@raqszomstein290 Just because the critics say that The Wanderers had too many autobiographical elements, that does not mean that they think it should have been categorized as an autobiography. How many is too many? Four elements? Forty? We don't know.

What we do know is what the critics cite: "contains an autobiographical framework and is populated with real-world characters."

I think the explanation for AC E is inaccurate. The passage doesn't require the practice to know why a practice is "common now." All we need to see is that the practice was once common, but it was forced to stop because of an external force. What makes E incorrect is very similar to A: we don't know whether the practice was forced to stop or not.

@aakash2003ch457 If you think about this question from a top-down view, the whole logic relies on subtypes and causal relationships.

In the first premise, we are told that the interstitial nucleus is a subset of the hypothalamus.

AC E tells us that the hypothalamus has no known causal relationship with Y, and disease X is a subtype of disease Y.

AC D is wrong because it does not contradict the premises. We are told that 0.05% of male cats had disease X because their nucleus was as large as the female cats. But AC D only tells us that the 5 cats had larger than average male cat brains. We don't know how their size compares to female cat brains, so it doesn't do anything to the argument.

I hope this helps!

@ga580 I get what you mean by this, but I think general rules are sometimes risky with these higher difficulty level questions. I think the core of the reason that AC B is wrong is because it does not connect GE crops to being less harmful than the insecticides. We are told that they still release toxins, and we need an answer that's going to address the assumption that the toxins are less harmful than any dangers that the insecticides pose. Also, AC B is too extreme. The farmer is arguing for a reduction in excessive insecticide use; that's not the same thing as even a little reduction having a benefit. We have to get below the threshold of excessive spraying.

@ga580 this is great advice, thank you!

@KimberlyL26 Yes, I think the main place AC B goes wrong is with the word "solely," but even then, the AC is still wrong. We still don't know why an action motivated by a desire for praise is not worthy of praise

@RickyN I think you are falling into the trap that the LSAT writers are baiting us to take. P2 tells us that merit requires a desire to help others. The conclusion then says that actions motivated by praise do not merit praise.

What is the gap? The argument assumes that a desire to get praise fails the necessary condition for merit (i.e., desire to help others). This tells us that the two are mutually exclusive.

I also chose AC E on BR, but the problem with this choice is that it doesn't tell us about what motives warrant merit and which don't. With AC E, we're still left wondering how the premises got us to the conclusion.

if this were a kind of principle question, I think AC E would be right

hope this helps!

@BenjaminOwen I was struggling with the "primarily" and AC A as well, but the reason AC A is correct is because of the assumption gap between P2 and the conclusion. The argument concludes that actions motivated primarily from a desire for praise does not deserve praise based on the fact that a desire to help others is required to actually merit praise.

what's the gap? it must be that acting out of a desire for praise fails the necessary condition that it must be motivated by a desire to help others

I hope this helps

For me, the strongest difference is that /A does not imply /B

• another strong reason that AC is better is because it cites an extensive survey rather than one rock

• a final reason is that AC A follows what the passage tells us to do ("to locate many more such rocks...") while AC D focuses on the very evidence that the author cautions we do not rely on too heavily

@ethanrauf617 This is a good point, but even if you grant the hypothesis, the AC is still descriptively inaccurate. The argument does not indicate any falsehoods about the implications of the claim that predicting an invention is impossible. The argument reasons that the two ideas are mutually exclusive because of their definition.

here's a general example of an argument that AC C might be correct for: Some scientists hypothesize event X. But if this were the case, then we would see phenomenon Y. Since phenomenon Y is not happening, the scientists' prediction is not accurate.

@MK2323 I fell for AC A as well, but I think it has to do with the fact that the reasoning is not dependent on what actually improves muscle mass; it just cares that the supplements do not improve it.

@xshankle53 A.D. is After Christ. So anything earlier than 375 is going to be less (374-year 0) and anything after is going to be bigger (376 onwards)

@louierodriguez I was on a very similar page when I did this question. But after really taking some time with the question, I've realized that I was reading the conclusion wrong: the argument is not about the coins being dropped no earlier than 375 A.D., but the implements being dropped no earlier. The argument assumes that the coins were dropped at a distinctly earlier point in time than the implements were. AC B blocks off that possibility; it tells us that there is no way that the pots could have been dropped before the coins and that the coins subsequently fell out.

@johnzawarski486 I'm not quite sure that AC C concludes that Rose will take the two week vacation. It concludes that "it will not be the one she had planned." But is the trail the whole vacation or part of it?

Also, AC C rules out both options because the vacation is 3 weeks (so it can't be in July), but the trail is closed in Oct (so it can't be in Oct).

Now we have a problem: neither option is viable.

The example you gave above, would match the reasoning. You blocked off the 2-week vacation and then concluded that Rose will take the 3-week. If the AC had flowed like that, it would have been correct.

what is the main difference between AC A and AC E?

1) part of AC E is descriptively inaccurate

• the answer says that a "negative consequence not associated with a given phenomenon," but the researcher does not assert this

• she merely claims that mild sleep deprivation is correlated with a lower illness frequency, therefore, it probably improves (causal) the immune system

2) even if we grant this detail, AC still leaves the major flaw of the reasoning untouched

• sure, we could argue that the phrase "sleep deprivation is not unhealthy" suggests that the author assumes that sleep doesn't have other negative consequences

• but even then, what about the second part of the conclusion (the CAUSAL part?)

