Are you able to recount a speech that you gave in a play from five years ago in great detail, Gordy? 🤨

#help Is it a problem at all that the stimulus presents necessary conditions and mistakes them for sufficient while the correct answer choice presents sufficient conditions and mistakes them for necessary? Should we consider sufficiency / necessary confusion to be the same as necessary / sufficient confusion? At least for questions where they don't specify a difference in the answer choice? I think that's what may have thrown me on this question.

Agreed. It's unfortunate that the interpretation of 'state of affairs', as vague as it is, is the determining factor in getting this wrong or right. I do think a pretty coherent argument could be made that this is an equally legitimate take so it's interesting that this question has stood the test of time. Also not sure what to do with this.

Thanks Kevin. I put D, which is admittedly a poor answer, because I thought it was the least bad answer, or MSS. I think generally my biggest weakness with LR is that I don't know when it's acceptable to make a leap or assumption. Sometimes it seems any moderately sized leap is immediately disqualifying, while other times it's glossed over as 'close enough', and I can't seem to find consistency. I do this all the time - recently missed PT 120 s1 q16 because of this issue in that I didn't think we could appropriately equate 'try to be better' with 'make efforts to live by moral standards'.

If you have any advice that might clear the way for this kind of thing I would be endlessly grateful. Your RC programme really helped me get over a similar gap in that part of the exam.

#help How is it 'close enough' to equate 'try to be good' with 'make efforts to live by moral standards'? I don't understand this. I understand that D isn't well supported, but we have been encouraged throughout the entire curriculum to not make massive leaps / assumptions such as that which is required to select answer choice B. Moral standards are not mentioned once in the stimulus and surely mean a completely different thing. It's more than a little frustrating that JY doesn't acknowledge this and simply skips past it, when this would be the determining factor in ruling this answer choice out in another question. I can hear him saying 'moral standards? where did we talk about moral standards? I know that hypocrisy leads to good, but nothing about moral standards' #feedback

How are we supposed to know which 'argument' is being referred to in this question? Could this not be referring either to the 'T rex argument' or to the 'author's argument' that the former was too hasty? I got this right after much deliberation, but I thought for awhile about A as it would seem that the T rex argument people's argument was inconsistent with the 'conclusion' which is that the former was too hasty. Because how could an argument be consistent with a second argument saying the former was too hasty. Anyone have any insight here about how to tell which argument is being referred to when there are two?

I also got it wrong, despite recognizing that E was present. I really thought main conclusion is that she's polarizing the nation when it's pretty obvious the national temperature could be what's causing the changes in her column? I don't really understand why JY is discounting this so much. How is the first argument that's being made that sound? He presents a bit of evidence and doesn't consider cause and effect, and this surely is a big flaw. I thought it was a more critical flaw than doing what E points out. Btw, since when can one stimulus have two different arguments from one person - then they don't clarify which argument they're talking about when they're asking for the flaw? Be serious

I completely agree. I'm not sure why Schoenberg's opinion of his own music would have any relevance to the author's opinion when the author hasn't weighed in at all. I suppose 'inexplicable departure' may be too strong? But given that he was apparently a musical pioneer I'm not sure 'natural progression' is any better of a description? I'm not sure how this question hasn't been thrown out if JY's explanation is what the writers were going for.

#help, this is a significant problem for this question, with several likes, and no answer despite being asked over a year ago...

I am also having this issue. Does anyone have any ideas that aren't in the forum already? Not so much an issue because it repeats information in the stimulus, but does the fact that historians are unsuccessful in dating something actually mean that these events cannot be reliably dated? Perhaps they can, with a different method? Surely this is a ridiculous assumption that would never be warranted on an LSAT question?

#help Does 'in evolutionary terms' in answer choice C not reduce its accuracy? I get the issue with B, but is the author of passage B actually taking issue with explaining something 'in evolutionary terms' or is he merely suggesting there may be more to the story than the evolutionary mechs?

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Brilliant thank you Kevin, this makes good sense.

Similar question but about A - can we eliminate it without looking at passage B? Could 'method of analysis' be interpreted to be just 'a neutral / dispassionate one'? Would you say my doubt of this means I don't have the stomach for the split method or this a normal doubt until you really get the hang of it?

Thank you Kevin! What a speedy and reassuring response. I am your #1 fan.

#help Kevin / JY can you spell out a bit more about how you'll know if you were too aggressive? You say there's a built in error-correction-mechanism, but what does this actually look like? Do you mean that when you read passage B you'll know the answer to this particular question must have been D and not B, presumably because of some smoking gun you find in passage B which shows it to be totally unconcerned with historians avoiding bias?

And if this were the case, how would you keep the question straight in your head if you've already 'moved on' from it, confident in the overly aggressive stance?

Seconded, #help Kevin can you weigh in on this?

#help JY where are you getting that the author makes a value judgement that predator populations should be used to keep pests in check? The author says that in some cases they are the only option and that parathion usage specifically is ill advised (presumably because it only kills the predator and not the pest?), but the author makes no claim about where predator populations should be used or whether or not they should be - just that they are sometimes necessary. I got 24 correct, but I don't see anything in the text which supports it.

Hi Kevin. Do you think, for those just starting off in improving their RC skillz, that you should get in the habit of jotting down physical notes and then transition to mental notes as it becomes second nature? Or do you think that one should practice mental notes entirely until it clicks? Thanks

#help Would answer choice C be the correct answer if this were a sufficient assumption question? Given that it would certainly guarantee the truth of the conclusion? #feedback I wish JY would point this out more often as I think that's the more crucial recurring theme than what he's explained in this question.

