Student Question

I thought (E) was helping bc it explained why she did both things, pay for those roundtrip in the middle in advance and pay fo the big one in advance, but also I guess we have no idea how far in advance she was paying and it’s giving us an objective comment ab the roundtrips and not saying why she needs to do it like that right?

Tutor Answer

AC (E) says that "in order for Professor Popkin to receive the lowest possible airfare, each of her round-trips must be paid for at least seven days in advance of the departing flight."

I think you're pretty close to what I see as the big issue here. We don't actually know when Professor Popkin asked her assistant to book these flights. That means, for all we know, she actually booked that big round-trip to Toronto six hours before getting on the plane. That would defeat the entire answer choice, and adding something like that in would be a big, impermissible invention.

There's no issue with the objectivity of the comment, or the prescriptivism (to the extent that it exists). The issue is selecting AC (E) means adding in a massive, unsupported invention.

Student Question

On question practice test 10 section 2, why is D a preferable answer to B? I was torn between the two and couldn’t discern what made one better than the other.

Tutor Answer

The problem is subject-matter related. AC (B) talks about the length of the breaks, but does not mention the applause factor at all. That alone is enough to disqualify it from contention to be the correct answer, because the "explanation" the passage proffers between Lines 50-54 about the timing of major pieces has everything to do with applause. You're being asked to weaken that explanation, and while you might be able to do it with a semi-unrelated anecdote (which is what AC (B) is, to my eye), it's always a better choice to select an answer which directly attacks the content of the explanation. AC (D) talks about why the applause explanation itself doesn't work, and that's why it's the right choice here.

Student Question

For C-I recieved the following advice from a tutor: The main point I would make it to be careful about equating similar concepts, and to consider whether two ideas are completely interchangeable or whether they only overlap-which in this case is the difference between indirect and direct psychological characterization-What is a good strategy for noticing these extremely specific distinctions for the passage and the answer choice besides just reading slowly and carefully. Thank you!

Tutor Answer

That's really, really good advice you got from the tutor. I'm going to affirm everything they said, but I'm also going to take it a step further. I think the strategy to separate ideas like the ones you're looking at here is to become ridiculously nit-picky. It's something that really helped me when I was taking this test.

Let me use the issue you're facing as an example. The justification for AC (A) comes at the end of Passage B, Paragraph One ("Such a model of criticism, which takes as its object "narrative" rather than the 'novel,' seems exactly appropriate to Cather's work"). To be able to read that as the justification for AC (A) is really tough.

You have to get really specific, and see the use of the word "object" as referring to Cather's fiction. That might feel like too specific an inference to make, but getting used to be specific in that way is a really core way to improve at the exam. I think the easiest way to get comfortable doing this kind of work is to try doing it in your real life. I remember trying to read texts this way when I took the LSAT, and I promise it actually helped.

Student Question

Hello can you help me understand why C i correct please. and also how to diagram A and B? I thoguht thois was a suff necc questions so i treid to negate the ACs and see which one destroys the argument but I found it hard to eliminate multiple choices

Tutor Answer

AC (A) can be diagrammed as:

If (Likely to be Popular) -> (Expresses Something that is Widely Believed)

AC (B) can be diagrammed as:

(Political regime that routinely censors forms of expression for erosion of public morality reasons) <-some-> (non-totalitarian regimes).

Neither of these is the correct answer. Candidly, I think that the easiest way to see why AC (C) is right is not to diagram at all.

AC (C) tells us that "a totalitarian regime can perceive loss of public passivity as a threat to its power." Let's pretend that this isn't true: that a totalitarian regime can't perceive loss of public passivity as a threat to its power. If that were true, how on earth could we conclude that many totalitarian regimes would classify writings as blasphemous or pornographic because those regimes expand the categories of proscribed expression to include "criticisms that these regimes perceive to threaten their power?"

Basically: if the regime doesn't perceive loss of public passivity as a threat to their power, and the only thing that censoring writings would do is reduce public passivity, why would they do it in the first place? The answer is they wouldn't -- at least, we have no reason to believe they would on the basis of the stimulus alone.

This negation of AC (C) completely blows up the conclusion of the argument. It makes it clear that AC (C) is the right answer, because if it wasn't true, we wouldn't have an argument to stand on!

Student Question

How to figure out conclusion when a premise or supporting statement has a conclusion indicator.

Tutor Answer

Yeah, this is tricky. My go-to strategy for figuring out where the main conclusion is, regardless of where the trick indicator words are, is to restructure the argument in premise-conclusion form with the thing I think is the conclusion. From there, I see whether or not the conclusion follows logically from the premises.