  • we still have a major problem: how do we know that sleep deprivation improves the immune system when all we have is a correlation?

MAIN TAKEAWAY: this is an excellent example of where the LSAT writers will imbed more than one flaw into the argument to distract us. They know we are going to latch onto the "not unhealthy" part, track the change from "rates of illness" and more than likely choose AC E. In terms of strategy going forward, I think there are two key points:

• go with your gut on this question & flag it for review (many of us probably chose AC A at first and then doubted ourselves once we saw AC E)

• if time permits, ask yourself: does this AC tear down the whole argument? If we fix the flaw, is the argument solid, or are there still gaps?

what is the main difference between AC A and AC E?

1) part of AC E is descriptively inaccurate

• the answer says that a "negative consequence not associated with a given phenomenon," but the researcher does not assert this

• she merely claims that mild sleep deprivation is correlated with a lower illness frequency, therefore, it probably improves (causal) the immune system

2) even if we grant this detail, AC still leaves the major flaw of the reasoning untouched

• sure, we could argue that the phrase "sleep deprivation is not unhealthy" suggests that the author assumes that sleep doesn't have other negative consequences

• but even then, what about the second part of the conclusion (the CAUSAL part?)

  • we still have a major problem: how do we know that sleep deprivation improves the immune system when all we have is a correlation?

MAIN TAKEAWAY: this is an excellent example of where the LSAT writers will imbed more than one flaw into the argument to distract us. They know we are going to latch onto the "not unhealthy" part, track the change from "rates of illness" and more than likely choose AC E. In terms of strategy going forward, I think there are two key points:

• go with your gut on this question & flag it for review (many of us probably chose AC A at first and then doubted ourselves once we saw AC E)

• if time permits, ask yourself: does this AC tear down the whole argument? If we fix the flaw, is the argument solid, or are there still gaps?

@mh212529 The issue here is that we are only given one example. The politician is silent on other tariffs like microchips, so we can't say that the principle of placing the interests of producers before consumers always applies. But even if you grant this, AC B does not specify which producers and consumers we are talking about. Because the tariffs would certainly harm the foreign fruit producers.

I think that the best strategy with these questions is to identify the assumption the stim makes and them form a rule based on that assumption.

EX: here, the politician thinks that the tariffs should still be implemented even though they are not economically practical. why? because the "unique way of life" is more important than economic efficiency

@heron2078 I see your point here, but I think that in this case, AC B is just too strong for AC C to be wrong. We don't know that producers' interests should always take precedence over consumers' interests because we are only told about fruit

@JanWindsfeld I think whether diagramming is beneficial or not has to do with the person. For me, the best strategy is to diagram the rule in the second to last sentence & connect the facts to it in my head

@Bruh I think the best way to think of this is that the author is providing the psychological explanation for why people tend to blame corporations for violating moral values.

I also thought at first that this was the author's opinion just because it was a different voice. But just because information is the author's own input, that does not necessarily make it his/her opinion. We would need to see language like "This is wrong" because or "this is misguided because" etc.

@sandsnikolai840 Remember that NA and SA can be the same AC in some cases. Whether you interpret this question as an NA or and SA, you should still get the same answer. All the other ACs are irrelevant:

B - we don't care about how language emerged. details about language don't prove that money developed independently too.

C - we don't care about non-inventions. we care about money, an invention, and why it is likely to have occurred independently around the world

D - we don't care about a hypothetical world where money is not useful. we know that it's one of the most useful and universal things.

• this might be right if it had said: "If money had not developed independently, then it would not be so widespread.

E - we don't care about whether money is abandoned. we only care about why it's the case that it developed independently.

Then were left with A

A - correct because it tells us that societies had no contact

• when we pair this with what we're told in the stim (that money is universal), the conclusion MBT

I think the thing to focus on with this question is not the assumptions present in A, C, and E. The goal of RRE is not the same as an MSS or MBT question; we need to pick the choice that most plausibly explains the apparent contradiction in the stim.

They key detail that makes AC E better and A and C is the "over the years." This question turns on whether you notice the role of time in the reasoning. What was true a decade ago has stayed the same in some ways, yet changed in others. Why? AC E answers that question

@SlippinJimmy2026 The major problem with AC B is that the sufficient condition is not triggered by one of the premises in the stim. Are we are told is that "A positive correlation" exists between soot and ailment frequency, not that if soot is absent, then there are no ailments.

Notice how AC B would start to look a lot like the correct AC C if we changed it:

"In cities in which there are large amounts of soot in the air but little other air pollutants, the ailment occurs just as much as in any other city."

@GeorgeRivas451 I think the best way to avoid this trap is to accept the definition of wildlife in the same way that the argument does. The argument uses the example of one species as evidence for wildlife in general; therefore, it would be unreasonable to assume that hyenas do not represent wildlife in general.

It's about the context of the question, not what happens in the real world.

Hope this helps!

@anaristovic I think the best way to avoid this trap is to accept the definition of wildlife in the same way that the argument does. The argument uses the example of one species as evidence for wildlife in general; therefore, it would be unreasonable to assume that hyenas do not represent wildlife in general.

It's about the context of the question, not what happens in the real world.

Hope this helps!