I hated this question. It felt like all it was really testing was attention to detail, which is pretty unusual at this point in the section (#19 is usually one of the harder Qs).

On these types of NA questions, I find that turning answer choices like A into contrapositives is a good way to check my work (If a three month shortage did not cause a significant change, that drug does not make a difference in the duration of vertigo."

D is correct, because it basically nulls any conclusions we can draw from the "later studies." How can we at all conclude that an effect "disappears" if we do not yet have adequate evidence for the disappearance of that effect?

A: Maybe the nearsightedness doesn't develop until shortly after infancy. Doesn't really weaken the argument.

B: If the core of the argument is "if night-lights cause nearsightedness, the effect disappears with age," how does this answer at all weaken that argument? Is this questioning the disappearance of that effect in any way?

C: Not really what we are targeting here. How does knowing that people who slept with night-lights after infancy don't get nearsightedness do anything for us???

E: We don't care if SOME of a given sample aren't following the rule we are concluding. For an effect or relationship to be concluded, we don't need there to be an 100% rule that nearsightedness caused by sleeping with a nightlight ALWAYS disappears with age. There just needs to be a strong "effect." This does nothing to the argument–the study's authors might have still concluded that there was no correlation!

#1, funny band names.

This question is very difficult for its placement in the section.

A is correct, since we are making a band that ALREADY plays the exact same genre as Moral Vacuum have the EXACT same musical arranger, which, given the stimulus, seems absolutely critical to how the two bands put together their music. It makes The Cruel Herd even more like Moral Vacuum. 

B: "Widely employed" says nothing about quality, and given Jackie's niche interests, I think this would be a bad thing and hurt the argument.

C: I'm not sure this does anything. Maybe rappers also perform at those clubs. This does very little for our argument. Maybe Jackie is a fan of Moral Vacuum but actually dislikes their live performances.

D: Tricky, but how does this help more than A? It gives us NO reason for her to like The Cruel Herd specifically! 

E: The opposite of the lyrics the Cruel Herd is described to have. Doesn't help us.

WOW!

I didn't pick E, because I thought it was trying to weaken the argument by saying that the thriving of seed companies last year doesn't matter, because another seed company totally went out of business.

It actually is giving us an alternate explanation, in which the market share of the two cited seed companies expanded (and accounts for the 19% spike). Should have been suspicious of the dual 19% increase in the first place, and the crappiness of C. 

The conclusion is that it is unsurprising that TT has ordinary food despite its popularity, because it can just guarantee customers through the gate. D helps justify this kind of reasoning by pointing to a principle for why TT has ordinary food, or can have ordinary food.

I picked E, which is dumb, because the argument being made is that a less popular restaurant ( in terms of pure traffic ) might have BETTER food due to having to have better product to stay open; and that steady popularity will lead to less good food.

Should have re-read the stimulus.

B: Seems to point to Shakespeare NOT learning Euripides' Alcestis through an English translation, since Shakespeare's adaptation does not differ drastically from the original in the same way.

C: Points to an available Latin translation Shakespeare can use. 

D: Again, shows us Shakespeare learned Latin. Helps a little!

E: Proof that Shakespeare consistently wasn't using non-Latin translation for other plays.

We can get to A just through POE. A, besides, does nothing for us. Who cares if Shakespeare cribbed common Latin phrases? I use "vice versa" sometimes. It is just not as strong as the other ones here, and might actually weaken the argument by pointing to Shakespeare only using very common Latin phrases.

I found this fairly difficult, until I realized that B is giving us "if" where we want "only if."

A is correct, because the reasoning is essentially that as-is, programs are not accurately translating a user's spoken words, as exemplified by the sole example of distinguishing between homophones.

So, for it to follow that we need X thing to accurately translate a user's spoken words, we need to show that X thing is NECESSARY for helping with that sole example provided to us.

B: It could be true in the world of this question that most bills that WERE passed into law were ALSO not supported by even one member of a major party. This doesn't help.

C: We are trying to find evidence for why it won't pass, and especially for the argument that all 3 leaders not supporting will lead to a bill not passing

D: This seems to weaken the prediction!

E: Again, this means that several bills have passed into law without support by even one major party leader.

