I think the test writers were trying to really trick you here, since your brain is fresh off of reading Passage B, which discusses human remains. They key thing about this question, though, is that it needs to satisfy BOTH sides of the equation (i.e., has to match both passage A critics and passage B).

Passage A's critics are concerned EXCLUSIVELY with cultural items. Nowhere do they mention human remains as being important (despite what our own views might be). All the critics say is: "archaeologists abhor the sale of recovered artifacts." This does not imply human remains; just cultural items.

Interesting question stem. I liked how the video made the distinction between what you can/cannot do depending on whether the stem has "IF TRUE" in it. In this case, with that missing, if an answer says something that is unreasonable or anti-supported by the passages, that answer isn’t “appropriate.”

This is a great example of distinguishing between a comparative claim and an absolute claim. The passage states "cultural items have greater archaeological value than coins." Greater DOES NOT EQUAL an absolute claim like "not significant."

It could be that both gold coins and cultural items are very archaeologically significant, but the coins are just ever so slightly less significant than the cultural items. For example, the cultural items could be 100 on the significance scale, but the gold coins could be 99 on the scale. Still, on a relative level, less significant, but on an absolute level, still extremely significant.

I misread (B) and thought it said that satisfaction with your first computer would make you not want to buy a new computer, since you’re so happy with your first one. That’s not what it says at all. It actually says that satisfaction with your first computer makes you LOYAL TO THE BRAND, which if anything, implies that these customers would continue to buy this brand and, therefore, give more revenue to the store. Under this more-correct reading, it completely seems to go against the puzzle in the stimulus, and just deepens the puzzling phenomenon.

(A) is a sneaky answer choice. It’s not that they didn’t attempt to explain it. In fact, it’s fairly strongly supported to say that they did attempt to explain it. It’s just that, even after their attempt, they had “no success” in adequately explaining it.

I think this question is a good refresher on kicking up conditional conclusions into the premise set, a concept that I didn’t really understand until pretty late into my studying. If you see that conditional conclusion, and just remove the “if” and treat the sufficient condition as being true, it becomes easier for me to visualize how the support is supposed to help the conclusion.

“draws a conclusion that is essentially about a moral issue by appealing to evidence that is purely factual” is the same thing as describing a cookie-cutter “is… ought” flaw.

“Moral issue” is referring to a value judgement, like what someone “should” do (which involves weighing competing value judgements about what’s better). “Moral issue” on the LSAT will not refer to phycological stuff, like “resenting” something.

Always remember that on NA questions, you're only looking for bare-bones necessary. (B) would be a good strengthener, but we don't actually need (B) to be true in order to save the argument from destruction. The argument's conclusion only concerns saving the company money; the exact/particular mechanism by which that happens doesn't matter as long as there's some link. But it doesn't have the be the exact link that (B) suggests. It's too broad to be bare-bones necessary.

Always remember what FEW means. When you see FEW, you should immediately translate in your head to "MOST... NOT."

Few A's are B's = Most A's are NOT B's.

Key thing to remember: you always have to explain ALL sides of the puzzle. Not just one aspect, or another aspect, but ALL ASPECTS MUST BE EXPLAINED.

I'm too far along in my study journey to keep missing the word "BELIEVE" in a stimulus. That word should be raising alarm bells in my head, but for some reason this whole "belief versus fact" thing just isn't internalized inside of my brain. :(

Great quote from someone below: "A person’s views are only 'contradictory' if the contradiction exists within what THEY themselves believe. Not based on outside facts."

This is such a good example of a flaw I don’t see often, but it should jump out at you with enough practice.

NEW COOKIE-CUTTER FLAW: Privileging one person at the expense of another (with no reason to do so).

(E) felt so obvious that I was hesitant to pick that. Moral of the story that I’ve learned on PT152: sometimes the simpler answer is just better. KISS - keep it simple stupid or smth like that!

I also have to be careful on Point of Issue Agree/Disagree questions to make sure the answer choices are confined to the narrow world of the stimulus. Guaranteed on these harder questions they will trick you by giving broad statements that apply to the stimulus, but also to EVERYTHING ELSE in the world. That’s what (A) does, whereas at least every other AC confines us to 10th St. fast food places ONLY.

I got this right, but after further review, I realize I just got lucky on the test.

I believed the stimulus was just taking the contrapositive of the principle. It’s not; it’s doing a Mistaken Negation (confusing sufficient for necessary). I have to remember the structure P —-> C. “For” is a premise indicator, so “self-understanding” is a sufficient condition. “Follows that” is a conclusion indicator, so that is the necessary condition. Arranged in that way, it’s clear that this is a mistaken negation of the first sentence.

