Easier said than done, but you don't have to worry! 1 test score is not indicative of a pattern (if you say you're going to score 176-177 on your test, and then get one 174 test, that wouldn't be a very good weakener). You clearly have an excellent understanding of the test. It can also be incredibly helpful to acknowledge that you're going to feel the nerves on test day, and that has nothing to do with how the test is actually going. You've done the work. You've prepared. All you have to do from now until test day is study for maintenance!

Hey there,

There's no specific time it should take to BR! You don't want to burn yourself out before your test, so if you take 3 hours to review a PT, you can take 2 PTs a week, and review for 2 days. The other days you can maybe do some light drilling for the question types you're missing and take at least 1 rest day.

When BR, it's about quality, not quantity. You don't have to review every question; focus on the ones you flagged or didn't feel confident about.

Hey there,

You're not at all crazy for thinking your BR score is possible! It's hard to diagnose specifically what would be best helpful for closing the gap without seeing your analytics, so you might want to consider a tutor! Having a second, objective perspective can be a massive help.

General tidbits I could say would include:

-WAJ: It's great that you're utilizing this! I think what can be incredibly beneficial is understanding what your thought process was and why you chose the answer you chose. When you think about how you can adjust your approach, be really specific. Is it re-reading the conclusion? Mapping out a causal chain? Substituting the number 2 whenever you see "many"?

-It can also be helpful to look at your timing/test-taking strategy. Did you have the right answer, then talk yourself out of it? Were you worried about time and didn't read carefully? Play around with different strategies (forcing yourself to stick to the first answer you choose, skipping, flagging, and coming back later to any questions where you don't see the answer after the first read-through of the ACs, etc).

I hope that helps, and happy studying!

Hey there!

First of all, I'm sorry about the shaken confidence! I can relate to that anxiety, and it never feels good. I think your instinct to cut down on your study load is the right one. I would take a day (or 2 if you're comfortable) to be completely LSAT-free. Hang with friends, read a book, watch a movie, whatever it is that makes you feel good and most like yourself. When you sit down to take drills, keep them pretty short. If you were going to do a 20-question drill, maybe do 3 drills of 6 questions each of varied difficulty. If you're still getting questions wrong, that's okay! Identify where you're going wrong. what steps can you take to avoid making the same mistakes?

You've done the work. You've done the hard part. From now until your test, you're just studying to keep yourself "warm." There's no reason to study more than an hour a day until then.

Finally, when you do take your test, recognize that 99% of people will sit down and feel like it's going terribly and they're bombing it. While that's a valid feeling, it isn't the reality. Accepting that the feeling will come, and it's not actually reflective of how you're doing or how well you've prepared can be really freeing.

Hey there!

Principle questions fall into the rule/application bucket, so you're not only correct, but your thinking applies to both situations! "Most strongly supported" isn't inaccurate because you are looking to the stimulus for support, but your point about the gaps is the more apt description.

As you said, for either one, we're identifying the "inputs" (premises) and "outputs" (conclusion). Our AC will be the mechanism that can take those inputs to get to that output.

I hope that helps, and happy studying!

Hey there! First of all, congrats on getting into the 170s! I know it doesn't make the plateau any less frustrating, but where you're already scoring is no easy feat.

When you're at this score level, there are fewer general tips that are going to apply to you. My first question would be identifying the question types/moments that are giving you trouble. If it's consistently the same thing, then obviously targeting that is the priority. For something like "read more carefully," writing down more specific changes can be more helpful. Maybe it's rephrasing the stimulus in your own words. Maybe it's practicing getting rid of every single wrong answer and identifying why before you can select and justify the right answer.

-If you need to work on a specific question type, be targeted about that. Do drills of just that question type of no more than 5 questions to make sure you're really taking your time with them.

-Memorizing rules is hard, but developing a "tool kit" for what you can do when you're stuck is incredibly helpful. A lot of question types will have overlap in terms of their processes.

-Indicator words are super helpful in identifying different conditions, but as you get into the 170s, your understanding of sufficient and necessary should be more fundamental. Why are which words in which groups? What is a sentence specifically saying?

