Kevin has dedicated his life to helping students like you master the LSAT. With over 10 years of teaching experience, a perfect 180, and hundreds of former students at top law schools across the country, he can push you to the peak of your LSAT potential.
After graduating from U.C. Berkeley and Columbia Law School, Kevin practiced commercial litigation in New York City before serving a short stint as a federal prosecutor in Oakland, California. But for Kevin, legal practice couldn’t compare to the intellectual challenge and satisfaction of teaching the LSAT. He’s thrilled to be part of 7Sage – the best LSAT prep company in the world.
In his free time, he enjoys thinking about LSAT questions, planning out LSAT classes and explanations, and petitioning LSAC to release more new PrepTests.
Kevin_Lin
InstructorWe just published this video on strengthening and weakening causal arguments: It'll be a good intro or refresher for our Logic of Causation Module!
@EricB7Sage
@LilyMelendez Have you seen these questions in this module?
https://7sage.com/lessons/foundations/conditional-and-set-logic/intro-youtry-1-pt123-s3-q22
https://7sage.com/lessons/foundations/conditional-and-set-logic/conditional-youtry-1-pt111-s3-q18
https://7sage.com/lessons/foundations/conditional-and-set-logic/conditional-youtry-pta-s3-q10
https://7sage.com/lessons/foundations/conditional-and-set-logic/conditional-youtry-pt21-s3-q22
@Tannercho06897 Under that logic, wouldn't A still be correct because it's not helping to explain why the slackers have a higher chance of finding a job?
@Cjames03 It's because the strategy is defined more by whether it's an MSS kind or the Strengthen/Pseudo-Sufficient Assumption kind.
I tried to look at your analytics, but I didn't see any PrepTests on your record. Did you take these PTs somewhere else? If I could see the results I might get a better sense of what might be going on. (Not saying that this applies to you, but sometimes people take the first PT with unlimited time and see a big drop once they start doing tests timed.)
@Sunnieqw22 D tells us every expert has convinced others. But there are more people in the world besides experts.
Let's say there are 100 people in the world. And let's say 10 of them are experts. D tells us those 10 have convinced others. But the author is trying to prove almost every one of the 100 people in the world can be an expert. We don't know whether almost every one of the 100 people can convince others of their qualifications. Sure, the ones who are already experts have done so (that's what D tells us). But we don't know whether the non-experts are capable of being experts because we don't know whether the non-experts can convince others of their qualifications.
@_ What do you make of the explanation for B: "This possibility doesn’t hurt the argument, because the author never concludes that having 2 newspapers is sufficient to see all sides of important stories. Having only 1 isn’t enough. But the author never said having 2 is enough."
@Sadie123 If you create a new study plan, there should be a series of questions you answer designed to find the best fit for you. In general if you have 6+ months to study, and your starting diagnostic isn't super high (let's say 160+), then Balanced is probably the best fit.
@TriambakaShriram Keep in mind the question type. This isn't a Must Be True or Sufficient Assumption question. We're just looking for what "most helps" to resolve. Was there another answer you thought was correct?
I'd recommend either doing the "Minimal" study plan or "Just Practice." Going through a bunch of lessons first isn't going to be as helpful given your experience with the test already. You can go back to specific lessons as needed based on results of your drills/sections/PTs.
Note that Adaptive Drills are a random set of questions.
They're not hand-picked and they're not designed to test you only on the concepts that you learned in this module.
Treat them as an opportunity to try out a mix of real LR questions that test you on varied skills.
@_ If you explain how your approach this question and what your understanding of it is, then that will help.
Premise(s):
Conclusion:
What is missing? Why don't the premises prove the conclusion?
@_ What do you make of the explanations for B?
"The issue isn’t that we can clearly discern the union leaders’ motivation — the issue is that the author thinks they are motivated to make the argument they made. What matters is that they might be motivated to make the argument, not just that we can identify their motivation."
Regarding C, you're right, it's worded in an unusual way. That's why this question is more difficult.
@JordanButler That's an interesting question. I'm hesitant because it's not clear to me that "the examples presented above best illustrate..." require both examples to illustrate the correct answer. It would be unambiguous if the stem were something like, "Each of the examples best illustrates..."
Did you see these questions as part of your study plan?
https://7sage.com/lessons/foundations/conditional-and-set-logic/intro-youtry-1-pt123-s3-q22
https://7sage.com/lessons/foundations/conditional-and-set-logic/conditional-youtry-pt21-s3-q22
https://7sage.com/lessons/foundations/conditional-and-set-logic/conditional-youtry-1-pt111-s3-q18
Those are questions where drawing out conditionals can be useful and actually save time. You can create a drill and select the tag "Diagram?" -- these will also surface questions where people experienced with diagramming conditional logic might benefit from drawing a statement or two out.
@LaneyWilliams What about the second sentence?
"Only wizards who possess extensive training in the arcane can control such magical energy."
@daniel.shin117 That's fair -- I point out that mistake at about 12:59 in the video. It shouldn't change how we analyze the answers, though.
@AMS1281 To simplify things, people often treat "If A, then B" as the same thing as "All A are B." But if we recognize that "If A, then B" doesn't actually assert that there exist As that are B, then the more accurate negation would be "Even if A, not necessarily B." Or in other words "It's possible that A could exist without B."
So I don't agree with your claim that the negation of D (as described in the written explanation) is wrong. I'm not saying your own negation is wrong (since the negation of All are B is indeed Some A are not B), but I don't see the negation as described in D being substantively different in a way that makes a logical difference.
Have you worked through the Conditional Logic Module? That’s going to help with the difference between B and C.
@ElizabethSacco If ice --> side not open
Doesn't that prove if the sidewalk IS open, then there is NO ice? (This is the contrapositive)
A --> B
means the same thing as
Not B --> Not A
@DarrenHineman Usually it refers to drawing out arrows to track conditionals. But it could also refer to drawing out subsets and supersets. Drawing circles is inherently more unwieldy, so it tends to be less practical.
@nycxchi We don't know whether Nighthawks is on display. We know prints are sold of it, but that doesn't mean it's on display. Print = copy of the work (you can order prints of many famous paintings online or buy them in museum stores). On display = visible at the museum.
You say "But I thought the museum stores do not sell prints of works on loan from private collectors"
Is that because you're reading "Prints of all the latter works are available in the museum store" as if it means the store doesn't sell prints of stuff on loan? That's not what the sentence means. It just means all of the stuff in the permanent collection is available in the store. But we don't know whether stuff on loan is also in the store. It could be.
@Aletariel "In order to bake a cake, one of things you must have is flour." "Must" is what tells us it's a necessary condition. I just said "one of the things" to emphasize that we don't know it's the only thing you need.
People might mistakenly think that "You'll get a raise only if you meet your sales target" means that meeting your sales target is the one and only thing you need to do to get a raise. But that's not what it means. It means meeting your sales target is necessary. We don't know whether there are other things that are also necessary.
@MaryHannahDober I think you're reading "shield against injustice" as if it's a claim about the overall level of justice/injustice produced by jury nullification. But given that the previous line described the doctrine as allowing acquittal of individual defendants in cases where the law is unjust, I think it's supposed to be read as a claim about individual cases. The doctrine helps shield against injustice in cases where a law is unjust.
With that interpretation, in order to call that premise false, the author would have to say that the law doesn't help protect defendants in cases of unjust laws. But that's not what the author does. The author points out the doctrine has a downside -- in other cases it can lead to injustice. But the author can acknowledge that it does help to protect defendants from unjust laws and in that sense it does help shield against injustice. Something can help and also hurt and the hurt can outweigh the help.