@ManjotSingh To begin to answer your question, first we need to know why answer choice C fails.

The argument concludes that the mourning dove population is probably decreasing due to their loss of habitat. This is the conclusion we are strengthening.

It draws support from the fact that mourning doves ceased building nests in nearby orchards following the installation of overhead sprinklers.

How does C factor in?

• It mirrors the premise, which is already established.

So how is the argument not strengthened?

The mechanism/explanation that needs to be supported here is not sprinklers causing birds to abandon nesting sites. The argumentative move from losing one nesting area to a loss of nesting habitat is the explanation that needs to be better established.

Consider how (C) falls short:

• We are not really learning anything new (as explained above)

• This explanation is also merely correlational. What if the blue jays moved out years after the sprinklers were installed? The possibility of an extraneous cause remains open.

• What if there are relevant differences between Blue jays and mourning doves?

How could C be changed to support the conclusion?

We need to strengthen the explanation that cessation of nesting in the orchards constitutes a loss of nesting habitat that leads to a decrease in a species' population.

One adjusted wording would be:

Blue jays that had ceased nesting in the orchards following the installation of overhead sprinklers left the area in search of unaffected orchards.

See how this better explains how a loss of suitable orchard nesting space leads to the decrease in a species' population in an area? It also suggests that an animal may relocate to a new area in search of its preferred nesting environment.

(B) would still be the stronger answer choice, but now it would be better only on the basis of strength rather than relevance and strength.

This is not an exhaustive explanation, I'm happy to respond to questions.

@soleluna883 I am not sure off the top of my head, but I usually read the sentence before and after the specific reference. I agree that the "increasingly" part of the referenced section turns out to lend a lot of support to (A).

Okay, I get it now.

I chose (A) for this question because I felt like it was an example of a received attitude relevant to the passage. But "received attitudes" is more general and is directed towards "simple societies" in general. (A) is a characterization of the !Kung that may or may not be true.

To understand this question better, I went back to the question stem and asked what is needed from the correct answer.

Our task is to identify the AC that best exemplifies the received attitudes mentioned in the second paragraph. Not just one of them, but find an answer that best encompasses these attitudes.

What is that received attitude? This is shown to us in the second sentence of the second paragraph. "uncomplicated way of life, enlightened attitudes... undeniable charm" <- to paraphrase, it seems like these people live an ideal life.

(C) is the best characterization here, since its scope is appropriate (not just !Kung people, but "simple societies" represented by "seminomadic" here), and its content is appropriate. All three of the points mentioned in that second sentence are compatible with this characterization.

This was a tricky question for me because of how the LSAT generally trains you to identify the correct answer choice. Generally, it is easier to match an attitude (or other information) expressed in the passage with a less decisive answer choice. This is why answer choice (E) was attractive and trapped me.

When I was looking at the end of paragraph 3, I should have paid more attention to the word "omits" -- this indicates that something is completely absent.

Back to the answer choices, it becomes clear that (C) is the correct answer choice as it mentions ethnographic lit. not dealing with these issues at all. (E), on the other hand, introduces ideas of ethnographic studies as well as connecting individual experiences to larger women's issues. The ideas and scope of this answer choice cannot be reconciled by the information presented in the passage.

An important quantifier in the correct answer choice (E) was "no less expensive". I think this is easy to gloss over as it is less common than other quantifiers.

First, what does it mean?

• No less expensive = the same price or more expensive

How does this work in the context of the answer choice?

For local residents, it is the same price or more expensive to take advantage of the lower dealership rates as opposed to the national rental firms' rates.

This tells us that there is no additional advantage for local residents when it comes to getting to these rental options.

To elaborate further, think about how this AC would look if negated:

For local residents, it is less expensive to take advantage of the lower dealership rates as opposed to the national rental firms' rates

See how this provides firm support to the part of the conclusion arguing that local resident are generally more advantaged than tourists when it comes to renting from a dealership?

Rather than having to pay for a long taxi ride to take advantage of the better rates, like the tourists do, our negated version shows that local residents get an additional advantage when it comes to these rates. This widens the gap.