-Finally, above all, if you're having trouble, all the information you need is in the stimulus. Don't keep re-reading the answer choices. The stimulus will have the key.

I know that's a bit broad given I don't know more about your analytics specifically, but good luck!

Student Question

I don’t get why explains E as irrelevant I thought because midday is the hottest time and their mechanism for cooling down is to be outside in the wind, it would make sense they leave their nests to climb onto vegetation.

Tutor Response

You're right, it could make sense for them to climb onto vegetation! However, it doesn't explain why they would choose to leave their nest at that time. We have no reason to believe random light breezes are more likely to happen at the hottest point of the day, and we have no information to suggest the breezes are cool enough and regular enough to compensate for the high heat. This isn't to say that any of that is impossible or untrue; the issue is that we don't know if it is or isn't.

You could make a case for E explaining the silver ant's choice, but we'd have to know more specifics. The other answer choices don't require assumptions like E does. When an AC requires specific scenarios to work, that usually means it doesn't actually work.

Student Question

Hi! I had a question about PT12.S1.Q16, there isn’t an explanation for why AC B. is correct and I got this question wrong on both my actual attempt and blind review. I thought AC B. was more on the irrelevant side to the argument based off the premises, could it be explained to me how AC B. is the best weakener in comparison to AC C. and AC E.?

Tutor Response

Our premises tell us about this new test that's a lot more accurate than the old one; our conclusion says that we should therefore replace all the old salmonella tests with the new. Our weakener is going to attack the support provided by the premise.

C says there are other things in food that can make people sick. But our conclusion is just talking about replacing salmonella tests. This doesn't affect our argument at all.

E says that symptoms of Salmonella poisoning are often mistaken for those of other common intestinal illnesses. But this is the same thing as B, but talking about effects instead of causes. What do these symptoms have to do with changing how we test salmonella?

B says the new test detects salmonella so well it does so even when there's not enough salmonella to harm people.

This is an outcome akin to having a ton of false positives. I don't know how common minor, safe salmonella contamination is, but we could theoretically be detecting salmonella everywhere, even when the food is technically safe. These tests work too well to the point of inconvenience.

Obviously, we'd rather have people not eat safe things than mistakenly eat unsafe things, but we don't have an AC that addresses the latter. B just tells us one potential issue we could have with the new tests, and why we may not to completely replace the old with the new.

Student Question

I had D then changed to A.

A: wary isn't the word I’d use, but the misinterpretation part feels integral to the author’s perspective.

"He never suggests that they might be misinterpreted." Yet his language is consistently oriented in response to a perceived misunderstanding?

• "So the HoWiM by no means begins in 1849...or even in 1321..."

• "Here, Plato is not trying to convince people that blah blah…rather..."

• "despite evidence that blah blah, their practice was clearly not blah blah."

D: how is D more than a necessary assumption? At no point is accuracy questioned. Logically the author must be confident that the sources are accurate enough. Otherwise we’d be reading a different argument

Unfortunately I feel like this is a question I would have gotten right earlier on in my studying. The discussion section on this one is dry as a bone so I’m clearly narrowed in on the wrong thing, but I’ve fallen too far into the weeds. send help

Tutor Response

You make a very good case for A! However, that level of nuanced language analysis requires a level of close reading and interpretation that we can't claim to be supported. RC rests on the same principles as LR; the critical thinking skills that I can only imagine serve you quite well in literary analysis and all other facets of life can be misleading on the LSAT.

The LSAT is a literal test. We can't say that "by no means begins in x or y" implies that the author is worried about misinterpretation. It might make sense as a normal human extrapolation, but it's not logically supported.

Through that lens, your argument against D is actually a good one in favor of it. I wouldn't quite call it a necessary assumption, but it's very strongly supported it's how the author feels.

We can see this through evidence like:

- "The very nature of the scant evidence tells us something"

-"Yet even from these fragments we can piece together a picture."

On RC just as in LR, we can only know what the text tells us, and logical inferences with clear support.