Here, for example, the last sentence has a conclusion indicator word and seems to be a conclusion. So, let's pretend that this is the argument:

Premise 1: The reason music with a simple recurring rhythm exerts a strong primordial appeal is that it reminds us of the womb environment.

Premise 2: After all, the first sound heard within the womb is the comforting sound of the mother's regular heartbeat.

Premise 3: So in taking away from us the warmth and security of the womb, birth also takes away a primal and constant source of comfort.

Conclusion: Thus, it is extremely natural that in seeking sensations of warmth and security throughout life, people would be strongly drawn toward simple recurring rhythmic sounds.

For the last sentence to be the conclusion, every other sentence in the argument has to feed directly into it. However, there's a problem: it's pretty clear that this "conclusion" draws from Premise 3, but what about Premises 1 and 2? Premise 2 is clearly support for Premise 1 ("after all"), which means that Premise 1 can't be a true premise (those are provided entirely without support). That means it is at least a sub-conclusion.

Now we're left with our "conclusion" and Premise 1. The final question is: why are we saying that it is "extremely natural that in seeking sensations of warmth and security throughout life, people would be strongly drawn toward simple recurring rhythmic sounds?" The answer is fairly direct: to support the idea that "the reason music with a simple recurring rhythm exerts a strong primordial appeal is that it reminds us of the womb environment."

That last sentence clearly feeds into the first sentence, not the other way around. As a result, Premise 1 is our actual conclusion. The argument should flow like this:

Premise 1: The first sound heard within the womb is the comforting sound of the mother's regular heartbeat.

Premise 2: In taking away from us the warmth and security of the womb, birth also takes away a primal and constant source of comfort.

Premise 3: It is extremely natural that in seeking sensations of warmth and security throughout life, people would be strongly drawn toward simple recurring rhythmic sounds.

Conclusion: Therefore, the reason music with a simple recurring rhythm exerts a strong primordial appeal is that it reminds us of the womb environment.

Student Question

Why do we assume that the customer’s claim is correct??????

Tutor Answer

The stimulus says that the customer "claims" that they handled the film correctly, and yet we're told that the resulting photos were unsatisfactory. That "claim" is the reason that we also have to assume that they're telling the truth.

If the stimulus said "the customer handled the film correctly" without including the word "claimed," then we would pretend that the customer had absolutely done so and there would be no assumption needed. This is a very specific word choice by the stimulus that requires special treatment.

Student Question

How does E not weaken the doctor’s argument of nearsightedness disappearing with age?

Tutor Answer

There might be some weakening effect that AC (E) has on the stimulus. The stimulus is arguing that nearsightedness disappears with age, and we now have a group of children who are older but are nearsighted. However, this answer choice also has major problems. The most immediate one is the use of the word "several." If I told you that "several" meant three children, would that change things for you? What about five? Seven? At what point does the number become high enough to establish a countereffect to the argument that nearsightedness disappears with age?

We need an answer with a stronger weakening effect than AC (E). Remember that the question doesn't say that only one answer will weaken -- it says we have to pick the answer choice that "most weaken[s]" the argument.

AC (D) is a better choice, because it undermines the academic strength of the studies the stimulus is based on. It's sort of a side route answer in that way -- it doesn't go straight at the problem, and that's why it's hard to see. However, it has a much more concrete weakening effect on the stimulus, which means it's the correct answer.

Student Question

I originally chose answer choice B for this question and then post-blind review chose C. I used the following reasonings to review both answer choices, but wanted to know if my understanding was correctly applied to the question: B: Incorrect, the author does not conclude that all types of court-ordered remedies involve coercion. The author says: "The most compelling reasons against enforcement of contracts in such cases have to do with the kind of coercion that enforcement would necessitate."

The cases he/she is referring to are the many cases in which monetary payment can adequately compensate for the refusal to fulfill the terms of a contract, and in which the court commonly does not need to consider ordering specific performance.

This implies that not all cases are included; many include a subset of some that do not apply.

C: Correct, this can be supported by the authors statement that "Nevertheless, in many cases monetary payment can adequately compensate for the refusal to fulfill the terms of a contract, and thus the court commonly need not consider ordering specific performance".

Tutor Answer

This is frame-perfect. I think it's probably difficult to get to this depth of reasoning under time constraints, but finding it after blind review is incredibly impressive. I agree with everything you've got here. Well done!

Student Question

i got this one right, but could you further explain why A is also wrong?