Now, this isn't a necessary assumption question and negating quantifiers does not play the same role in strengthen except questions as it does in NA question-types. But this was useful to me in more completely understanding this question.

@jannyalison412 Probably too late to be helpful, but thought I'd share:

The argument

D is wrong because it is not relevant enough to the argument. Since we are weakening the argument's conclusion, we need to understand it:

The argument asserts that consumers can make a significant long-term reduction in the amount of waste that goes unrecycled by refusing to purchase products packaged with the highest code numbers.

What we're looking for

So we're looking for an answer choice that either shows that buying low-code plastic does not reduce unrecycled waste, or one that shows that buying high-code plastic contributes to a reduction in unrecycled waste.

Answer choices

D fails to strike home on either of these checks. You would have to bring in your own assumption to get it from 'cost' to reducing waste. You are not able to assume that because something is more expensive, consumers will purchase it less often -- you must work with what the problem directly gives you.

On the other hand, C weakens the conclusion by providing new information that says that purchasing high code plastics is actually stimulating the recycling process. This is an inference we can make because the stimulus makes the same connection between purchasing decisions and affecting the amount of long-term waste that goes unrecycled.

I hope this wordy explanation helps someone in the future :)

I mistakenly inferred that businesses or universities investing in part of a network meant they would be cooperating to build the network. Coming back to it now, the relationship between cooperating to build a network and investing in a part of it could look like this:

Cooperating to build → Investing in part

It's not necessary to diagram it this way to get to the correct answer, but this is what made it make sense in my head.

In light of this understanding, (E) shows us that the author overlooked the simple possibility that businesses, universities, or both could provide that mechanism for coordinating the establishment of the network as a whole.

This one was tricky because of how closely it accorded with my own ideas of how the presentation of ideas affects one's expectations. I need to keep actively checking argumentation throughout every stimulus.

Instead of checking each answer choice against the argumentation in the stimulus, I checked them against what I thought was true of television news programs.

In this context, (C) was more attractive than (D), because I felt like it better accorded with the charge that television oversimplifies issues. But in the context of the argument, this is not an assumption that was made.

Why C is wrong:

• It does not have to be impossible for television to present public issues in a nuanced way. It only has to be true that they do not in practice, a much different statement.

Why D is correct:

• Using assumption-negation, if it were usual for a reporter to further develop the 30-second points of views, that starts to sounds more like television viewers are being exposed to a more extensive discussion of these issues.

An important takeaway for me was to recognize that I more heavily scrutinize stimuli that I disagree with, but am less careful with stimuli that I'm more favorable towards.

This one really got me. I think I made one logical error and overlooked some of the language in the conclusion.

My logical error was assuming that since the initial trial was small, the result repeated in an operational setting would also have a small sample size. We don't know this. All we know is that the author is drawing a conclusion from the hypothetical situation where the result is replicated in a different setting. This does not tell us anything about the design of the new trial.

As for what I overlooked, I had to reconsider what the stimulus supports. What does it say?

• The small initial trial never incorrectly accepted someone seeking access to the computer's data.

But does it say it ever granted access to those people who are entitled to access? No, it does not.

So we cannot say that this evidence can support the conclusion that there will be a way to grant some entitled people access and no one else, because we have no support for entitled people being granted access by this system.

This second mistake was much more significant to me, the first mistake was a leap I made after not being satisfied with any of the ACs on my first go around.

@lsath34rt The part in the stimulus that mentions birds with dense bloods vessels being warm-blooded carefully uses the word "suggests."

The study that found that they had dense blood vessels simply suggests that this is an indication that they were active and warm blooded. But it is also possible that that was not the case. The testmakers deliberately try to confuse you with sly qualifiers like "suggest" -- which is roughly equivalent to "they think could be true." <- see how this is a very low level of support?

This question reminded me that an answer choice can support an explanation by supporting the mechanism that underlies it.

I thought (C) was irrelevant because it did not mention anything cosmic. In my head I thought, "sure, there are other ways the Earth can be cooled." But the significance is that it supports the mechanism described in the stimulus:

• (Cosmic) dust in the atmosphere dims the Sun, resulting in an ice age

The scientists also concede that the dust clouds would have be very dense, which is why the phenomenon in (C) does not have to also result in an ice age.