Student Question

Why can the right answer (c) not have a perspective conclusion. In the question the author that we should conclude. Is that a different type of question when you have to make sure its perspective — perspective? I liked C, but I chose A and then D because the conclusion said ____ should do ____

Tutor Response

Good question, and great identification of nuance! However, the most important thing in parallel questions is the structure of the argument rather than the specific language or framing.

Stimulus structure: The people who say X are the same people who said Y and were wrong. Therefore, we should conclude the opposite of X.

A structure: The people who say X are the same people who say Y. Therefore, we should conclude X and Y go together.

That structure doesn't match; the conclusion is way off.

D: The people who say X also say. Thus we should neither X or Y.

Similar issue here. We're not saying "they were wrong, so we should assume this other thing they say is wrong.

C: The people who said X also said Y, and they were wrong about Y. Therefore, one should assume not X.

This matches. The "should" is absolutely something to take note of, but it's a low priority in matching.

Student Question

I’m confused about why answer choice B is considered strongly supported in PT140.S1.Q15.

The stimulus says:

• some vitamin-fortified foods contain 100% of the recommended daily intake per serving, and

• many (some) people overestimate serving sizes of vitamin-fortified foods and consume 2–3 servings.

But isn’t the conclusion in B dependent on assuming overlap between those two groups? In other words, aren’t we effectively combining two “some”-type statements, something that is not allowed in conditional logic?

Tutor Response

You're right. AC B does not have to be true. There is a world in which it isn't true.

We know that some vitamin-fortified foods contain 100% of the recommended daily intake per serving, and many people eat 2-3 servings of vitamin-fortified foods, as you mentioned. To your point, "some" or "many" could mean as little as 1 or 2, and as much as all. We don't know where on the spectrum these amounts fall. But we do have some support for AC being true. Certainly not airtight support, and it would not be valid to say we could infer B to be true.

We just don't have support for our other options. B isn't guaranteed, but it doesn't need to be for a "most strongly supported" question.

Your grasp of conditional reasoning is absolutely correct. The standards are simply less strict for this question type.

Student Question

Through the stimulus, I think the disagree point is that what is the corporation's primary responsibility? To the shareholders or the employees. So I don’t know why choice D

Tutor Response

Good question, and valid point! You're absolutely right in that Price and Albrecht disagree with each other about to whom the corporation is primarily responsible. However, as you've clearly seen, that's not an option here! So we have to retrace the argument's steps a little bit.

Why does Price think a corporation's primary responsibility is to the shareholders?

"Because they take the greatest risks. If the corporation goes bankrupt, they lose their investment."

In other words, they stand to lose the most.

Why does Albrecht think that the corporation's primary responsibility is to the employees?

"The well-being of the corporation for which they have chosen to work represents their very livelihood," and "shareholders typically have diversified investment portfolios."

In other words, the employees would experience the most negative effects in the case of the company going bankrupt. The shareholders have a few different sources of income, but the employee only has one.

This is what D gets at. Price and Albrecht disagree over to whom the company is most responsible because they disagree over who stands to lose the most in the case that the company crumbles.

Student Question

Hi, for Passage A, it discusses what happens when laws are overinclusive—discretionary enforcement which means not enforcing laws against people it wasn’t intended to cover even if those people or actions are specified in said letter of the law. But passage B gives us a case of the opposite, where we have underinclusive law and a consequence is that what should fall under the law’s intent is outside of it due to a loophole. In this way, I thought D was superior to B because the intent of the law was not to exclude the use liens from debts other than taxes (that’s a loophole), so discretionarily enforcing the law in this way would be something A agrees to, in contrast to B where there is no legal basis and thus no intent of the law to follow. The question is one of framework, and I thought D at a minimum followed A’s framework of there being a law following the spirit vs the letter.

Tutor Response

You make a good point! However, the question doesn't ask us what Author A would think of Passage B in its entirety. It asks what Author A would think of these two sentences:

"So officials are planning to selectively cut the water to a few residences with outstanding bills to show that they are serious about collecting those debts. Officials plan to target only high-income neighborhoods, to make examples of a few privileged residents who will be in no position to complain since they were caught stiffing the system."

