"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

#feedback Lamarck's belief isn't the same as A. His belief was that "an animal's use or disuse of an organ affected that organ's development in the animal's offspring". (A) is something that most or all biologists probably think is true—it makes sense that an organ's use or disuse can affect that organ's health and development.

(B) is almost a MBT, right?

I can't think of a scenario in which (B) could false other than this gap:

prepared to vote for [a bill] ≠ bill passed into law

If we're looking for an MBT, B is not one because it overlooks the possibility that representatives being prepared to vote for a bill doesn't necessarily imply that the bill is passed into law

@businessgoose I don't think I agree with that. I'm curious about where the 50% number came from—maybe even losing 25% of business due to a lack of indoor seating is enough to make a place fail, especially if it's surrounded by strong competitors.

#feedback The written explanation for (C) states that the analogy isn’t between the info processed by a brain and the info transmitted by the Internet. However, JY says that this is descriptively accurate (but the issue is that the analogy itself isn't the dubious part). So, these explanations seem to contradict

IMO, the written explanation is correct: "An analogy is a comparison between two different things that highlights their similarities to explain, clarify, or illustrate a complex idea." The analogy is between the brain and the internet, and similarities used to draw this analogy include how the brain and internet both transmit information from a complex collection (of either computers or neurons). So, the analogy isn’t really between the information processed by a brain and the information transmitted by the internet.

I did, however, appreciate JY's explanation about why the analogy itself wasn't the issue, rather the conclusion that was dubiously based on the analogy

Something that threw me off for (E) is that it discusses something that is "actually true", and the conclusion is that something "is not true". Along with the complex wording that I didn't have time to parse out, I erroneously eliminated it.

During blind review, I had time to break it down:

• If a particular thesis were correct: Appearance alone entirely determines whether or not something is considered a work of art 

• Showing that something would be impossible… is actually true:

  Warhol’s Brillo Boxes is considered a work of art, while an identical stack of ordinary boxes wouldn’t be

  The fact that one is considered a work of art and one is not would be impossible if appearance alone entirely determines whether or not something is considered a work of art, since these two are “visually indistinguishable”. However, the author asserts that this is true, concluding that the thesis is not. This matches (E)

Selecting (B): The conclusion is basically the contrapositive of the premise, with a flaw:

P: All farmers organically farm → /enough food

–––––––

C: Enough food → /organic farming spreads further

The contrapositive should've been:

Enough food → /all farmers organically farm

In order for the argument to stand, the author assumes that all farmers organically farm =  organic farming spreads further. (B) highlights that this assumption is questionable