@adriantriplett I wonder if you can break free from your POE habits. I read and reread Ellen Cassidy's The Loophole and make my own similar loopholes while reading and after reading the stimulus. These Loopholes set me on the right track to a prephrase and that has helped me A LOT to being able identify assumptions, flaws, and errors in the stimulus. Maybe you've heard this a million times but engaging with the stimulus in my head has really helped a lot. For example, I might be like "no author, that makes no sense. Your argument is stupid" or "What? But hows that even possible? What if .... something happened and that means your conclusion that gives us two options isnt possible anymore??". Having these reactions and engagements with the stimulus helps me break down what I'm reading. Also, one more thing if its a super wordy stimulus with like technical topics, I imagine a fictional character telling me this stuff. It just helps me get over that like initial confusion part where I read it and I'm like "huhhh??? What did that mean and I dont get it". I do it also because sometimes after reading a stimulus and I feel like I don't get it, I just panic and completely (I mean COMPLETELY) guess or just ignore my strategies. Then I go into BR and realise actually, the question wasn't a big deal at all.

I'm not sure if you have a WAJ, but as other LSAT-ers have commented, WAJ really does help. Writing down my thoughts on why I chose and AC and what I should do next time has helped me notice my own intuitions and own decisions I make in the timed situation. Like the panic thing, I didn't know until I started noticing the patterns in WAJ. I can't give too much advice since I haven't taken a PT in a while, but I wish you the best of luck and to hang in there. You might benefit from having a tutor who can analyze your step-to-step process. “Every problem has a solution; it may sometimes just need another perspective”!

I think B is really attractive because my immediate reaction after reading the stimulus was:

"What if the higher tuition is relevant to quality of education?"

I think B attempts to trick us into assuming that "Quality of a education is DEPENDENT (or REQUIRES) tuition charged". But, let's take a step back. The stimulus doesn't need this. Even if this was true, it wouldn't guarantee the conclusion. Interestingly, if this was a SA question, I think B could pass as a possible SA correct AC.

Let's contrast with AC A. In the stimulus, we're given this phenomenon that the applicant pool is shrinking, Then the Uni President gives us a hypothesis, "hey, one reason we think this is happening is because we charge too little prices". Then we get the premise. But our prephrase/reaction here could also be: "What if this hypothesis doesn't apply?" This is exactly what A calls out. If we check by negation test, we find that A is absolutely necessary. If negated, then the whole argument falls apart: the Uni President's hypothesis is not relevant, so we have no reason to think raising tution and fees would help increase the application pool.

I'd like to get some feedback on my approach for this question. I diagrammed this question as:

Told -> /Knows-> /Scoop

/Told

---

/Scoop

I identified this as a sufficiency necessity confusion.

Given this odd question stem, I understood it as, which AC is consistent with our rule?

I chose E which tells us /Knows, which is what our rule states.

All other AC I eliminated as below:

A) /Told - inconsistent with our rule.

B) Knows -> /Scoop - incosistent with our rule

C) Told <S> Told? - didnt make sense with the Some Quantifier

D) /Know press agent - Irrelevant. /Know should be about reporters not the press agent so this is irrelevant.

Is this an accurate way to approach this question?

@Aqsie101 Small World out there! Maybe we should just create a study group of Rockland/Westchester? We're not that far away after all!

https://coda.io/d/Reading-Comprehension-Guide_dewwvC-zXme/RC-Question-Type-Guide_suOhw30v?playModeWorkflowId=#_lujQfTax

Is this what you're looking for?

Hello! I'm over in Westchester County. I'm hoping to take the test in April, but I think its more likely to be in June though. I'm looking for an LSAT study buddy, but do let me know!

Remember that Subject -> Predicate is also another way to think about conditionals.

Peter, the large dog, is a family pet

Peter: Subject

is a family pet: Predicate

P -> FP

Thank you everyone for your great advice! I shall take in all!

Hello! I'd love to join and learn to ace the RC section!

I think everyone who's here definitely been in those same shoes. It really takes patience with yourself and it takes time. But, the more you are exposed to it each day, and the more you take time to absorb all these different concepts, the more familiar this will all become. Don't go overkill with studying and make sure to take breaks! Everything is going to be new for you and it'll take time to adjust, but I'm sure you'll do just fine!

Woohoo! Keep it going!! You got this!

I'm interested! I live out in the tri-state area but would be super interested!

@MarcusTsang Thank you! I'll keep all your advice in mind. Yes, the hard work starts here. Just need to consistently keep at it.

Lots of practice. I mean like lots of it. Take you time too.

If you need to, make some flash cards and drill them so you know your Group 1s, Group 2s, Group 3s, and Group 4s. Consistently practice them so that once you're doing the real questions, you don't just skip over the conditional reasoning in the future.

The more your practice and take it in now, it'll pay off in the long run.

@NathanielWright Remember that we are just trying to answer the questions here, not question the truth of them. Same principle goes for LR where we don't question the truth of premises, we just take them to be true.

In this question, we're just looking for an AC, which is phrased as a question, that the passage can support to answer.

AC A is correct since we can use the passage, specifically the last paragraph, to answer AC A's question.

In all other AC's, the passage cannot be used to answer them.

Let's say you didn't realise this question was a strengthen question. Could you have gone with like a Sufficient Assumption technique to find the Correct AC?

Isn't it more clear that AC A is correct if you think about this as an SA question rather than a Strengthen Q?

Could I have translated "are generally resistant to neither HM Poisoning nor antibiotics" in Answer Choice B as " aren't generally resistant to HM Poisoning and Antibiotics" since "neither... nor" means "not this and not that"? I think I eliminated Answer Choice B because I didn't click in this grammar and then moved on.

@sammeybobammey Yeah I actually have the same reaction. But I looked through this discussion section and other people's explanations and understandings helped me understand this question a lot better!

@EshaZaveri Woohoo! Same here, thos PAI were def difficult. Just need to improve my timing in the future though!

So just to clarify: if an answer choice contains information that hasn't been discussed in the stimulus or information that we cannot determine whether it is true/could be true/could be false, then that answer choice can be dismissed as not being the POI?

The correct answer choice needs to be one that must be true for one person and must be false for the other person? (as we saw on the MSS Must-be-supported scale?)

@ionicinstinct I see. I guess I can use the addendum to explain, but I'm not sure if admission officers will understand what a 60 (2:1) or 70 (1st) will mean since it's unweighted and has a different scale? Well regardless, it clears one thing up. Just means LSAT score is super important!

@Metroidude

That's super helpful. That emphasizes that I really need to lock in (Capitalise LOCK IN). Thanks for the input Metroidude!!