"The only [personal statements] that stand out are the bad ones."

-Multiple Admissions Counselors from T40 schools I have spoken with.

11/11 and 2ish weeks until test time. I must advise bookmarking this and coming back for practice.

Predict Next Line:

1. Know exactly what structure you are looking for. Let's say your stimulus used this exact structure:

• Rule: A → B

• Premise: Not B

• Conclusion: Therefore, Not A (This is a valid contrapositive).

2. Read the first piece of an answer choice and identify it. Imagine an answer choice starts like this: "Jackson clearly took my advice. I know this because..." Right away, you know the first sentence is the conclusion. So, this argument is concluding "Jackson took the advice."

3. Stop and predict. Before you read any further, ask yourself: If this answer choice is going to perfectly match my stimulus, what MUST the next line do? Since our stimulus used a contrapositive to prove its conclusion, this answer choice must do the same. To prove that Jackson did take the advice using a contrapositive, the upcoming rule would need to look something like: "If a person does not take my advice, then [something bad happens]."

4. Read the next piece and compare. Now you read the next line of the answer: "Anyone who takes my advice would have succeeded..." Stop right there! The word "anyone" introduces a sufficient condition. This answer is making "takes advice" the trigger (Takes advice → Succeeds). That completely breaks your prediction. It is not setting up a contrapositive at all.

5. Eliminate and move on. Because that second sentence didn't do what you mathematically needed it to do, the answer is wrong. You can confidently cross it out without ever reading the rest of the paragraph, saving yourself time and mental energy!

In short, "predicting the next line" just means setting a structural expectation for the next sentence based on the stimulus. The moment an answer choice breaks that expectation, you stop reading and eliminate it.

For Answer Choices on harder questions, the answers get much more descriptive. Instead of just saying "it’s a premise," the answer might say, "it’s a premise used to support the claim that the new law will fail." When answers do this, you have to be extra careful and verify two things:

1. Did they get the logical role right? (Is the statement actually a premise?)

2. Did they describe the other claims accurately? (Is the main conclusion actually about the new law failing?)

If either half is wrong, the whole answer is wrong.

Thinking in "sets" is a mental tool that helps you visualize how different groups or categories of things in an argument interact—almost like drawing a Venn diagram in your head. It is especially useful when an argument talks about multiple categories and makes assumptions about whether they overlap.

In this specific argument, we can break the facts down into two separate sets:

• Set 1: Medicines we have already discovered from rainforest plants.

• Set 2: Medicinal substances hidden in rainforest plants we haven't studied yet.

The author jumps to the conclusion that if we lose Set 2 (by not preserving the rainforest), we will definitely lose out on developing new important medicines. But look closely at how these two sets might overlap.

What if the sets perfectly overlap? Imagine that every single medicinal substance in the unstudied plants (Set 2) is completely identical to a medicine we’ve already discovered (Set 1). If that were true, losing the unstudied plants wouldn't actually prevent us from having those medicines—we already have them! The unstudied plants would just contain duplicates.

The argument only works if these sets do not completely overlap. The author is assuming that Set 2 contains unique, brand-new members that aren't already sitting in Set 1. That is exactly what the correct answer (A) points out: there must be substances in the unstudied plants that actually differ from the ones we already have.

As a general strategy, whenever an LSAT author introduces a new category of things and claims that its loss or addition will change the status quo, ask yourself: "Wait, is this new set actually unique, or is it just overlapping with a set we already have?" Using this sets framework is just one tool to help expose those hidden assumptions!