A Q19 has no business being this easy. The way I read the stimulus and correct AC 11 times to make sure I wasn't falling in a trap...

@jmbrandel yes!!!! thank you.

Why is my question wrong and why did I pick it? Why is the answer correct?

I mapped out the conditional structure clearly. The principle was clear, but I fell into a trap 😿. A does not make the argument ironclad!

Why? Because we know the contract is violated if the president or any of the lawyers are not told about it. We know “she,” the president, was not told about it. Neither was Yeung.

We can safely assume in this instance that Yeung is a lawyer. Otherwise, her role in this argument is irrelevant.

But does this (Yeung being a lawyer) guarantee the truth of the conclusion? What if Torres, her colleague, was told instead? We need to add a premise that clearly establishes the fact that neither Yeung nor any lawyer in the company was informed about the proposed contract. Therefore, C is correct.

Why did I pick the wrong answer and why is it wrong? Why is the answer correct?

C establishes a correlation that, while helpful to explain why red squirrels are more likely to make holes in maple trees than in others, does not engage nor address the point raised by Galina. That was the main task of this question.

Galina believes that something other than sugar is what causes red squirrels to make these holes in maple trees. Her reasoning? The quantity of sap required to get any significant amount of sugar would be too much for the squirrels to drink (maybe, their stomachs are too small or they only have one kidney).

D, on the other hand, directly engages with Galina's argument and counters it: as D says, the squirrels let that sap ooze until much of the water has evaporated--evidently leaving behind the sugar. Squirrels come back precisely for this sugar, but it is in a different form, so the limitations presented by Galina are moot.

this question makes no sense to me (I'm Canadian), because maple trees are tapped in the winter when nothing evaporates.

How is this the second paragraph?

So that whole third paragraph is completely useless. ok.

Immediate skip on an actual test.

Low hanging fruit first and foremost, lol.

@cmduell23393 That's the key of the stimulus, imho!

The difficulty of this question boils down to the convoluted answer choices that are intentionally designed to be misread. They are all equally crappy, but E is crap with a little shinny bow. Enough for MSS, I guess.

I have gotten this question wrong SIX times.

Point of disagreement: whether the modernized plays can be a useful tool for teaching history:

Lyle: Yes ([modernized plays] remain[s] valuable for teaching history)

Carl: No ([modernized plays] is of no use for teaching history)

@j_w180 Very true! I didn't catch that!

@SydneyGriffith This is a great explanation, thank you.

@mikeross-jr Gym bros are not going to like this question.

Some of my key takeaways from this question (I had flagged it, but landed on the right AC):

A premise that weakens an argument can be an overlooked assumption. Anticipating an AC may be possible.

Avoid the "run-on" premise (B). This is a premise that simply fleshes out another premise already in the stimulus. In doing so, the "run-on" premise does not introduce any relevant information weakening the argument.

I am including my Wrong Question Journal entry, in case it's helpful:

PT146.S1.Q5.

This question is particularly frustrating!! I had identified the correct answer on my first pass, but when I came back to it during Blind Review, I changed my selection to the wrong answer (A).

I was confident that the argument was questioning the validity of the data. None of the answer choices matched the wording I had in mind. However, B seemed to be the closest fit. I went back and selected A, but B is actually the correct answer.

Whereas A correctly identifies a potential issue with the sample, the author is not questioning directly whether the sample is representative. Rather, the author is suggesting that the sampled group is not being truthful in its responses (in this case, the sampled people over 50 are reluctant to admit that they do not donate blood because doing so goes against conformed societal expectations). This flaw matches the abstract wording in B.

Hey, I am sharing two tips that have worked for me. I am finally seeing improvement in my drills and PTs thanks to them:

READ. Seriously, I think the complexity of the LSAT lies in its difficult vocabulary and grammar. I have always been an avid reader, but my brain was genuinely fried by doomscrolling. I deleted all of my social media apps and got back into reading, especially non-fiction books. Paying attention to each word, re-reading sentences I didn't fully grasp, trying to recall what I had just read... these are all skills that can become intuitive and will pay off in RC.

Drill out loud. I know, this is an odd one. I have a background in language teaching, so I love explaining things. Instead of doing a question in my head, I explain it as if I were teaching in front of a classroom. I am far from being as eloquent and concise as the 7sage instructors (Shout out to Katie V, Rahela and Mikey, my personal favourites!), but I explain it in a way that makes sense to me. I avoid traps, look at the wording much more closely, and almost always get to the right answer.

Bonus: if you need to, take a break! I panicked when I had to move across the country a month and half before the September LSAT, but my mind had a chance to catch a break. I haven't forgotten anything and my scores haven't dropped. Resting is part of the prep process too!

Good luck. Hope this helps!

I can't be the only one who thought that the brothers were given Hana a recording of themselves? Otherwise, please explain to me what even is a recording.

How did I get this 2-star question wrong?

Well, I understood that the argument was flawed, but I believed I narrowed my focus too much on the figures, and completely skipped the glaring flaw in the last bit.

I was confident that the answer would say something along the lines of "it's unlikely that consumption rates would stay consistent if taxes went from 1 to 50 cent per gallon". When I saw that not AC matched that, I panicked.

During my review, C was clearly the correct answer!

@HasanKhan818 Thank you. I watched the explanation and it definitely made sense. I just couldn't connect the premises...

NO way I'd ever get this right on test day.

@apetre97 agreed.