Tutor Answer

Even if we assume the opposite of AC (A) (that a degree of climate change produces at least the same amount of damage regardless of whether if it is caused by human behavior or a purely natural cause) you can still logically conclude that man-made climate change is more of an opportunity than a problem. That's because the reason the author provides for thinking man-made climate change is an opportunity, not a problem, is that "we can control future climate change to make it less extreme than previous climate shifts." AC (A) might increase the amount of damage that a given form of climate change, but it doesn't change the fact that we might be able to control man made climate change.

Student Question

I understand why C is the best choice but isn’t it too strong for an MSS question? like just because the recent observations were conducted in poor conditions it doesn’t mean you can reject the possibility of earlier observations being incorrect?

Tutor Answer

This is a great question. I'm going to divide my answer into two parts.

First: no, this answer is not too strong for the level of support in the stimulus. We're told that the Professor is making an absolute claim: that the "nonconfirmation is enough to show that the earlier observations are incorrect." However, we're then told that this claim is based on faulty evidence. That's enough to get us to the "incorrect" line.

Second, I'll tell you why I think this is a particularly difficult MSS question. This question is hard because of a bigger LSAT challenge: namely, knowing when to picking very strongly worded answer choices. I was really tripped up by this while I studied for the exam. I would routinely pick safer, less strongly worded answer choices because they were "comfortable." My advice to you is to be unafraid to make strong claims on this exam. Approach every question with nuance, but if the evidence leads you one way, don't be afraid to pick the answer choice that looks the way you think it should.

Student Question

I understand why C is right, but could you elaborate more on why B and E are wrong?

Tutor Answer

AC (B) doesn't strengthen the argument most effectively because it doesn't give us anything new. We want something that reinforces the correlation in the argument, but just receiving an additional answer that basically says "yes, this correlation is real" doesn't do that.

AC (E) is wrong for the same reason. The answer choice boils down to "the first graders who got handwriting lessons and already had strong handwriting showed substantial improvement." Based on the information in the stimulus, "those whose composition skills had improved the most had learned to write letters the most automatically." It's basically a restatement of an existing premise, which means we don't get any additional information that helps us make the argument more likely to be true.

Student Question

Can we then say that kindness and social harmony are benefits of Etiquette?

Tutor Answer

Yes. While I think it's pretty close, I think that's what you have to assume in order to be able to get to the correct answer here. The stimulus tells us:

"Etiquette helps people to get along with each other. For example, it prevents people from inadvertently offending one another. While many people criticize etiquette because they believe it has no beneficial effects for society, these same people think that kindness and social harmony are good."

Here, my read is that "kindness and social harmony" are being equated with "people not being as likely to offend each other." Because the latter is a purported "benefit of etiquette," I do think that you have to make the assumption you're describing to answer the question.

Student Question

I had such a tough time with understanding most parts of this passage. What should I do to improve my comprehension? Should I incorporate scientific readings into my daily routine? I feel a little hopeless. I did get most answers correct for this passage though, which is surprising because I felt like I was guessing for all of them.

Tutor Answer

I really felt this question. I struggled with science passages when I was studying for the test, and most days it felt like I was making no progress at all. I'll offer my two cents for improving on this front, but feel free to reach out if you have other questions.

First: I would absolutely incorporate small science readings into your day-to-day routine. It really helped me, especially because I didn't want to use all of the official prep material just to see marginal improvement. The thing that helped me the most when dealing with the official prep material was trying to treat the writing less like a scientific journal and more like a piece of narrative writing. Once I realized that every passage on the LSAT was fundamentally trying to tell me a story, I was able to really dig into the material.

The easiest way for me to implement this was to pretend like I was being read the passage by someone who I was sitting across the table from. It helped me think of questions I might ask that person, places I might ask questions about what was being said, that sort of thing. Active reading is the biggest challenge with long passages like this -- you have to find a way to keep yourself engaged throughout!

Student Question

how do you know in a principle question when we should follow a general idea like simply risk vs specfic like financial risk? and how do you determine that for future questions

Tutor Answer

The question you're asking seems like more of a general LSAT strategy question. This "general versus specific" issue comes up a lot, not just on principle questions. There are actually a lot of places on the exam where you're basically presented with two answers -- one of which covers the broad-strokes ideas that the right answer should have, the other of which focuses intensely on one small issue within that category.

My general approach to this kind of problem is to try to evaluate what the most fitting answer choice is, without thinking about "generality." Even if an answer doesn't reference the specific material from the stimulus, it might still be the correct answer if it latches onto the issue in the argument better than the specific choice.