Hey - let me know if the below example helps w/ regard to the negation test. But for your question, yeah. If the correct answer choice is contradicted (i.e not true) then it will destroy the argument in the stimulus. If an answer choice can be contradicted without necessarily ruining the argument in the stimulus, then it's not necessary / needed.

Ex using the fat cat, salmon trash can situation. Sorry for the low effort answer choices. Detective suspects it's the cat based on the evidence he gives. Which of the following is a necessary assumption?

a) cats can be fat and cute

b) cats are capable of knocking down a trash can

c) cats are always adorable

d) if a cat is adorable, then it is also fat

e) "other irrelevant answer choice"

Correct answer choice is B. Using the negate test, if B is not true (i.e if cats really aren't capable of knocking down a trash can), then the entire argument falls apart. It couldn't have been the obese cat knocking down the trash can to get the salmon if cats are incapable of doing so. This is also an example of the correct answer being necessary but not sufficient because the very fact that cats are capable of knocking down a trash can doesn't mean the obese feline in question did it. It not only is not sufficient to bring about the detective's conclusion, but it also barely moves the needle / barely strengthens the argument. There are lots of things still that could've knocked the trash can over.

Hope this is somewhat helpful.

I think this is a sus at best question and answer combination. The behaviour of the meerkat which is being credited as 'evidence' to the supposedly altruistic intentions of the sentinel meerkat isn't even remotely altruistic. It could well be the case that this behaviour (barking to alert the others) is its job and it's compensated for that job via a lower fatality rate and thus a higher percentage chance of having progeny and carrying on its genetic lineage (and this is actually the likely answer in nature).

Is the person making the argument in this question not presupposing that the action is altruistic without providing any evidence? Who says the evidence supports an altruistic conclusion? The argument definitely (wrongly) assumes the barking is because of the cause they suspect, but it is also certainly presenting evidence that presupposes the behaviour is in support of the conclusion, i.e answer choice B.

The question is asking which of the following is a questionable tactic used - so the writers have said only answer choice A is a tactic used when answer choice B could be a tactic also used. How has this answer stood the test of time without being redacted? Am I missing something?

But answer choice D doesn't say that the second and third studies were shit and that there was nothing we could conclude from them though, right? It says that the studies did not examine enough children to provide significant support for any conclusion regarding a causal relationship, which the doctor isn't even making. The doctor is saying that if there were a causal relationship, then it probably dissipates with age. But the data he collected was merely correlation based in all of the three studies. So, regardless of whether or not the second and third studies were good enough to draw causal data (and how could this even be done!), it says nothing about correlation, which is actually the only data the doctor mentions. Why does it seem that these crucial details / differences make all the difference in questions, until suddenly they become trivial?

Put another way, does the fact that we can't draw causal data from the second and third studies matter at all if the only data the scientist had drawn from any of the three studies in the first place was only that of correlation? The rest, as per the stimulus, comes from the doctor's imagination for all we know.

#help

Hi Juliet, I've read the new explanation, and unfortunately I don't think it really answers the core of the problem yet. The explanation says that answer choice C is baiting us to misinterpret the claim in the stimulus that 'hunters kill no fewer deer today'. He says the statement means that the total number of deer deaths attributable to hunters collectively is either the same or higher today than compared to the 60s, but this isn't an assumption, it's inherent ambiguity in the English language. Basically, how are we to tell between the two below interpretations? If we cannot, then C is not only allowed, but a good answer, and probably a better one than A.

Interpretation 1 (the apparently correct one): hunters kill no fewer deer today. i.e hunters collectively kill no fewer deer today. In this interpretation, answer choice C would be a terrible answer choice, and as JY says it would be explicitly said to be contrary.

Interpretation 2: hunters kill no fewer deer today. i.e hunters individually kill no fewer deer today. In this interpretation, answer choice C would be a great answer choice, because even if individual hunters have not improved their deer kill counts there are fewer of them to kill deer, a superb explanation if there ever was one.

The problem that I'm having, and it seems I'm not alone in having it, is that 'hunters' can explicitly mean individual hunters or 'hunters' as a collective group, both are grammatically correct, and neither is the more reasonable interpretation. Is it possible that the interpretation of 'hunters' is irrelevant to the reasoning for why it's wrong and that maybe it just doesn't explain the full phenomena- as in, deer hunter kill counts (individually or collectively) wouldn't explain why the wolf populations and other predator populations have increased too, while answer choice A does? I would think trading on the literal ambiguity of the word 'hunters' would cause the question to be discarded, but then I don't know how independent the review panels really are I guess.

#help can any LSAT tutor explain why it's a more reasonable assumption that an actor in a play would not have a copy of the play and not know enough about the play to do better than a 'slipshod handling' than it is to assume that a spectator remembered the lines of his favourite character? These two assumptions at the very least seem to be very similar in terms of reasonableness, so how should we go about determining the (un)reasonableness of assumptions in cases like this? If it is up for debate about which of the two sets of assumptions is more ridiculous, wouldn't that mean there isn't actually a conclusive answer here? I thought it was the case that there are four horribly wrong answers and one definitively correct one. Any help would be much appreciated as this seems to be a very important LSAT skill generally.