The situation presented here describes possible, legal punishments that the government has elected to utilize selectively, rather than to punish the entire pool of rulebreakers. This is the selective enforcement of penalties based on government agency discretion.

Liens are not mentioned in these two sentences at all. When the LSAT highlights specific sentences to which a sentence applies, they mean for us to limit our analysis to those sentences.

Student Question

what is the unstated assumption in this question? I am lost

Tutor Response

Good question! Let's say that there are 100 houses ten years ago. 30 of them had smoke detectors. Now, 45 houses have them (I'm just going to assume no more houses were built). However, only ~20 of them work. That leaves 25 that do.

But we only know about the percentage of detectors that work now. We don't know about the detectors ten years ago. What if ten years ago, only 10 of the houses had detectors that worked? Or 1 house?

In order to say the detection of house fires hasn't gone up, we need those earlier numbers.

I hope that answers your question, and feel free to reach out if there’s anything else I can clarify for you!

As a head’s up, there's no explanation here because this question is from an obsolete test (all 2-digit PT numbers are). These are fine for additional practice questions, but are not as representative of the modern version of the LSAT (3-digit PTs). If interested, you can take a look at this page in your settings for more information.

Student Question

How can we say that just because it “can affect virtually all of a faculty member's intellectual production” that that = faculty rarely escapes this? Just because it can doesn’t mean that it frequently does.

Tutor Response

You make a great point, and you're absolutely accurate in that just because "the approach can affect virtually all" doesn't mean that it must affect virtually all, or that faculty will rarely escape it. However, this provides strong support for the fact that faculty rarely produce inventions without using the university's resources at all.

We're looking for an answer that is not "suggested" by the passage. You're right in that AC B doesn't have to be true, but it is reasonable to say that it's suggested. Even if we're not fully convinced, we have far more support for B's suggestion than E.

@esther The annoying answer is that it's question-dependent. I would say no, it's not structural. I definitely wouldn't completely disregard a "some vs. most" discrepancy, but as a difference, I would give it less weight.

Student Question

I see C as a misinterpretation of the proponents position. Can you clarify why it’s not?

My issue with accepting C is that it seems to create a false equivalence between economic progress and racial discrimination. In the passage, the author states the proponents believe federal law had a marginal impact on “economic progress.” It’s not saying that the law necessarily had a marginal impact on racial discrimination. In other words, it’s possible that the proponents could believe the federal was effective in reducing discrimination. Whether it was or wasn’t doesn’t matter. The point is that it wasn’t effective in advancing economic progress, which is a distinct idea from racial discrimination. Thus, my thinking is that, since the negated form of C could be consistent with the proponents view, it’s difficult for me to accept it. Where am I going wrong here?

Tutor Response

You make some great points, and you're absolutely right: it's possible that the proponents could believe the federal law was effective in reducing discrimination. However, in the context of this passage, our author's analysis is focused on economic progress as the lens through which they evaluate the reduction of discrimination. If we accept that lens, AC C is the best answer. If we look at the other ACs, it actually becomes clear that each of them requires we abide by that lens of equating reduction in discrimination with economic progress. I agree that it feels like a stretch, but if all ACs require the same (albeit strained) interpretation, we have no choice but to do so.

Another important point to keep in mind is the language of the question: "which one of the following best states the position..." We are looking for the AC we have the most support for. Through this understanding, we can see that AC C is really the only viable answer because we simply don't have support for the others. It's certainly imperfect, but it's the best we've got. I recognize that's more than a little frustrating on a test that repeatedly punishes us for making leaps, but this is one of the instances in which the correct answer is the "least bad" answer rather than an especially "good" answer.

Student Question

I was able to cut the answer choices down to B and C, and choose B because answer choice C says the zoologist was puzzled. I didn’t see any puzzling language. Did I miss this? If not, how do I avoid these type of traps? I’ve gotten questions wrong because I disregarded minor phrases and words like “was puzzled”.

Tutor Response

First of all, great work on getting it down to B and C.

