PT 88.1.14

"infers a specific causal relationship from a correlation that might well have arisen from another cause"

PT 81.1.22

"the argument relies on a premise that pressuposes what the argument attempts to show in the conclusion"

I think an important distinction I did not make while reading the answer choice is that we are trying to weaken the idea that the trace elements could have an alternative source and that they do not have to come from this mine. This is different than a lot of archaeological questions that are on previous PTs that discuss "this object has this shared quality so it must be from X civilization or X location." That is a lot shakier argument because it could be subjective and new information could come out. In this example, however, we are more focused on looking at the trace element similarities, and answer choices such as B, C, D, and E all hinge on who made the artifact or where it was found or it might have moved locations. But none of that changes or questions the idea of its composition.

Let me know if this makes sense because I might totally be off the mark.

how did it go?

Not only that, probably already started their own law firm, too.

I plan on taking it in November, so count me in!

Gotcha, thanks!

I had trouble with this both during timed and during BR. I just couldn't see where D would fit but like always I missed a crucial distinction that I didn't read carefully.

The way the argument is structured in the stimulus is like this:

1. the first sentence (major premise) states a correlation/relationship and shows how glutamate in the blood is correlated with post-stroke nerve cell loss

2. the second sentence (premise) describes the process of how glutamate can be released into the blood. The important distinction that I did not make was that it is normally found in the nerve cell and is found in the blood (first sentence) is abnormal.

3. the third sentence (conclusion) gives a conclusion that glutamate leaking from nerves cells causes long-term brain damage.

Some mistakes that I usually make during these later questions are 1) not being active enough while reading to question everything and 2) not mapping out the info specifically and seeing how it would be a valid conclusion.

In this case, answer choice D says that "leakage from damaged or oxygen-starved nerve cells is the only possible source of glutamate in the blood."

- this means that the second sentence is "activated" and therefore glutamate being found in the blood is from leakage in the nerve cell and we know leakage from nerve cells kills surrounding cells.

For the more recent exams and more difficult questions, I feel like it is more so a process of eliminating wrong answers and focusing on-premise and conclusion rather than picking out the right answer that fits perfectly. Almost every question I got wrong on this set was due to my failure in not eliminate answers that do not help or are not focused on the premise/conclusion specifically.

Sort of tricky but I got trapped but the weird way they said everything

translation:

-People allergic to cats are actually allergic to the proteins found in cats' saliva and their skin secretions

- the specific proteins that people are allergic to vary from person to person

- all cats have the proteins responsible for causing allergies

- but not all people are allergic to cats

A - any particular individual will be allergic to some breeds of cat but not to others

-does not necessarily have to be true

-the last sentence says that “but not all” indicating some people won't be allergic

B- No cat is capable of causing an allergic reaction in all types of allergy sufferers

no reason to support this

- too strong

-no support

D(original answer) - the allergic reactions of some people who are allergic to cats are more intense than the allergic reactions of other allergy sufferers

-I crossed off most of the answers other than this and C and didn’t really translate C to see how weak it was

-makes an unsupported jump talking from different allergies to different intensities for allergy sufferers

-the intensity wasn’t really discussed and this isn’t really supported

-this would be more “bringing in real-world knowledge” into this question

-I struggled to choose this but didn’t translate the correct answer to see how weak and actually supportive it was compared to this one, which carries little to no support

E - there is no way to predict whether a given cat will produce an allergic reaction in a particular allergy sufferer

-too strong for an MSS

-no info or reason to support this

Correct answer –

C- Not all cats are identical with respect to the proteins contained in their skin secretions and saliva

- this answer makes a lot more sense because they said that which particular proteins are responsible varies from sufferer to sufferer

-therefore we can say that they don't all have the same proteins since that would lead to the same effects

I cannot believe I got this question wrong, but oh well. I have to make sure not to fall for the same mistake twice.

A- In poor weather, only half as many planes are allowed to land each hour on any one runway at the airport as are allowed to land on it in good weather

- this doesn't have to be true. Just because they allow 30 planes per hour in bad weather versus 60 planes per hour during good weather, what if flights are delayed so that in bad weather they land 15 planes while in good weather they land 60?