I think the key is to break away from a mindset that gets drilled into students in college: that, when in doubt, you should select the most specific answer. That's not the way to go. My advice here is to get nit-picky about the problems with the answers. "Generality" isn't a problem, more often than not -- instead, word choice might be a problem, or argumentative structure might be a problem. Focusing in on issues, rather than answer choice structure, was something that really helped me get around the generality problem.

Student Question

I still don't understand how this is the correct answer after watching the explanation

Tutor Answer

We are told that dried parsley should never be used in cooking. This is because it is far less tasty and healthful than fresh parsley is.

The underlying logic here is fairly direct: the dried product shouldn't be used because it is less tasty and healthful than fresh parsley is. The values that are being prioritized here are the tastiness and healthfulness of the product.

So, now we look for something that says that -- when we choose a cooking ingredient -- we need to choose the ingredient that is the most tasty and healthful. That answer is AC (B).

Student Question

please explain this question. The video explanation made it so confusing. also im confused about the desert part in the conclusion. please help

Tutor Answer

The argument basically runs as follows:

• Researchers have studied the cost-effectiveness of growing salt-tolerant plant species for animal forage.

• Salt-tolerant plant species require more water than conventional crops, but they can be irrigated with seawater.

• Pumping seawater into farms near sea level is much cheaper than pumping freshwater from deep wells.

• Thus, seawater agriculture near sea level should be cost-effective in desert regions although its yields are smaller than traditional, freshwater agriculture.

The key issue is this: how is it possible that the seawater agriculture is cost effective in desert regions even though it produces less crops and requires more water?

You mentioned that you were confused about the "desert" part of the above -- that's basically irrelevant. That word could be replaced with "tundra," "ice field," "rainforest," and the problem (see above) would be the same: how do we make the equation cost-effective?

The easiest way to do it is to make the actual process of pumping the water the most expensive portion of the process. That way, any method that makes this portion cheaper makes the desert irrigation more cost effective, even though it makes less product and needs more water. The answer that best describes this is AC (E) -- it makes the pumping process expensive, but that means that anything which makes it cheaper might still make the whole process cost effective.

Student Question

I still do not understand how D could be right. There is no evidence at all that this interests the scientist in the passage. The phrase “should have” seems like it should make the answer D.

Tutor Answer

I think you mistyped your question! I'm going to assume that you meant to say that "should have" indicates that the answer should be AC (B). AC (D) is the correct answer. If I got this wrong, don't hesitate to write back and I'll explain any of the other answers you want!

I can totally see why AC (B) is a tempting answer choice from a language perspective -- after all, the most natural read of the phrase "should have" is one that might indicate that the LHB didn't happen. The problem is that the passage doesn't question that evidence of the LHB actually exists on Earth; indeed, it doesn't even mention that. This is one of those cases where you have to focus less on the phrasing and more on the evidence that exists in the passage.

Student Question

Surely with AC C, we cannot apply it to the 1st of the stimulus - because it’s fairly obvious all of this minority would have known about the accusation, since they believed the mayor was guilty of the violations? To believe somebody is guilty, the assumption would be that they have been accused - correct? Thank you

Tutor Answer

I suppose you could apply it to the first sentence of the stimulus, but to your point, it would sure make the city's residents look like they jumped to conclusions about the Mayor! Perhaps more importantly, even assuming that the answer is true doesn't get us any closer to figuring out why over half the town thinks the Mayor's job performance is good. Being "unaware" of the ethics violations doesn't affirmatively tell us anything about the Mayor's job performance, or the polled sample's opinions of that performance.

Student Question

I just wanted to clarify the following-Many just means some in the LSAT

• So as long as it is mentioned in the plural sense, you can infer many from that statement. However, you can’t infer most or all from this statement though, correct?

Tutor Answer

Absolutely correct. "Many" does not have to mean "most," and it cannot be logically construed to mean "most." It can only ever mean "some."

Student Question

I don’t really understand why D is correct.

Tutor Answer

I love this question -- it's a tough one! The easiest way to see why AC (D) is the right answer is to break the argument down into small pieces.

The argument concludes that Pacific Loggerhead Turtles (let's call them "PLTs") actually hatch in Japan, 10,000 kilometers from where they feed. The evidence for this is that 95% of the DNA samples taken from the PLTs matches the DNA of the turtles that hatch in Japan.