Our support for "puzzled" comes for this sentence: "The okapi... has presented zoologists with a number of difficult questions since they first learned of its existence in 1900." Though it doesn't use the specific language of "puzzled," the fact that scientists were faced with questions they had difficulty answering for decades is support for them being puzzled.

In our daily lives, the connotations of words play a huge role. We see puzzled and have a specific idea of what that looks like: confused, struggling, etc. But the LSAT is incredibly literal; because of this, we can be looser with our definitions of certain words.

What's also a good strategy is remembering that 4 of the ACs are wrong. If you're down to B and C and are unsure about "puzzled," take a look at B and ask yourself what you don't like about it. Is that a worse offense than stretching what we interpret a word to mean? B doesn't account for half of the argument: the scientists' answers to those questions. That's not good enough for a correct AC. We can be a bit forgiving with our definition of words as long as we can see how it might fit.

Student Question

I am struggling to map this logically. I do not think I mapped mine correctly.

Tutor Response

I want to flag that there's no explanation here because this question is from an obsolete test (all 2-digit PT numbers are). These are fine for additional practice questions, but are not as representative of the modern version of the LSAT (3-digit PTs). If interested, you can take a look at this page in your settings for more information.

With that in mind, see the mapping below!

Planetary bodies differ from one another in their composition, but most of those in the Solar System have solid surfaces.

planet -m-> solid surface

Unless the core of such a planetary body generates enough heat to cause volcanic action, the surface of the body will not be renewed for millions of years.

/heat for volcanic action -> /renewed surface OR

renewed surface -> heat for volcanic action

Any planetary body with a solid surface whose surface is not renewed for millions of years becomes heavily pockmarked by meteorite craters, just like the Earth’s Moon.

solid surface + not renewed -> heavily pockmarked

moon -> heavily pockmarked

Some old planetary bodies in the Solar System, such as Europa, a very cold moon belonging to Jupiter, have solid icy surfaces with very few meteorite craters.

planetary bodies <-s-> solid surfaces + /pockmarked

All together:

planet -m-> solid surface

solid + renewed surface -> heat for volcanic action

solid + /renewed -> heavily pockmarked

planetary bodies <-s-> solid surfaces + /pockmarked

Student Question

There are two parts to B, (1) all knowledge can be reduced to science and (2) science is in no way privileged over other sources of knowledge. Why does author of passage A need to reject both statements to make it the correct answer when the author of passage B only have to agree with at least one of them? I understand this is a “either or” statement so passage B only have to agree with one of them and I think author of passage B agrees with (1) and have no opinion or agrees on (2) either way, this is a good answer and we can move on to check if author of passage A disagree with those statement. Author of passage A disagree with (1) and we don’t know about (2) and not knowing about (2) makes it the wrong answer. I thought this is a “either or” question and I’m confused about the fact that author of passage B need to reject both statement to make it the correct answer choice.

Tutor Response

This is a confusing one, and you're right that this is an either/or statement! However, I think what we mean by either/or in this context may be a little different than how you're interpreting it.

B provides a conditional statement:

Either all knowledge can be reduced to science, or science is in no way privileged over other sources of knowledge. Our statement is that one of these must be true.

We're not looking to see if Authors A or B would agree or disagree respectively with the first half or the second half; we're looking to see if Author A would disagree with the entire statement and Author B makes a claim that is supported by the statement.

In other words, the statement is: if not all knowledge can be reduced to science, then science is in no way privileged over other sources of knowledge.

Author A: we don't know if author A thinks science is privileged over other sources or not. We know Author A believes science is not the only source of knowledge, but he doesn't refer to a hierarchy.

Author B: Author B never acknowledges the possibility that scientist isn't privileged over other sources of knowledge. This isn't a principle their argument relies on.

Student Question

I don’t see a video or a written explanation for this question. There’s nothing under explanation, and nothing under the ACs that I can see, or a breakdown of the stimulus. I checked the discussion page and there’s one comment that wasn’t clarifying. I would appreciate any form of breakdown.