I got this question correct by eliminating the incorrect answer choices, but it still did not sit right with me.

They're saying that the top 50cm of topsoil, associated with the arrival of humans, has a smaller and less diverse population of birds than the underlying 150cm of soil.

But if humans -- or some other cause -- resulted in the dramatic population and diversity decrease, then wouldn't their remains be found in that top 50cm of topsoil? If humans ate these birds and discarded their remains in the soil, wouldn't their bones be found in that 50cm of topsoil?

I realize this is just me arguing with the exam, and I need to focus on the argumentation... I guess a lesson learned is to be more flexible in applying my pre-phrase.

I fear I might not have taken this question seriously. I thought I could breeze through it, and that resulted in my selection of E, a trap answer choice.

Why E is attractive:

• Assumption negation appears to be strong with this one. Negating it gives you the possibility for a work to be a tragedy with an ignoble character (character that is not noble) enduring misfortunes.

Why E is incorrect:

• It broadens the scope of the first premise from "protagonists" to "characters."

• When I understood this, I thought about it this way, imagine an ancient play where the protagonist possessed nobility which endured through a series of misfortunes. In that same play, there is a side-character who is ignoble but tags along through those same misfortunes.

• This answer choice now tells us that that ancient play can no longer be considered a tragedy. This is not an accurate characterization of the critic's argument and certainly not required by their argument.

I can't recall my thinking behind eliminating (D), but I probably glossed over it after seeing it would take a little bit of unpacking and connecting with the stimulus. Then when I arrived at E, I fell for the trap and moved onto the next question.

D is correct because it bridges the gap between the belief that human endeavors being governed by fate and a character being perceived as possessing nobility. With this answer choice, the author's assertion that we no longer believe human endeavors are governed by fate now eliminates the possibility of modern literature being perceived as tragedies.

@PriYanksya Very helpful, thanks! Framing it within the context of a phenomenon-hypothesis stimulus helped me see why the first sentence was the conclusion.

It is the sentence that most strongly and affirmatively answers why this phenomenon occurs.

I chose D during my timed take because I felt like it showed that his application of nature-inspired principles is applicable to other problems. Here is why this answer choice falls short:

• (D) never explicitly says "nature-inspired principles" -- only "mathematical principles." This could be as simple as accepting 1 + 1 = 2. I need to avoid seeing context that isn't there.

• Even if it did say "nature-inspired principles," the sentence immediately preceding the referenced section already says something similar. He looked to nature to develop a model that would predict global weather patterns.

• This answer choice never addressing the part of his prediction that states that they will "increasingly" look to nature. What is different now compared to in the past? You could argue that it is because he demonstrated its effectiveness, but that would be an assumption.

• Finally, what if other computer scientists are indifferent to this way of finding solutions? AC (D) does not tie in its support with computer scientists explicitly.

In the context of these shortcomings, answer choice A shows itself to be the stronger AC. We get "natural processes" spelled out for us, we see that something has changed "recently", and we get its application to "computer scientists".

@AreeshaSaif Maybe I'm getting it wrong here, but it seems like you might be confusing Most Strongly Supported questions with Most Strongly Supports.

In Most Strongly Supported questions (like this one), the correct answer is drawn from the stimulus. The strongest answer to this kind of question is an answer that directly restates stimulus content.

On the other hand, questions asking you which answer choice Most Strongly Supports the stimulus will generally mend a gap in the reasoning or dismiss an alternative explanation. The answer choices are used to support the stimulus.

What you commented applies to Most Strongly Supports questions, where nothing would be improved about the argument's soundness by a rephrase of what was already stated.

This is what got me to the answer during blind review:

The trick with this one was the conclusion's wording that Ann will quit her job only if Technocomp finds out about the fellowship. This is an extension of the first sentence, which shows that there are two options available to her, given she is offered a fellowship.

But why would she take one option only if the other option is not available? Well, it's because the leave of option is the option she will take every time it is offered to her. <- this is the missing link provided by answer choice D.

A detail that would have saved me time on deciding between B and D was that B mentions the passengers of teenage drivers. This takes strength away from this answer as an explanation of why teenagers drive more poorly by putting more blame for their driving fatalities on the passengers.