- Also this says one runway while the stimulus says adjacent runways

B (original answer) - When the weather at the airport is good it is likely that there are planes landing on two adjacent runways at any given time

-I chose this because the language “likely” and the first sentence made it something that I thought can be supported

-However, this is wrong for a couple of reasons:

- at any given time? Does that mean there are constantly two planes coming in? I feel like this is a stretch and makes the language too strong. If it said. “when the weather at the airport is good, it is more likely that there are planes landing on two adjacent runways at one time as opposed to bad weather” that would be great

- we also know that just because they can land simultaneously during good weather does not mean they have to or they actually do

-This definitely is not as supported as the correct answer choice and the leaps to get to this makes it problematic

C- If any two of the airport’s runways are used simultaneously, serious delays result

- this is definitely not true or not known. What if during good weather, they run smoothly

- I think if it said, “If during bad weather two runways are used simultaneously, there might be delays” that would be a lot stronger and more supported, especially because of the weak language

D - Airlines using the airport base their schedules on the assumption that more than 30 planes an hour will be allowed to land at the airport

- this must be correct because of the following:

- we know that they allow 60 planes during good weather and 30 planes during bad weather.

- we know that they assume good weather

- therefore we know that they schedule more than the bad weather allowance during their schedules

-I didn’t choose this originally because I thought B would be stronger, but I honestly might have given B more credit after first choosing it and less credit to this correct answer choice

-this is way more provable than B

E - In good weather, there are few if any seriously delayed flights at the airport

there is just no way of knowing or confirming this

Takeaways: For MSS questions, be sensitive to when answer choices begin assuming or going too broad. Always ask yourself: can this be inferred from the stimulus and is it provable with as least assumptions as possible? are the premises and conclusion and their support structure leading to this answer choice?

Got this wrong because I didn't see the simplicity in the argument and went to answer choices without a translated idea of the stimulus.

A- Computers cannot currently be made faster unless their CPU chips are made smaller

this must be true. If it was the case that the computers can be made even when CPU chips are smaller, then the argument would not hold

- I didn’t know, during timed, how to really negate this, and more so I didn’t see the simplicity in the argument because of all the complicated fluff added.

B (original answer) - Even if CPU chips are made slightly less sophisticated, they cannot currently be made much smaller

this is incorrect because we can have CPU chips be made more sophisticated and we don't necessarily know if that would force the chips to be made smaller or stay the same size if we were to negate this, it would say: “...CPU chips can be made smaller” so what?

Our conclusion is that because we cannot make CPU chips smaller, we cannot make computers faster.

The assumption is that these two must be connected. What if we can make the computer faster through other means, such as by adding additional CPU chips to one computer or adding a faster RAM/processor/etc.?

I didn’t see the simplicity in this argument which basically comes down to Making X (computer chips) smaller tends to increase the speed of computers. But we cannot make X smaller, therefore we cannot make computers faster. What if there are Y and Z that also make computers faster?

C- If both the size and sophistication of a CPU chip are decreased, the speed of that chip will decrease

-we don't really care for hypotheticals or the sophistication of chips. We are ultimately trying to connect the idea/strengthen or just provide necessary help to the conclusion that chips cannot be made smaller and therefore computes cannot be made faster

D- Few, if any computer manufacturers believe that computers can be made significantly faster

- we have no care for what manufacturers believe

E- Increasing the sophistication of a CPU chip without increasing its size will proportionally increase its speed

- is this necessary? No. What if increasing the sophistication of a CPU chip will decrease speed? It doesn’t harm our argument

Takeaway: Make sure to parse and translate stimulus. See how it simplifies and what obvious assumptions it makes. Be sensitive to the support and focus on the conclusion.

This is a great. Are there any weaken questions you know of throughout our practice where you have seen it be displayed and the correct answer is demonstrating inconsistency as opposed to weakening the support structure?

