@nycxchi Incidentally, my favorite fallacy from the law (which I haven't ever seen on the test) is the "elephant whistle".

Check out this whistle -- it keeps elephants away I've been blowing it every morning and I've never had an elephant come into my house!

@nycxchi Legal decisions constantly refer to tons and tons of named flaws (many of which are cited with latin names) so making an effort to learn any named flaws you can will serve you well in law school and beyond.

For the purposes of the LSAT, though, "no true Scotsman" isn't common enough that it made our list of actual flaw tags. When it does occur, it's treated as a version of circular reasoning (as you can see in this question).

@SMRegalado good catch. fixing it asap

@zv301 Does the written explanation (under the 💡) help?

Good job distilling this problem -- it's a tough one. Generally, the actual thing comes first.

Let's say your car is actually blue, but I say "I like your red car". I am...

Mistaking a blue car for a red car.

Confusing a blue car for a red car.

Taking a blue car for a red car.

Treating a blue car as a red car.

Regarding a blue car as a red car.

I can reverse the order by using non-directional phrases like "equating" or "conflating". Basically phrases that mean "treats these two different things as though they're the same thing". So like:

Conflating red and blue cars.

Equating red cars and blue cars.

That's kinda fine, though, because for these phrases it doesn't matter which thing you put first, so there's no way to be wrong-because-backward.

Last pro tip -- thorny wording like this where you're tracking concepts piecemeal is prime "write things down" territory.

@KR What do you mean "when presented with a true work of art that is obscene"? You might think those are true works of art, but they obviously aren't because they're obscene!

The "no true Scotsman" fallacy isn't internally inconsistent. More like the opposite -- it creates a claim that is unfalsifiable. It's always true no matter the facts presented, and therefore says nothing interesting about the world.

This is the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

I love me a good newsmagazine.

@sasquatch_believer haha okay okay

A quick way to build your intuition that causal claims don't contrapose is to recognize that causation is time-bound -- the cause has to happen before the effect. "Contraposing" causal claims involves putting the effecty-thing before the causy-thing, which in most cases makes it clear even to the untrained ear that it's not a legit move. See the rooster example for instance -- the negation part of the contrapositive is whatever, but putting roosters on the "cause" side of the arrow is immediately ridiculous. Roosters doing or not-doing anything doesn't have any effect on the sun.

Semi-relatedly, I think there's a common confusion when describing real world situations that involve both conditional and causal elements. Situations like that are pretty common. For example, consider my morning yoga routine:

1: Every time I do yoga I feel good. (conditional)

2: Doing yoga causes me to feel good. (causal)

In conversational English we're likely to collapse those elements and say something like:

Conditiony-causy 1+2: Doing yoga always makes me feel good.

We can change the wording of that sentence in a way that seems like contraposition:

1+2 (CP??): If I'm not feeling good, that's because I didn't do yoga.

But notice that the causal element doesn't actually switch direction there -- yoga is still the causy-thing and feeling good is still the effecty-thing. Really we're just leaning on the fact that we can validly contrapose the conditional element of the scenario...

1 (CP): If I'm not feeling good, I didn't do yoga.

...and then layering causation on top of that in a way that happens to match reality in this particular situation.

So the main takeaway is to just separate conditionality from causality in your head. They are two different things -- you should think about conditional stuff according to the rules of conditional logic, and you should think about causal stuff according to the rules of causation. Scenarios often involve both elements, which makes it super important not to conflate the two when thinking about those scenarios. Treat each element separately.

@BT2117 RC is much the same in broad strokes. The equivalent there is to play around with set limits on how much time you spend reading vs. answering questions. Like do a passage where you're only allowed 2.5mins for your first readthrough, with 6.25mins for the Qs. Then do one where you're forced to spend 5mins just reading, with only 3.75mins for the Qs. Take a goldilocks attitude (too low, too high, etc.), where the idea isn't to immediately find your ideal balance, but instead to think through how to adapt your approach under various constraints.

