@LindsayVanLeeuwen For Question 3, a technique that helped me is having a voice in my head that tries to cut me off constantly when speaking. When saying the incorrect kernel of the sentence "physicists were puzzled by the existence of black holes", I immediately cut myself off and think, wait a minute, "were" is the verb, which means that puzzled has to be the object. Anything more is just too much information for this time.

Kernel #1: "physicists were"

• not enough information, they were... what?

Kernel #2: "physicists were puzzled"

• Great! Now I know that they were puzzled. That's a complete sentence. That's the heart of it all.

Kernel #3: "physicists were puzzled by the existence of black holes"

• Woah! TMI dude, just needed to know they were puzzled. Anything more is just yapping and more unneeded info; Depending on the LSAT question, this can lead you down a hole of technical jargon that costs you precious seconds in confusion.

@_seb The modifier "healthcare reform bill" is modifying the subject, not the predicate. In a clause structure of subject + predicate, the predicate can also refer to object + verb. In this case, its modifying "attempts" and not "backfire", thus it does not fit the criteria to be an object.

(Understand this is a necro comment lol, but hopefully useful for future students studying to recognize this)

Disgruntled Bankers that haven't ate speak riddles.

Subject: Disgruntled Bankers that haven't ate // Predicate: speak (verb) riddles (object).

For the Subject,

The noun is Bankers, with the addition of modifiers: Disgruntled & haven't ate.

The modifier, "haven't ate", includes a verb: have. Thus, the subject = noun + verb

The subject is a subset of Bankers, that of Bankers who are both disgruntled and haven't ate.

Clause/Simple Sentence: Bankers speak riddles

Subject: Bankers

Predicate: speak riddles

The noun of the clause is Banker, the verb is speak, and the object is riddles.

[Subject] + [Verb] + [Object]

@sammyim09 From my understanding, the assumptions are the 'missing premises'. Thus your line of thinking imo is correct, in that you would look at your conclusion, then look at your premises to see which part of the conclusion is not EXPLICITLY supported by a premise