theme of their work.

In short, there are many factors that can be used to understand the intention of something. Which the argument clearly overlooks.

In the LSAT, we are constantly being asked to evaluate evidence or lack thereof. This is just like those types of questions: is this observation enough to reach this conclusion?

our buying glass water bottles IS AN EFFORT TO protect the environment

By saying "It actually will harm the environment," I am claiming that you're buying glass water bottles for the wrong reasons because they actually harm the environment. You can still buy glass water bottles as far as I'm concerned, but just change your justification.

our buying glass water bottles WILL protect the environment

By saying "It actually will harm the environment," I am rejecting what the other person is claiming: no, they won't protect the environment, in fact they will do the opposite.

Getting this question wrong feels like the equivalent of missing an open goal.

Of course Author A would agree with (D), his whole point is that we don't necessarily need scientific evidence to prove that something exists, and he points to anecdotal evidence as a mean for proving paranormal activity.

I think I just fixated on "no evidence" and thought "Well no, Author A believes that there IS evidence." Modifying words and phrases in RC answer choices are vital.

This was difficult because I didn't really identify the author's thesis since it came in the last paragraph of the passage.

If we cannot aspire to the significant degree of social and economic equality that is required for formalism to be compatible with the achievement of substantive justice, then formalism should be abandoned so that the law can adapt to social reality.

The author has laid out both systems and is making a value judgement, saying if we can't do both A and B, let's just do B. So we need something that tells us that we should actually choose A when faced with this dilemma.

(B) does exactly this saying that if we care about factoring in equality to legal decisions paradoxically formalist systems do it better.

Recognizing implied bi-conditionality would have made this question a lot easier and saved me a ton of time.

I looked at the AC's where the conclusion was that an individual should not be granted a leave. Based on the info both Hal and Sara did not violate any of the conditions we were given.

At this point, I should have gone back to the stim with bi-conditionality in mind. And rephrased the second sentence in a more recognizable bi-conditional language:

An employee is eligible, if and only if, they apply for benefit at least three months prior to beginning of the parental leave period AND have at least one year of full-time employment with the company at the time of application

Does this make sense in the context of the problem? I think so, which means now (A), (D) and (E) are on the table.

Two things made this question hard for me:

1. The conditional statement in the first sentence sent false signals that we were dealing with conditional support, when in fact the author uses a causal chain to reach their conclusion.

2. (C)'s wording threw me off. I wanted something like: It assumes that by repealing a law with a negative effect, the negative effect will not get worse. "Countervailing" is not something I use in everyday English, which made things tricky.

I think logic notation makes this question unnecessarily difficult and the answer is rather intuitive.

The underlying assumption is that you can't have the best of both worlds. You can't stay in budget and renovate, it has to be one or the other.

We know that's the case for next year, the premise plainly states that:

Renovating next year will make the museum's expenditures exceed next year's very tight budget

But does the stimulus tell us anything about what will happen if we renovate this year? No, it doesn't.

(D) tells us exactly this: if we renovate this year, we also exceed the budget.

Thinking about this almost as a Necessary Assumption might help. (D) contra-posed would destroy the argument since if we can renovate and stay within this year's budget, then we don't have to worry!

We need to find a parallel situation. We know:

• When governments support local projects, local governments are incentivized to start even more projects since they get more funds.

• Therefore, government spending and tax are higher for everyone.

As a very simple summary, something meant to help people is actually hurting society.

(B) would not be right. The policy still helps one group, but it needs to negatively impact everyone.

(C) yes - something meant to have a beneficial impact, actually has the opposite effect

@SarahHigdon ah I see, def agree with you

This was a long stim, with a science-based comparison being made. Getting a grasp of the info was the hardest part.

The second group believes that children lack the moral reasoning that would qualify them as moral because they have unsophisticated responses to hypothetical moral dilemmas.

This infers a causal relationship. Not being able to verbally express a good response to a made-up scenario implies that one does not have moral reasoning skills.

This measure seems flawed. To weaken, we need to show that not being able to verbally express a good response does not necessarily imply the absence of reasoning skills.

(D) does exactly that, by suggesting that the testing conditions were flawed in that children need to be in the real world to show the moral response.

This is an experiment: monkeys raided orchards; monkeys were given other food; and now monkeys no longer raid orchard.

The last part of the stim prevents an alternative explanation being made. By saying the monkey population has increased, it shows that this change in behavior was not from population decline.

(A) - seemed good but also a little strong for my liking. What if these monkey love soy beans so they are happy to eat them instead of fruit but if we give them peanuts they will continue to go the orchards?

(B) - no, we only learn about soybeans. Can't make this comparison.

(C) - no, we do not know Suzuki's intention

(D) - eat apples --> no other fruit. No idea, all we know is that the monkeys stopped eating apples when introduced to soy beans. If you miss the distinction regarding fruit, makes this one a bit harder to cross off.

(E) - No idea if the increase from 23 to 270 is bad for environment.

Even though I was a little skeptical of (A), it is clearly the correct AC.

Where do you get the window with all notes?

(A) might be better if it said:

There had been an abnormally large rise in family income in 1996, after adjustments for inflation, that would have been impossible to conserve.

This would suggest that the 10% decrease actually isn't so bad, since a government couldn't be reasonably expected to maintain an impossible income level.

However, (A) doesn't say that, for all we know the family income rise was 0.1% and stayed in the average range.

The argument states that:

Fish recover normal hormone concentrations when the mills shutdown

AND

Dioxin decomposes slowly

SO

Dioxin is unlikely to be the cause of reproductive abnormalities

The assumption is that we can have normal concentrations of hormones in fish AND dioxin still being present in the environment

(C) provides an explanation that even though Dioxin decomposes slowly, it is quickly moved away from immediately downstream to far down stream, which means we cannot assume that the dioxin remains in the fish's environment.