A: The only claim the scientist is contesting is that it is NECESSARY that a project's benefits be indicated, not that benefits are irrelevant. Not necessarily true

B: Not the claim being made; the scientist is just contesting the critics' argument for how to determine if a project is justified in receiving public funding

C: Tricky, but "justified" is never used in this context, just in the context of it receiving public funding. Definitely not necessarily ture

D: Opposite of what is being argued

E: Exactly what the scientist is contesting–that showing public benefits is not a requirement for a project to continue to receive public funding.

A: While this COULD be the correct answer in a field of weaker answers (this is MSS), it's not quite supported well enough here. There's a chance that if you sustain pulses of 95%, you get totally exhilirated and feel happy and less angry. It's also hard to prove a continuum with just three groups. Doesn't seem right. Maybe, also, a very low pulse rate is extremely nonbeneficial psychologically.

B: Totally works, and the kind of "weak" answer that MBT or MSS are sometimes made for. Cycling intensity is clearly affecting mood. The only issue here is "intensity" is not directly said in the stimulus, but we can assume that higher pulse = higher intensity cycling.

C: Not strongly supported, given we have no insight into pulses at, say, 62% (maybe that's the sweet spot!).

D: Way too strong.

E: Physically? This is about mood.

A: Well... maybe those hymns aren't written by Homer! Especially since we are told they were attributed "in ancient times," there's a decent chance that "in modern times" they aren't. Not strong enough to help us.

B: "Minor" copying errors and textual corruptions do not account for "great[]" differences in tone, vocabulary, and details of a world. Not enough.

C: Perfect: the idea that we can conclude that two works are not by the same author because they are different in significant ways is kind of cancelled out by this information. Modern versus non-modern doesn't matter much in this case. A good sign that sometimes parallel situations can be helpful on weakening questions (or strengthening questions).

D: Well, of course not? How would any long epic poem be completely consistent in tone???

E: This actually SUPPORTS the conclusion, by saying they AREN'T just the work of the same poet (and both works probably passed through different hands).

A: I mean it IS a universal principle. This is just how principles work on the LSAT.

B: The principle is about health. So who cares if other things outweigh health effects.

C: Given we're given a necessary condition, applying the claim this way would be fine. Not the mistake being made here.

D: Yes! Just because you might spend a LITTLE less time with other people, doesn't mean your social development is being detracted from. There's a leap, here.

E: Nope, this necessary-sufficient thing mistake is not made here. What's used in the application is a contrapositive.

I have come to love MBT / MSS questions. They are fun.

Stimulus: Series of premises, two methods of pasteurization, one of which is THE most effective bacteria-elimination method. McElligott's apple juices are flash pasteurized (i.e. not the most effective method) and its citrus juices are unpasteurized.

A: We have no clue, and if anything, the fact that the juices are unpasteurized might make us think that some other juices likely have less bacteria.

B: Citrus juice might naturally eliminate infectious bacteria (after all, it hasn't been linked to any infections!) and we are straight up told that the apple juice hasn't been pasteurized with the most effective method. Even if it had been, we can't compare apples and lemons.

C: We have no insight into what non-intensive pasteurization does to flavor. So we can't come to this conclusion.

D: We have no idea if intensive pasteurization is THE most likely to destroy flavor! We just know that it is likely to destroy it. Maybe flash pasteurization makes flavor non-existent.

E: Seems true, since intensive pasteurization is the most effective method. Again, this is not MBT: this COULD be false. But it is probably true.

A points to the termites being the actual cause of the fairy circles. 

After all, we already know that there are tons of termites in every fairy circle!

B: This points to it NOT being climate. But A actually points to it being a burrowing creature!

C: Useless

D: This might actually weaken the argument, by pointing to a shared environment for fairy circles and termites that might be contributing to both phenomena

E: We already know the termites are there! This is useless.

E would be wrong if this was a "must be true" question (we don't know if the scientists ONLY did these four actions, and they could have done many other actions that adult macaques do not do). But, given it is MSS, E is by far the best.

The only tempting answer is C, which doesn't work because we are assuming something out of nothing.

I am 90% sure this question was intentionally designed to hesitate before picking E because of concern that it might not be true.