Tutor Response

There's no explanation here because this question is from an obsolete test (all 2-digit PT numbers are). These are fine for additional practice questions, but are not as representative of the modern version of the LSAT (3-digit PTs). If interested, you can take a look at this page in your settings for more information.

As a breakdown:

The president's claim is "look, the number of people winning dropped, but that also means that the number of people losing dropped."

The criterion for calculating whether or not someone gets the award is if they were in the top third or not.

Let's say 15 years ago, 50 people won. That means 100 people didn't.

Now, lets say 25 people lost. The president is saying that means 50 people didn't. The number of losers has dropped.

But for this to make sense, the criterion must have stayed the same. If it changed to say, the top 10%, or whoever made $1,000,000, the math doesn't hold up. That's how we get to C.

Student Question: My understanding of the question is that the interviewer said 1) rigorous adherence to proper treatment → any case of insomnia is curable, and 2) some patients don’t respond to treatment (not curable). The therapist responds with 3) not curable → not rigorous in responding to treatment. Is this the correct way of understanding the stimulus? And how does this lead to the correct answer choice A?

Tutor Response

That's a great assessment of the stimulus! I'm going to tweak it a little bit to make the argument a little cleaner to understand.

Our doctor says

insomnia -> curable with treatment

Any case of insomnia is curable with treatment. That's a conditional claim.

And our interviewer says

insomnia + /curable with treatment

Which directly violates the conditional relationship presented by our doctor. We now have concrete proof that our doctor's statement is not accurate.

Then our doctor nullifies that example by saying they actually must not have been adhering to treatment. It falls outside of the conditional he presented.

What's wrong with this?

The doctor essentially just denied evidence. He has claimed insomnia -> curable. He's made a conditional claim. If there's one case of insomnia that isn't curable, then his claim falls apart. So he has decided to rule out any potential evidence that might prove his claim wrong. That's what leads us to A. The doctor has committed to rejecting any evidence that would disprove his claim.

Student Question

Can you explain this question to me and why the answer is correct in more simple terms? I am lost in what the question is asking in general, so it makes solving for it all the more confusing. How should I tackle questions I do not understand what is being ask of, and/or more fill in the blank questions?

Tutor Response

Of course!

In most of this forest, the expected outbreak of tree-eating tussock moths should not be countered. After all, the moth is beneficial where suppression of forest fires, for example, has left the forest unnaturally crowded with immature trees, and _______.

The question asks us how to finish the sentence so that the conclusion is most supported. So our first step is going to be to find the conclusion.

Conclusion: In most of this forest, the expected outbreak of tree-eating tussock moths should not be countered.

Great. So we're trying to support the idea that we shouldn't fight the outbreak of these moths in most of the forest. Let's look at the support we already have:

The moth is beneficial where suppression of forest fires, for example, has left the forest unnaturally crowded with immature trees.

We know that the moth helps out if a forest is crowded with immature trees. What could we add to this to help get us to our conclusion that we should let the moths do their thing?

If we know what most of this forest is crowded with immature trees, that would be great. That would make it so that we know that the support we already have is applicable, so this is a situation in which the moth would be beneficial.

Answer E matches that the best. It tells us that more than half of the forest is unnaturally crowded with immature trees. Perfect. So we now know that in the case of this forest, the moth would be beneficial. That's a pretty solid reason to not counter the outbreak.

When you're not sure what a question is asking of you, I like to start with knowing the things I definitely have to do. For this one, it started with finding the conclusion. Once I did that, I could think about the other half of the question: how could I best support this conclusion?

There aren't that many different types of questions on the LSAT, so the more you study, the more you'll be exposed to the different types. If you put in the time, it will be a very rare occurrence that you sit down to the test and find yourself not understanding what you're supposed to be looking for. It's jarring at first, but you'll notice the patterns and adapt.