The next level of difficulty is parsing AC’s A and B.

AC (A): “a condition that brings about a particular outcome” = sufficient condition. So a “failure to satisfy a condition that brings about a particular outcome” means negating the sufficient condition. “As if satisfying that condition is the only way to realize that outcome” means the same as a mistaken negation.

A mistaken negation doesn’t work, since just because you don’t have a sufficient condition, doesn’t mean you’ll never have the necessary condition. In other words, there could be other things out there that trigger that necessary condition (that aren’t our sufficient condition). So we can’t just negate both sides. (A) is just saying this.

But AC (B) at first glance looks like it’s right, since it has the same structure as a “confusing sufficient and necessary” answer choice. But upon closer review, (B) isn’t saying “confusing sufficient with necessary,” it’s saying “confusing necessary with necessary.”

(B) NEVER USES THE WORD SUFFICIENT ANYWHERE, but uses Necessary TWICE. That’s not right here. A cookie-cutter, correct sufficiency/necessity flaw AC will mention both “sufficient” and “necessary” somewhere in the AC.

After struggling with author attitude questions on RC, I’ve noticed a pattern. I used to always be drawn towards answers like “zealous advocate.” The fact is, “zealous” is almost always too strong for many of the RC passages we normally see. They always throw in an AC on these questions that is the most extreme out of all the given options, and it’s just such a high bar to meet. One word (like “innovative”), or even multiple supportive words, still doesn’t rise to the high level of “zealous.” I’ll choose that answer if the passage comes out roaring with “we should all praise their theory because it’s the best and greatest!!!”

@DevorahLeahPaltiel I think because the plot/narrative of (E) is about a “single day,” so interruptions about “life” in general is tangentially related, but not 100% necessary to advance a plot about events happening on a single day.

Sneaky.

Here's how I think about AC (C). The stimulus conclusion is about office workers and office equipment. Any weakening answer should introduce an alternate cause that applies specifically to office workers. A weakener AC that applies only to factory workers (like C) doesn't necessarily weaken the argument's conclusion at all.

In fact, with (C), the conclusion is still as strong as it ever was. It's entirely plausible for the argument's conclusion and the answer in (C) to be true at the same time. The factory workers could be using those stress-reducing techniques, but the office equipment could still be extremely bad for the office workers.

(E), however, is an alternate cause that CAN also apply to the office worker group, which is what the stimulus argument is concerned with. (C) just ignores the office workers.

If I get the question right, then for review, I'll only read the written explanations. If I get it wrong, I'll immediately jump to the video explanations.

I think it was easy for me to get tripped up with E because of the words "more likely" in the stimulus. I'm used to the word "likely" indicating a potential causal reasoning argument. But "likely," by itself, is only implying a correlation. And the stimulus doesn't introduce any language indicating there actually is causation.

A quick, shallow-dip trick for a question like this is to immediately recognize that they are trading on a Numbers vs. Percentages flaw. The premises discuss absolute numbers, indicated by "frequent" (there is a large number of small studies reported on in newspapers; that's just an absolute number). The conclusion brings up the word "likely," which indicates percentages/probability/etc. When premises and conclusion jump from absolute to percentages, the right AC will mention something about that. Commonly, you should start questioning the TOTAL that those groups were drawn from. The right AC in this question talks about the TOTAL number of small observational studies, so it's correct.

Best way to get this correct quickly on a shallow-dip is knowing that the argument structure has an intermediate conclusion that supports the main conclusion. The gap in the argument is likely to be between that major premise and the main conclusion; not likely to be in the gap between the minor premise and major premise. All the other AC's mention the minor premise, which just isn't extremely relevant to the support structure of the argument. Only D narrows in on that intermediate conclusion.

Common flaw I've seen recurring in hard questions the past few weeks. Purpose is not equivalent to the natural consequences of something. Just because there are some byproducts/consequences of an action, doesn't mean that action was intended/purposed on achieving those consequences.

Probably the most evil question I've encountered in my entire study journey. Just. Wow.

I keep making this mistake on PrepTests. Curvebreaker 170+ questions will hinge on the ability to recognize INTENT versus OUTCOMES. This is actually a key element to the practice of law (for once). Proving something in court often requires proving both the bad consequences (actus reus) and the actor's state of mind/intent (mens rea). This question, and many other 170+ questions, will test whether you can spot the difference.