Are you referring to the diversity statement? If your optional essay answers the prompt, is written well, adds rather than repeats info, helps the admissions officer get to know you in a positive light, and doesn’t bring up any red flags (controversial info) then I personally don’t anticipate any drawbacks.

I’m not familiar with Ontario law schools, but it seems to make the most sense to add a paragraph at the end. That way, you can talk about yourself and your motivations and end with how that specific school will allow you to carry out your goals.

@wendyzgod Yes

@JeyrelitzaClemente From what I've seen, most schools (especially the more selective ones) prefer at least one academic LOR for recent grads. That may have more predictive validity as to what type of student and community member you'll be once in law school. But, once you've been out of school for a few years, it makes sense to have a professional one as well. I've been out of school four years, so I'm trying to get both academic and professional recs since I've kept in touch with some profs. And of course, if it's been a really long time since college, I'd assume that schools would understand if you only had professional recs.

Also, I think the type of work that you do matters. If your supervisor can speak to qualities that law schools care about, like writing, analytical thinking, problem-solving, etc, that would help. But if they can't, then IMO it makes an academic letter more important.

But please take my opinion with a grain of salt—I'm just trying to figure it out along with everyone here :)

@JeyrelitzaClemente If you have old coursework from a class you did well in, you could still potentially ask that professor.

I'm a little confused about these instructions: "Whatever the case, your position should be supported with logical arguments and detailed, persuasive examples."

While essay 1 is persuasive, it doesn't seem to use specific, detailed examples. Is that an issue?

"The major figures in the muralist movement, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, and José Clemente Orozco, all based their work on a common premise: that art should incorporate images and familiar ideas as it commented upon the historic period in which it was created. In the process, they assimilated into their work the customs, myths, geography, and history of the local communities that constitute the basis of Mexican national culture."

The explanation for (D) says that it's not clear muralism involved elements from everyday life, but doesn't the text above describe the use of elements from everyday life? (I don't think it's seen as the most important aspect though)

@RoseDenahWeitzman These are contributions Planck made in the past before developing his hypothesis. While the passage does state that these contributions exist, it doesn't say WHAT those contributions are, so (D) does not work

If X falls within the scope of a set of rules, it means the rules are NOT silent on it because it is within their domain. It does not mean that X follows the rules—it could very well violate them!

(E): The only group that falls into the "controlling 50% or more" category is older adults. So, the sufficient condition of the principle is triggered, leading to the conclusion that we're looking for.

The author draws their conclusion based on the premise that it’s generally accepted that Shakespeare knew little or no Greek. But why would that mean he came to know Euripides' play through a Latin translation? Are there other translations besides Greek and Latin? (B) rules out an alternate hypothesis (or at least, far decreases the chances of it being true). It suggests that Shakespeare didn’t use the English translation because The Winter’s Tale resembles the original Alcestis more closely. This makes it more likely that he used the Latin one instead.

Ruling out English rather than, say, Chinese particularly helps because it’s generally known that Shakespeare wrote in English, so it would make sense to question if the translation he used was also in English, a language accessible to him.

Choosing (D) over (B):

It's crucial to identify the conclusion. (I typically highlight it when I'm going through the stimulus to stay focused on what's important.) What is the critic trying to argue for? The only claim that is supported by evidence is "This discrepancy should come as no surprise", so that is the conclusion.

A principle that "most helps to justify" someone's reasoning should lead to the conclusion. (B) does not, but (D) does. You can think of this is as a Strengthen question. Based on the premise, which principal helps strengthen the argument the most? (B) doesn't make the conclusion more likely to be true at all—the conclusion is about the discrepancy in food quality, and (B) doesn't relate to that. However, (D) does.

Note: Make sure you're accomplishing the task that the question stem is defining. It's not MSS, or "The author would most likely agree with...". We need an answer that strengthens the support structure between the premise and conclusion.

"Significantly" really threw me off, but thinking about who is making the argument helped. This is a safety expert, not a statistician zooming into the minute details, making the argument that conversing on a cell phone while driving is more dangerous than driving with a passenger in the vehicle. As a safety expert, this person is making a practical point that conversing on a cell phone while driving is not advisable compared to just having a passenger in the car, not a technical point that it's a tiny bit more dangerous than driving with someone. The safety expert's goal is probably to increase safety in a meaningful way, not argue the difference between a risk level of 25% vs 26%.

Imagine that you drive for Uber and your boss brings a safety expert in, who gives this argument. If a member of the audience retorts, "Actually, speaking to a driver during a difficult driving situation does not significantly increase the risk of an accident, unless the speaker is providing helpful warnings", then that expert's argument is wrecked.

(I'm trying to convince myself as well lol... I only got this answer right through POE!)