Chose A, after thinking I was smart because C seemed like a trap at first ("we're looking for an answer that helps explain to what degree decaf damages tissue, not to what degree caffeine slows that damage!), before realizing that C really explains the difference in connective tissue damage...

C is perfect: it tells us that that difference in arthritis development is probably down to caffeine slowing degeneration, not decaf having "something" to make that degeneration faster.

It's a justify assumption question, so we need to find an answer that lets us automatically come to the conclusion that there is NO PURPOSE for a legal disclaimer.

A lets us do that. There are only two possibilities: either the email suggests the client do something illegal, or it does not. We've established that there is no need for the disclaimer if the email suggests an illegal action; we need to show that there is no need if it doesn't. Which A does.

The basic flaw:

New diseases were brought to Australia. But they probably didn't cause extinction, because no one disease could do all that damage. Basically, because no SINGLE disease (part) can do something, diseases as a whole can't do something.

A: Replicates the sentence structure, but not even remotely related to the flaw being used.

B: Directly replicates flaw, even if the structure is a little different (i.e. no "probably"). LSAC is clearly trying to trick people who are just mechanistically going through the strength of conclusions (and they got me). Lesson learned: I think in general, that strategy is less safe on parallel flaw questions. Neither SINGLE one of us can do something, so both of us as a WHOLE can't do something

C: Again, really similar to the sentence structure of the stimulus, but just not related to the part -> whole flaw. It is a solid, mostly fine argument.

D: This is more of a probably -> definitely flaw.

E: Not really replicating the flaw? Seems like a solid argument.

A is wrong because of the wording "all of the viewpoints," which the argument is simply not doing. B is wrong because "source of information" provision is not what it is going on here.

The core of this argument (which is sort of implicit?) is that people are going to remember weird, memorable things at an above average rate: for example, an extreme amount of babies born during a full moon night is more memorable than an extreme amount of babies born during a random moon night, because you take note of the full moon, and maybe there's also a latent popular folk belief of more babies being born during full moons. The nurses, as the argument goes, are just forgetting those full moon nights without a lot of babies.

Similarly, the author is saying that nurses are going to remember patients correctly predicting changes in medical status, because it is more memorable than patients incorrectly predicting changes. 

So, B is correct, because it defends this analogy: correct predictions are just being remembered at a higher rate, which is what the study is really reporting, since it is anecdotal. If we negate it–predictions are equally likely to be remembered regardless of correctness–the article seems more convincing, and doesn't seem to bear proper comparison with the baby case.

A: Who cares if it will soon be empirically disproven? We don't need that to be true to make the argument work. Negate it: it does not destroy the argument.

C: Negate it. If the patients were serious, would that destroy our argument? I think that would be fine.

D: We only need to assume that babies aren't born in disproportionately high numbers on full moon nights. Negate it: if babies were, say, equally likely to be born during full moons and non-full moons, that actually seems to help our argument by showing that the "disproportionately high numbers" thing is illusory.

E: Pretty immaterial

So dumb: I did not catch "lowering very high stress levels" and just read it as "lowering stress levels." I then eliminated B, thinking it was trying to trick me.

I felt this was a fairly difficult question, because each of the wrong answers felt like they could weaken the question. Most were just too big of a stretch.

A: I suppose this is saying that maybe it's just that acid rain that is continuing the decline of the fish population in Highwater Lake. But it doesn't say that Quapaw Lake isn't also susceptible to acid rain, which seems to be a constant that strengthens the argument.

B: The conclusion is the last sentence: this just absolutely destroys the argument.

C: Size doesn't matter, it's about relative decline in population.

D: Again, this is maybe trying to weaken the argument by saying that there is some other factor driving fish population increases, but maybe Quapaw and Highwater were the only lakes that were fished in; this fact does not really weaken the argument all that much.

E: Variety is irrelevant. Just trying to confuse us.

New favorite question, wow.

Struggled with this. I think, ultimately, A is worse than E in terms of strengthening, because while E provides an actual affirmative reason associating flying dinosaurs with living in and among trees, A gives us the opposite: instead of nesting in the trees, they are nesting beneath them. There are a host of reasons for why you might nest near trees (shelter, for instance, or maybe access to fruit); it is weird to imagine a flying dinosaur who regularly jumps out of trees nesting not in the trees... and instead at their base.