I spent too much time deliberating on whether seat belts and shoulder straps count as a driving skill. Ultimately, this uncertainty plus D's inability to weaken the argument's reasoning steered me away from B.

I misinterpreted this question stem to mean that the lawsuit brought by the Mayans was ruled in favor of the logging concessions, rather than the original logging concessions.

This made me take (B) to be the most strongly implied answer choice, since there is a wealth of support for the side of the case of the Mayans founded in the precedent of other common law countries.

From this, I need to be more discerning of the question stem language. They would have said something like "ruled in favor of..." if it had been applying to the court case.

I got this one correct right away during blind review, but got lost in the weeds during my original take.

What is Posner's view of the law-and-literature movement's application to literary text?

• The law is used loosely to convey an idea or as a metaphor for the workings of a society.

• Legal questions themselves are not usually at issue.

• ↑ This makes the law-and-literature application to literary text weak.

• Loose conditional representation:

  • ¬ L.Q. → ¬ Legal training

  • (If a Legal Question is not at issue, then Legal training is not necessary)

So what can we infer from this position? Consider the contrapositive:

• Legal training → L.Q.

• (It is necessary for a Legal Question to be at issue for legal training to be beneficial)

Okay, then which one of these answer choices includes a legal question as a legal question? Not merely as a symbol or metaphor.

Only answer choice (C) does this.

I thought that C was a trap answer choice because of the ambiguity of the term "work." It can be taken (or so I thought) to either mean their contributions or their results. I interpreted it as their results; the intended interpretation is as their contributions. With this understanding, (C) is the obvious correct answer.

I chose (A) because it seemed like a good characterization of the "fundamental discrepancy" that set the foundation for the passage in the first sentence. However, (A) only scratches the surface of the passage's content and is not necessarily true. The author does not say the work would have been impossible, only that it did proceed in a way counter to the seventeenth-century rhetoric.

I fell for answer choice A when attempting this question. My mistake is found in a misunderstanding of Dana's position.

Dana's position is that educational methods should be tailored to children since they would learn better with group vs individual activities depending on their upbringing.

In my head, I oversimplified this to mean that children should either learn in group or individual settings and made a weak inference that learning the non-preferred way would not be beneficial. But Dana never says this. Only that one method would allow children to learn better.

I was also drawn away from B because I felt like "various educational methods" was too broad, however, the domain of each speaker's argument is confined to this topic through Dana's first sentence.

When I slowed down and approached this question during blind review, I realized that this is really just a main point question within the domain of markets (the central topic of both passages).

Upon first glance, this question seems too abstract and a time waster. I read through the answer choices and picked 'D' because it seemed to relate to each author's characterizations of markets.

Here is how each author characterizes the knowledge of participants in markets:

Passage A: Markets "distill the collective wisdom" of individuals, and accurately reflect the information held by informed market participants.

Passage B: "Markets are not infallible," they "reflect the majority opinion at any given moment"

Now lets apply this to answer choices (B) and (D), since these are the main contenders.

Both answer choices accurately reflect elements of the differences between each author's views of markets, but (B) is closer to the characterization of each passage to the handling of information while (D) tries to trick you into answering a question about how each author views the reliability of information presented by markets.

This was hard to put clearly into words, but I hope it's helpful.

@JeromeSong I eliminated (E) during my timed take for the same reason as you, and this is what helped me understand why it was different from (C).

The difference here is that answer choice (C) explicitly states that the literary criticism had a reading of the trickster stories, whereas (E) does not.

Think about the spectrum of what E's language of "incomplete understanding" could mean. It could be anything that is not complete -- from 0 awareness that they exist to almost fully understanding these types of stories.

This is the same difference found between "all" and "not all" or "none" and "some" -- you have to be flexible in your interpretation of the terms.

I thought human remains were considered artifacts, so I kept both (B) and (E) after reading passage A and going through ACs. From here, both answer choices strengthen the position of the draft convention in passage B.

I also did not take the sentence starting with "Many archaeologists abhor..." to apply to the position of "critics of for-profit archaeology," which would have given me a better basis for deciding between (B) and (E).