Okay, I messed up thinking it was D because I thought "oh if they are new voters, they must not be in the eligible roster to have gotten polled therefore they would be unrepresented in the poll." But J.Y completely shut that down because even if you did become eligible six months ago, we are assuming that they are part of the "all eligible" survey and were represented. For timeline issues with C and D, the stimulus says "just before the election" so it supersedes any six months or year changes. A and B don't help but just give us facts we either know or are irrelevant to us. Finally, at first, I thought E wouldn't help because just because they view the election as more important doesn't help us. But the key "reasonable" implication is that if they thought it was more important than they would be more likely to "make sure to show up" and if the other candidate is an incumbent and everyone thought he was going to win, they would be less likely to show up to the actual voting.

@jhaldy10325 Love that you are doing these. Are you planning on hosting another one in the near future?

#help For question 20, where do we find support that the author generally "liked" or "supported" Planck's hypothesis?

I would love to be added! Great idea!

Congrats and thank you for sharing your journey. These are some great general tips. Do you have any specific methods that led you to see improvement in your LR? I'm currently sitting at -4 to -7 consistently and havent been able to knock it lower. I have read the loophole but I need to revisit the concepts, as you mentioned. Do you remember something "clicking" as you went about doing more problem sets? Did you ever focus on certain LR question types or did you use a wrong question journal to track all the questions you got wrong? Thanks.

This one was tricky, and originally I got this incorrect, but after BR I re-read it and realized that I had flipped the sufficient and necessary conditions. The sentence stated, "had either one or the other phenomenon failed to occur, this world would be consistent with the economy as a whole being healthy." I originally thought this meant that if the real estate was healthy or car sales were up, then that means the economy would be healthy. One of these is answer choice C, "if the real estate market is healthy, then the economy would be healthy."

Now I understand, before watching the explanation, that the idea that "the other phenomenon failed to occur..." means that if the economy is healthy, then either car sales would be up or the real estate market would be healthy or both. Of course, because this is an MSS and there are a lot of relative language means that it is not a true conditional but rather a probable or most conclusion. That is answer choice D.

This and question 13, I remember picking the answer knowing that I might have messed up but I said "oh well, I think it's right." Instead, I have to be more strict with myself with questions that have guaranteed answers available, such as MSS, MBT, and SA questions.

Weird for a first question and surprised that I got this was wrong. Initially chose D even though I think I had a pre-phrase in mind that there could be other conditions affecting tides. The problem with D is that it is too broad in scope and thus isn't the flaw in the argument. The stimulus goes from talking about tidal ranges and gravitational forces to then concluding that gravitational forces can entirely explain the magnitude of tidal ranges. What if there are other reasons/variables involved? (this is usually the cookie-cutter pre-phrase similar to question 25 in the same set.)

#help (Added by Admin)

Hey!! I didn't get a chance to attend but wanted to ask if you would be holding similar meetings/programs in the future? Thanks

Congratulations!! If you can, I'm sure everyone would love to hear a brief journey about going from that 140 mark to your 174. Tips on how to improve each section that you think would help others. How to continue after plateuaing, how to analyze your mistakes and make the most of your time? One specific question is regarding your technique for going from the 160s to the 170s and what you found worked best for you. Thanks so much.

This is an interesting question with the right answer choice only being apparent after watching JY's explanation. I originally chose B because I thought that if the artists were guided by previous works, then maybe their art isn't as rebellious as claimed. But honestly, that refutes the wrong premises.

Instead, B is just talking about the motivations of the artist of the 1960s, which is irrelevant.

I think what was important was to see the apparent discrepancy between the premises and conclusions. This sort of reminds me of question 16 in this set and honestly now that I am working on more questions I can see a pattern between identifying the gap between the premise and conclusion and then honing in on identifying/blocking/bridging/denying the assumption dependent on the question.

The assumption was that these 18th-century European aesthetic theorists developed the best and most complete theory of aesthetic theory. Because if they didn't, how are we going from their view on something to a general claim about aesthetic theory not being complete?