I eliminated (C) because

• A practice that is "not uncommon" isn't necessarily super common. Maybe it just happens 50% of the time. That wouldn't be uncommon

• We already know that the artist created his own self-portrait. He could not have been his own live model during that self-portrait, since he was the one doing the painting. So, even if we assume that live model = the exact person depicted in the painting, we know that the artist in question doesn't always use these live models for his paintings. So, it wouldn't be out of left field for him to paint the battle scene without these exact live models. (D) doesn't do much to the argument

@Jackielynn I typed my explanation above.

@refatmuwalla356 You're right that we don't know if there are multiple causes (perhaps both human activity and a non-seven day cycle contribute to the phenomenon). However, if a non-seven day cycle were identified as the cause, there'd be no reason to think that human activity were the cause. It would destroy the support structure of the argument. We don't need to prove that a conclusion is false in order to destroy the support structure (it could still be true, but not based on this line of reasoning).

Necessary assumptions, by definition, must be NECESSARY to the argument—in other words, if negated, they should not just weaken but destroy the argument.

Why I selected (E):

Phenomenon: Weekends are cloudier than weekdays

Purported cause: Human activity

Reason: The few seven-day cycles that occur naturally are too insignificant to cause the phenomenon

Essentially, the author comes to the conclusion that X is the cause of a phenomenon because another potential cause, Y, is eliminated. But what if there's a third cause, Z? This argument assumes that there are only two potential causes, so eliminating one option means that the other is the cause.

(E) points out this necessary assumption in a complicated way.

The stimulus already ruled out seven-day cycles as the cause of the phenomenon. But what if other natural causes that aren't seven-day cycles caused it? This would wreck the argument—if it were true, we wouldn't be able to point the finger at human activity. So, the author must assume that it's false.

This is basically what (E) is saying: If the phenomenon is caused by something in nature, then that natural cause has a seven-day cycle. The contrapositive is helpful here: If there's no natural cause with a seven-day cycle, then the phenomenon is not caused by something in nature. We know that there's no natural cause with a seven-day cycle because the few seven-day cycles that occur naturally are too insignificant to cause the phenomenon. So, that premise triggers the contrapositive of (E), allowing us to conclude that the phenomenon is not caused by something in nature (to use the wording of (E), there is no weather pattern with a natural cause that has a seven-day cycle). This is a necessary assumption in the argument.

For people struggling with the explanation for passage (A), here's an alternate one that helped me:

"When, in the second paragraph, author A says that "duties of truth telling are not justified merely when they produce good outcomes", he implies that the truth doesn't always result in a good outcome, and thus implies further that sometimes better outcomes could be achieved by a lack of candor than with truthfulness. So, A indicates that a lack of candor might have a good outcome, but despite that there are moral considerations that override the benefit of those outcomes." (Adam Tyson, PowerScore)

I eliminated (C) because the author never implies the burden is unfair. Just because jurors have limitations and don't necessarily make the right call doesn't mean that courts are unfairly burdening them. What's unfair is the potentially false conviction of the defendant.

@Rena12345 An example of trying to independently guarantee the conclusion while ignoring the pre-existing support structure would be, "Reputable historians have documented that Guam has 40 times more spiders because of the introduction of the brown tree snake".

(A) does not independently guarantee the conclusion. It still rests on the same line of reasoning that the brown tree snake -c--> less birds -c--> more spiders. In fact, it strengths this line of reasoning (particularly the less birds -c--> more spiders part) because not only do birds prey on spiders and use their webs, but they also take some of the spiders' food. For all of these reasons, we are now more likely to believe less birds -c--> more spiders, and therefore more likely to believe brown tree snake -c--> less birds -c--> more spiders.

@rebg1995 "It likely leads to some convicted criminals' receiving sentence reductions that are unwarranted" just means that at least one of these instances has occurred. It doesn't mean that these instances frequently occur.

BR might reflect someone's understanding under non-timed conditions, but I don't think it's more accurate as a "true score" since the real LSAT is timed. I think that the most accurate predictor of a score would be an average of recent PTs, taken under timed testing conditions. Assuming that your testing environment will be quieter than the one at home, your timed tests might not be an accurate predictor, either.

It'll be hard for people who don't know you, your analytics, or your study schedule to tell you if a certain score is feasible by June. Personally, I think that expecting a 20 point score increase in less than 2 months is pretty unrealistic, especially if you have other responsibilities (work/school/kids). Think about your starting point—is a 20 point jump in 1.5 months realistic based on your rate of growth this past semester? But at the end of the day, I'm just a stranger on the internet. You know yourself best in terms of how much time you're able to put in, and how much growth is feasible.

Even if I get 100% on a drill, the score is typically lower than my average PT score. I assume PT scores are more accurate.

The premise is about the preferences of insects. The existence of pesticidal toxins doesn't explain that. Pesticides deter insects by killing them. Don't assume that pesticides deter insects because insects don't like to feed on them.

Powerscore provides a more in-depth explanation of (E) here: https://forum.powerscore.com/viewtopic.php?t=1476