Short answer is no.

True: The sun coming up causes roosters to crow.

Not True: Roosters not crowing causes the sun to not come up.

@BT2117

You should absolutely apply for accommodations ASAP, expecting that a letter from your psych or PCP will suffice if they're competent. With a distant test date I'd actually say your question is moot b/c you should be focused heavily on untimed work anyway. That said, I think it's safe to assume you'll get the accommodations as long as you're applying for them early enough that you'll get the answer back in time to swap back if for whatever reason you end up needing to go through appeals.

This is a super common problem. I wouldn't even call it a problem -- it's more like a fundamental element of everyone's process. It's common enough, anyway, that I made a video laying out the basic basic beginnings of an answer to your question.

More detail than that requires more information about your particular case. Feel free to reply here with any follow-up questions you've got. (That goes for anyone else reading this, as well.)

This is a super common problem. I wouldn't even call it a problem -- it's more like a fundamental element of everyone's process. It's common enough, anyway, that I made a video laying out the basic basic beginnings of an answer to your question.

More detail than that requires more information about your particular case. Feel free to reply here with any follow-up questions you've got. (That goes for anyone else reading this, as well.)

Fortunately there are a bazillion questions testing this skillset. I recommend relaxed, untimed drills made up of questions featuring the "Conditional reasoning" tag (which marks questions that involve conditional statements in some important way) or the "Confusing sufficiency and necessity" tag (which marks questions that specifically test the "don't go backward on the arrow" flaw).

If you wanna dive right into the deep end I'd say to a bunch of parallel flaw questions with the Confusing tag, and practice translating every stimulus and every answer choice, using the written explanations (💡) as an answer key. Be intentional and maintain a high standard for your comprehension before you move on, but also rest assured that thoughtful exposure and repetition goes a long, long way toward building these intuitions.

@hvw Great job generating that high-resolution diagnostic take. Critical step 1 and you're on the ball there.

I'd call the broad category we're thinking about "focus", although lapses in focus can come from a lot of places, including anxiety and lack of confidence, etc.

Just honing in on focus itself, though, the general theme is to increase your level of activation and engagement. Things like more active highlighting, muttering to yourself, or moving your body as you read.

Per the video, my rec is to think critically about some intervention or strategy along those lines that sounds good, then practice doing that strategy in a timed setting. Importantly, # of questions correct is not your criterion for success in this drill -- that's just a data point you're casually observing. Play around with different interventions, intentionally going overboard with some or trying things that seem like they clearly won't work. Experimentation and playfulness is the vibe.

Also worth noting, though, that at 162 untimed there's still plenty of room for slow content work. I bet if you were my client I'd be telling you to STFU about timing and do a bunch of slow practice on single question types or tags.

@elinaaa +1

This is a common question from students -- so common that I made a video!

More detail than what's in this vid requires more information about your particular case. Feel free to reply here with any follow-up questions you've got. (That goes for anyone else reading this, as well.)

@DaisukeKaga ^^Dis^^

Quick plug for the Group Therapy Sesh I'm hosting next-next Tuesday. I made it for YOU (and the thousands of people like you -- super super normal experience).

Also made this special video message 4 U my buddy:

@JeromeSong The conclusion is ambiguous for sure, and the method you used to reach the right answer tracks if you parsed it the first way. Truly ambiguous wording like this is uncommon but not unheard of -- sometimes the right answer requires one specific reading of an ambiguous phrase.

What never happens is ambiguous wording where different readings change the correct answer.

We do have an except tag! It's called "Except (LR)" and you can filter for it.

As for PoE, lots of MSS questions rely heavily on it. I'd recommend starting there.

@DaisukeKaga Foundations first for sure, but that work also shouldn't ever stop. I just mean that when you train speed, train speed, and when you train foundations, train foundations. They're different things, they call for different modes of practice, and they each deserve your full attention.

As for the foundations v speed question, the answer is BOTH, but separately.