Student Question

I am confused what exact questions rely on a contrapositive and which do not. I have been trying to diagram to help myself solve questions, especially for assumption related questions. I originally thought answer E for question 6 was incorrect because it was a false contrapositive for the prompt (where the full contrapositive would be there is no waste in the rivers from mining if the law was not repealed.) I understand why E is correct when just thinking about it, but when it comes to the diagramming I feel like E contradicts the lessons we have been taught about only choosing the original diagram for the answer or the contrapositive of it to be true. So I guess this is a question about question 6 in particular but also how it applies to other LSAT questions and assumptions questions.

Tutor Response

This is a good question, and your identification of E not being the contrapositive is spot on.

Your method of diagramming to answer questions is an excellent strategy. What makes this question different is that it's a necessary assumption question, not a sufficient assumption question. With sufficient assumption questions, we can use diagramming to come up with the exact answer we need, then look for the AC that matches (either in the contrapositive or not). This is possible because we're looking for the puzzle piece that guarantees the truth of the conclusion based on our premises.

With a necessary assumption question, however, we can't necessarily pre-phrase. You can diagram to identify a gap, but we're not necessarily looking for a puzzle piece that will guarantee the truth of our conclusion. We're looking for a statement that must be true for our conclusion to have any hope of being valid.

Example: Ratatouille is a good movie. Therefore, it will make me cry.

R -> gm

_________

R -> mmc

We can see that our SA is all good movies make me cry.

But our necessary conclusion is just something that must be true. This could be something like:

It is possible for a movie to make me cry.

or

Ratatouille can make some people cry.

When added to my premises, this won't guarantee my conclusion is true. But if these statements weren't true, my premise no longer supports my conclusion.

E doesn't perfectly fit into our diagram, but it does address the gap we need to fill.

Student Question

I am confused how answer choice C or D does not satisfy the statement made in the SA review, “the argument structure doesn’t always involve a new concept in the conclusion. Instead, we need to connect two premises together or provide a missing fact to trigger a rule.” Particularly, how is this not requiring the connection of two premises? How do I determine if I need to link two premises or if I need to link a premise to the conclusion? Perhaps its possible I am looking at this like a MSS? Are there any tips to banish MSS ideas from my head as I read answers that would satisfy MSS questions but not SA questions as I read a SA question?

Tutor Response

These are all excellent questions! I'm going to start with this one first:

How do I determine if I need to link two premises or if I need to link a premise to the conclusion?

This is a very important question. To determine this, we need to identify where the gap in the argument is.

Premise: When they short- and long-term interests of a business conflict, the morally preferable act is usually the one that serves the long-term interest.

Conclusion: Because of this, businesses often have compelling reasons to execute the morally preferable act.

So usually, the long term is the morally preferable move. And we use that to get to businesses often having compelling reasons to execute the morally preferable act.

I need to use those premises to support that conclusion. Their common denominator is the moral preferability. My argument is saying that because moral pref usually = long term, businesses often have compelling reasons to do the morally pref act.

So the easiest thing to make this work is that long term is often connected to compelling reasons. That's the only way the premise I have can support the conclusion I have. Otherwise, it's just a random fun fact.

To get to your actual question, let's look at C and D.

c) The morally preferable act for a business to execute and the long-term interests of the business seldom conflict.

Okay, cool. But I already know that usually, the morally preferable one is the long-term one. C doesn't add anything to my argument. It gives my one premise more credibility, but that still doesn't explain the connection between my premise and my conclusion.

d) The morally preferable act for a business to execute and the short-term interests of the business usually conflict.

I pretty much know this already. I know that I can connect morally preferable and long-term from my premises. I need to figure out why that helps prove that businesses usually have compelling reasons to do the morally preferable thing.

Regarding MSS vs SA: with MSS, you're looking to take the information you have to see if you can make any other claims or inferences. If I know that Ratatouille's a good movie, and all good movies make me cry, then I have strong support that Ratatouille will make me cry.

With SA, you're given evidence and a conclusion. But there's a step missing. You've got to find that step.

Ratatouille's a good movie. Therefore, it will make me cry.

Okay. How does Ratatouille being a good movie get it to making me cry?

The assumption that guarantees this premises will lead to this conclusion is "all good movies make me cry." Once I have that, my argument is complete. SA is just a missing puzzle piece.