In Q2, the concession and conclusion stood out, but that "Studies have shown…" lead-in felt tricky—less a premise and more like context. Did anyone else get that at all?

I had to step away from this one, let my brain run away and plot in the background while I did other things, and return. Even though we've been told, "don't worry about it now, more to come later…." I felt like I needed to understand WHY???? I think I got it—hoping an 7Sage magi will check me and let me know if I'm (generally) on the right track.

In the example, students are cited as late "only if" they arrive more than five minutes past the last ring of homeroom bell. We're told a student called Kumar arrived 17 minutes after the last ring of the homeroom bell, and we are asked if we can make a valid inference that Kumar is "cited as late" based on the aforementioned facts/rule.

The answer is no. Because "only if" forms the rule, that tells us that Kumar satisfies a necessity of being cited late: arriving 17 minutes after the last ring of the homeroom bells satisfies the rule of a student having to arrive more than five minutes after the last ring of the homeroom bell. I think of this as a "minimum (necessary) requirement" for Kumar to cited as late only; we don't have enough information to determine if he actually will be cited based on what has been provided, so we can't infer more than that from the use of the "only if" rule.

I thought of this example:

A student is withdrawn from a course at the end of the term with incomplete work, only if she has completed a minimum of 60% of the coursework with an average of C or better.

Can we infer from this rule that a student who completed 62% of the coursework with a C average at the end of the term will be withdrawn from the course at the end of the term?

The answer is no. The rule creates the necessary condition of a minimum amount of completed work and an average grade. In application, withdrawals are not automatic and are completely at the professor's discretion, but only students who meet the necessary condition can be considered.

So if two students fit the criteria from the example, but:

Student A only showed up to a few classes over the term and never participated but,

Student B showed up to every class and was an active participant

It would come as no surprise to anyone that even though both students meet the necessary requirement for a withdrawal, Student B was withdrawn while Student A received a failing grade for the course.

If you're still here, thanks for playing! And please let me know if I'm at least on the right track. If not, I'll concede that I'll get it when we dig deeper in later material!

I didn't think Question 4 was an argument. I don't see anything in the question that links pedestrians with cars driving faster. I'm trying to use the concept of only referencing other claims in the argument and not referencing my own knowledge (which I do a LOT). It seems like there should be an additional premise to show some linkage within the context of this question. Appreciate any additional insight from folks as it looks like I am alone in my confusion on this question based on the discussion, lol

This, by far, has been the most insightful and beneficial article in this entire module so far. I had no doubts that the practical test advice would be solid, but this one article has given me a lot of food for thought on what lies beyond the LSAT. Appreciate you including this in an intro module!

I did not expect to be beaten to punch on that one (two, five…) times I ate a whole pint of Ben & Jerry's in one sitting….I have found my tribe.

For #2, I put >40 and am checking/double checking to make sure that there isn't any hidden nuance in it being considered the same as "over 40". We talk a lot about making assumptions for things like this, i.e. "not taller" doesn't necessarily mean shorter (could be equal height). But I'm thinking "over" and "greater than" are meaning the same here. Yes, I'm probably overthinking the hell out of this, but trying to get into the right frame of mind on these.

I wonder what level of difficulty this question is/would be on the LSAT. The idea of breaking this down and analyzing is daunting when there is a time limit to answer the question. Hoping that these get easier to do over time with practice, because I could see some weird comparative question (with additional analytical complexity) taking me forever to do in my head.