Okay, that's fine and sounds good -- but what if the DNA doesn't match because the turtles come from the same place, but only matches because they're the same kind of animal? For example, my house cat probably shares the same DNA as a house cat in Japan of the same breed -- does that mean my house cat comes from Japan?

This is the underlying logic for AC (D): basically, it says that the PLT DNA has the same correlation to Japanese turtles that it does to turtles in a completely different ocean. It's pointing out the same problem that I described above: namely, that the turtles don't share DNA because they hatch in the same place, but because they are all just... turtles.

Student Question

Is the main issue with this argument that we’re told they both died, but we don’t know at what age they died, and (C) touches on this much better than (A) does?

Tutor Answer

That's mostly correct. We're told the original group was divided in half, creating two, 43 person groups. We're told that, at the end of a 10 year period, 41 of those people had died, regardless of whether they attended support group meetings at all.

However, the easier way to think about this problem is a little different than the route you took. Instead of thinking about it in terms of their age, think about it from a results perspective. The conclusion is that the support groups didn't help people live longer because at the end of a decade, the same number of people were dead. What if the argument said this?

"... One group's members all attended weekly support group meetings, but no one from the other group attended support group meetings. After 5 years, 41 patients from the group that hadn't attended support meetings had died, but no one from the other group had. After 10 years, 41 patients from each group had died. Clearly, support group meetings do not help patients with disease T live longer."

Notice how the fact pattern is identical in the original stimulus (in that it's the same result). However, the support group subjects actually lived longer. That's the problem here -- AC (C) points out that we don't know how quickly those 41 people died in each group, and that matters a lot for the purpose of the conclusion drawn in this argument.

Student Question

I didn’t pick B on this question because the answer choice mentions individual scientists, however in the stimulus it mentions ‘most’, ‘scientific community’, so I guess my question is how can individual scientists be ascertained when the stimulus talks about scientists as a whole

Tutor Answer

This is a place where differentiating the same term will help you a lot. I agree that, as read, the word "scientists" in the first sentence seems to refer to "all scientists." The problem is that this reading would make the next use of the word "scientists" in the passage ("the professional activities of most scientists") redundant. If the word "scientists" is supposed to refer to all scientists in the context of this stimulus, why would the author go out of his or her way to specify "most" scientists in the next sentence?

This is why context is important: we have to be willing to read the passage in the context that it is written in and be flexible about our application of the rules. Even though there is no qualifier attached to the word "scientists" in the first sentence, the presence of a qualifier on the second use of that word means we have to reinterpret the first use of that word -- otherwise, the second use would be meaningless, and that's not something that we should ever lean towards.

@visschdawg And this, right here, was my entire LSAT journey. For a while. It gets better!

Student Question

LSAT 103, Section 4, RC Passage 2, James Porter and African Art, Q. 12. For answer choice A, where in the passage are we getting information from on ‘figures and images that are dervied from the work of African artisans’?

Tutor Answer

We get that information from Paragraph 2 of the passage:

"Porter's book addressed this issue, painstakingly integrating the history of African-American art into the larger history of art in the Americas without separating it from those qualities that gave it its unique ties to African artisanship. Porter may have been especially attuned to these ties because of his conscious effort to maintain them in his own paintings, many of which combine the style of the genre portrait with evidence of an extensive knowledge of the cultural history of various African peoples."

That's not a direct link, until we go one step further. The author says that Porter integrated the "ties" into his paintings -- where do we have information about the "ties" between African-American art and African artisanship? Paragraph One:

"... many of the household items created by African-American men and women—walking sticks, jugs, and textiles—displayed characteristics that linked them iconographically to artifacts of West Africa."

"Iconographically" here meaning "visually," we have enough to get ourselves over the line and say that they contained "figures or images" derived from African artisans.

Student Question

I saw Phoebe's explanation (Tutor Note for future readers: see below) for the answer choice C so im just asking to clarify but we can accept these premises as true bc we r js supposed to when presented with them

Tutor Answer

Yes: when presented with premises on any LSAT question, the overwhelming rule of thumb is to treat them as true. That's the case even if I give you premises that are obviously false in the real world, for example:

I believe that we will invent cloning technology by next year. We have all of the scientific knowledge to do so. Also, because there have never been any wars, the cooperative nature of our world will lend itself to this kind of advancement.

There have obviously been wars in our world. However, in LSAT land, you live within the universe of the question. If the question says that the sky is glittery and hot pink, then the sky is glittery and hot pink.

There are some exceptions to this, but they arise only on incredibly advanced questions and are fairly rare. Even those cases are borderline, meaning you aren't truly invalidating a premise.