@Jasmith831 We only care about the level of support compared to the other answer choices. A, B, D, and E are not supported at all. C is weakly supported, but that's better than nothing. It's the "most strongly supported", not "strongly supported".

To be slightly annoying about it, your comment commits a comparative vs absolute flaw. The question didn't ask which was strongly supported, only which was the most strongly supported.

The guy with $10 in his bank account is still the richest guy in the room if everybody else only has $1.

@lawschoolsoon I've had the same complaint for a long time, but as I've gotten older I've come to appreciate this approach more. It very effectively communicates that there's something you should have caught that you didn't. That's a signal you're either not paying close attention or missing something fundamental and need to go back to basics.

I picked the "no shit" wrong answer, and I realized that I had fully not processed the phrase "a given region". I needed to actually read and understand the AC, but I skimmed it. It is obvious if you're reading closely. If you're not reading closely, then it's not obvious.

@Jordanabel "Congested" tells us that the speed is slower. There isn't really a way for a road to be congested while cars are moving at high speeds.

@GoGo Thank you, this is the best explanation I’ve seen so far.

@PowerUp_Tutoring It still feels like a “nuh-uh” answer. I understand it, it just feels bad.

Does it even count as getting the question right if I already knew the answer from learning about sharks in school? Calling it even.

The conclusion was that eyewitness errors are common. Wouldn’t judges routinely instructing juries on the tendency of eyewitnesses to make mistakes strengthen this argument? We have no idea if the instructions work, or if the jurors listen to the judges. Other questions ding you for making similar assumptions.

@christinacag704209 You gotta watch out for the assumptions you make automatically! That mistake gets me all the time.

Thank goodness I re-read the stem. I was answering based on the development commission's argument for like a minute and a half before I realized that I was evaluating the wrong speaker's argument! After that, it was a piece of cake.

I think this same stimulus is used in another question, which caught me off guard. Something about the concentration of the sap increasing as the water evaporates? It was a phenomenon-hypothesis question.

@amartino123139 Unless they're asking about the second speaker, then their argument may rely on context from what the first speaker said.

Well... at least I answered it way under time.

@Great1720 Even though they didn't provide the data, they both claimed that their conclusion was supported by data. It's the "9/10 dentists agree" phenomenon. No data cited, but you act as though there is data there. You're right that for all we know these guys could both be bullshitting. Solnick and Hemenway could be AI hallucinations, or have said something totally different. But it doesn't matter in the context of this question. They both asserted their hypothesis to be supported by data, so E is correct.

Sometimes author's opinion questions feel like reading tea leaves. The "tacit" here is pure evil.

That being said, I understand why it's the correct answer. In order for an author to be indifferent about the subject of their passage, they'd literally have to say "I don't much care one way or the other about this, but since you asked here's a bunch of detailed facts about a subject." Otherwise, they clearly have an opinion because they're taking the time to write about it. Still frustrating, but ultimately fair.

I've run into questions in the past that have an inverse sort of answer choice. The author "doesn't explicitly endorse" a view. I'm struggling with the relevance of the distinction between implicit and explicit support.

The thing that I find frustrating about this question is that the correct answer assumes that the predator insects do die during the wetland drought, but that the mosquito larvae do not die during the wetland drought, which itself could be a whole RRE question. That's why I picked D, since I thought it more plausible that there's some specially adapted mosquito than the drought only killing predators and not prey. Maybe I should make friends with more wetland biologists lol

In order for the reasoning to match, we need to validly match the clearer rephrase to the original phrasing.

A /arrested -> /break law TF break law -> arrested (matches, valid, clearer)

B /arrested -> /break law TF arrested -> break law (no match, invalid)

C has grant -> successful TF successful -> has grant (no match, invalid) [I picked this one, poor diagramming on my part. Confusion about no/without, but I need to remember that No X without Y just translates to X -> Y.)

D has grant -> successful TF /has grant -> /successful (no match, invalid)

E has grant -> successful TF allowed to research -> has grant (no match at all, totally irrelevant)

Same boat. Getting on meds helped me a ton. I also exercise at least 3x per week, and try to spend time with friends as much as possible. Worrying about just the next thing I have to do has helped tamp down on anxiety as well. Focusing on moving my body to do the next task, and not about the whole system of tasks, has helped with my consistency and volume of work in most cases.

@SusanLeifker Absolutely fell into the same trap.

I fully misread the correct answer choice and thought that it was discerning between different critics' views, not the different views of the same critics. I eliminated it as a nonsense answer that was trying to trap me on the fact that the contradictory views were coming from the same critics. Yet again, I need to read a little more slowly and closely.

@TOMCRUISE The problem I find with the indicators is that for any argument structure more complicated than premise -> conclusion, they will start to break down. For instance, any argument with a major premise/subconclusion is liable to have "so" or "therefore" or "thus" pointing to the major premise. If you go solely based on indicators, then you can more easily mistake the major premise for the conclusion of the argument as a whole. Focusing on the ideas themselves and which ones support the others I find to be more consistent. And in reality we might not see these indicators. Like JY says, any list of indicators will be both over- and underinclusive. If the goal is to not just win the LSAT, but become a better arguer (and eventually attorney), then moving on from word matching to understanding the argument holistically is an important step we should all be taking.

@MorganLSAT Straight up. The hide answer feature is so much jankier now. And they had the gall to put the little “accessibility” symbol right next to the new, janky toggle 😑

I’m glad I can edit the font size and that theoretically the change means it’s harder to cheat (totally unclear on the mechanism for that prevention but whatever).

@dh2303 Paragraph 4, Sentence 1:

But even if the process Steele and his colleagues describe is possible, does it ever actually occur?

The referent of "the process" is the carrying of altered DNA from immune to reproductive cells via viruses in its entirety. The passage only claims that reverse transcription is possible, and only refers to other people's skepticism regarding its plausibility. Since the process was not stated to be directly observed by the passage, direct observation of at least one part of that process would strengthen the argument by lending credence to the mechanism for Lamarckian evolution that Steele et al posited.

@TingZhu It didn't have to be the first in the US at all, just the best attempt so far at "founding a truly national black theater". If African American theater culture was confined to large eastern cities, that excludes large swathes of the nation (small cities, non-eastern cities, and places that aren't cities). C establishes that the FTP's Negro Units were better at being national black theater than any preceding black theater.

I talked myself out of the right answer. D provides an alternate explanation for the actual phenomenon. B provides an alternate explanation to a phenomenon that I imagined by misreading the stimulus. I replaced "most" with "all".

A, C, and E are not alternative explanations to the phenomenon in question either.

The universal solution to burnout is take a break and think about why you're doing what you're doing. Rest will always help.

The introspection can lead in different directions. What were your reasons for pursuing this in the first place? Do you still feel the same way about your original motivations, or have they changed? Upon reflection, are you burnt out because you are overworking yourself and you're sick of the grind? Or have you lost sight of what motivated you in the first place?

To use a little LSAT speak: One can spend their time successfully studying for the LSAT only if they are well rested and feel motivated to succeed. Burnout usually comes from failing one of these necessary conditions.

Also anecdotally, the compulsion to optimize is often my worst enemy. I spend more time worrying if what I'm doing is optimal and less time actually doing the thing. Taking a break feels especially scary because you're spending the time not studying, and studying feels like progress. But studying while burnt out is way less efficient than studying while you're rested and relaxed, and can lead to giving up if you're not careful and you try to push through too hard. I'm not a tutor or anything, but I'd recommend taking at least a couple of days off and doing things you enjoy. Maybe think a bit about your motivations, and hold on to those to help you get through the drills as well. Come back better.