andrewnrabe705

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Discussions

PrepTests ·

PT149.S3.Q3

andrewnrabe705

Sunday, Nov 18 2018

Actually I need to amend what I said. The Socrates example isn't a good illustration because Socrates being a man isn't strictly necessary to reach the conclusion that he's mortal (as that could be established by other means). So here's a better example:

That desk over there is one color and it is not purple.

Therefore, it is only brown.

A necessary assumption is that it is not yellow. But would a necessary assumption also be that "the desk is not yellow and is 3 feet tall"?

PrepTests ·

PT149.S3.Q3

andrewnrabe705

Sunday, Nov 18 2018

Clearly there's a term shift, but I wasn't particularly curious about that. My question is basically whether adding superfluous words pushes a statement into a category outside of necessary assumption. I agree that assumptions can be both sufficient and necessary. But a sufficient assumption is not necessarily necessary. Take for instance this reconfiguration of the classic Socrates deduction:

All men are mortal.

Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

A necessary assumption is that Socrates is a man. However, what if the question were to say that Socrates is a bearded man? The inclusion of having a beard does not seem necessary (though the statement remains sufficient) and would therefore seem to render the statement no longer necessary. My quibble with answer choice C on this question flows from the same logic.

PrepTests ·

PT149.S2.P3.Q14

andrewnrabe705

Wednesday, Nov 14 2018

For #14 I see that C is correct but I'm still having difficulty eliminating E. E questions whether A but not B discusses "the impact of social norms on creative output." JY emphasizes the 3 points in which author B states that the 3 norms operate like quasi-legal rights. But the rights are merely listed with no discussion of their consequence. I would think it is more natural to associate "impacts" with consequences and less natural to associate impacts with a statement that merely names the protection that the norms are thought to mirror.

Even if I concede that stating that norms mirroring legal protections amounts to a discussion of the impacts of social norms, there is the further problem that, from what I can glean from the text, author B does not include any specific discussion of the impact of the norms on creative output. Such discussion seems at best implied, and if so, something implied would not naturally seem to amount to something that passage B "discusses."

PrepTests ·

PT149.S3.Q24

andrewnrabe705

Wednesday, Nov 14 2018

This one reminds me of the Caligula strengthen question (#23) from section 1 of the exam, in which the correct answer doesn't jump out at you and you have to tease out or even extrapolate a bit as to how it strengthens. If you think about it, C clearly strengthens. But when we get into this territory of less direct and obvious strengtheners and you're already performing the cognitive gymnastics to make an answer choice work, it can be easy to misinterpret the consequences of an answer choice. E, for example, was attractive until I realized that it does the opposite of what we're looking for, and not just because it doesn't address actual quantity specifically:

We're talking about the number of reported tornadoes vs. the actual frequently of tornadoes. In the 50s, fewer were reported. If now more are being reported, it could be because the geographic range has expanded so as to relocate the frequency of tornadoes from where they went undetected to where they are being detected more frequently. If this is this case, it suggests that the actual number of tornadoes hasn't increased, but that they are simply more visible to more people. Answer choice E, in ruling this out, rules out an alternative explanation that would've supported the argument.

PrepTests ·

PT149.S3.Q2

andrewnrabe705

Wednesday, Nov 14 2018

I understand why the other answer choices are incorrect, but I was reluctant to choose E because it doesn't seem descriptively accurate. The conclusion is heavily qualified: "It is likely, therefore, that language developed primarily to facilitate animal domestication." The argument doesn't appear to be assuming that if something serves a purpose it "must" have developed to serve that purpose, as E suggests. Why is it that E is correct (aside from the fact that the other choices are less plausible) when it doesn't say that it is only "likely" (or the equivalent of likely) for the thing to have developed to serve a certain purpose?

#help

PrepTests ·

PT149.S3.Q3

andrewnrabe705

Wednesday, Nov 14 2018

C is clearly the best choice, but why doesn't the inclusion of "or all employers" push it out of the bounds of a necessary assumption and into the sufficient assumption category? For the argument to work (though further support would be needed) we don't seem to be required to assume that all employers use their employees as a means to their own ends.

#help

PrepTests ·

PT135.S4.Q26

andrewnrabe705

Tuesday, Nov 13 2018

C = The reasoning in the argument is flawed because the argument "assumes that, uh, you know, they're going to play volleyball"

PrepTests ·

PT135.S4.Q15

andrewnrabe705

Tuesday, Nov 13 2018

I understand how an outside actor cannot change the purpose of another actor's actions. For example, a legislature can enact a law to serve a specific purpose. Just because people don't respond to incentives within the law designed to function a certain way, it doesn't follow that the purpose of the law itself has changed.

Though I see how E is the "best" answer I also wonder just how relevant it is to supporting the conclusion. The statement “sole purpose was to encourage the circulation of ideas by giving authors the opportunity to derive reasonable financial reward from their works" can be anatomized as two parts: purpose and function. The (sole) purpose is encouraging the circulation of ideas. But copyrights fulfill this purpose by a function (by giving authors the opportunity to derive a reasonable financial reward from their works). This struck me as distinct from a purpose. The means by which someone performs an action is not the same thing as the reasons that motivate someone to perform the action.

If so, the fact that copyrights may outlive their authors would have no effect on the purpose because it would only alter the functional mechanism of the stated purpose, as the same ideas can still be circulated, but perhaps now to the benefit of the author's heirs. E's strength seems tethered to conflating purpose and function. This being an MSS question, however, perhaps such conflation is reasonable.

PrepTests ·

PT135.S1.Q8

andrewnrabe705

Monday, Nov 12 2018

The definition of illicit extends beyond moral and legal dimensions to encompass being inappropriate under rules more generally (see Oxford English Dictionary). This sweep includes the rules of logic, which don't permit the correlation-causation argument.

PrepTests ·

PT148.S1.Q5

andrewnrabe705

Sunday, Nov 11 2018

also responding to vandelay_industries (best username I've seen on here btw)

It's all in the stem!

A is a not a necessary assumption for the conclusion, for the reasons you outline. But the question doesn't ask for an assumption required by the conclusion; it's asking about the argument. A is a necessary assumption for the argument. If you deny A, then the only support provided for the conclusion is rendered irrelevant.

I was likewise reluctant initially to eliminate B. B would be closer to a necessary assumption if it said "all" of its predators instead of "any." My understanding is that any doesn't have to mean all. So the fact that it cannot escape some of its predators doesn't necessarily tell us that it's in danger of extinction.

PrepTests ·

PT148.S1.Q8

andrewnrabe705

Sunday, Nov 11 2018

I still don't see what C is preferable to E. To develop from small to large, three necessary conditions are listed: 1. spending less energy on finding food; 2. avoiding predators; 3. spending more energy on competition in mating

I see that C partially resolves the discrepancy by suggesting that otters will be able to spend less energy on finding food. So one of the three conditions is satisfied.

E seems to have the same effect. It suggests that the abalone in small form were able to avoid predators. Thus, like C, one of the three conditions is satisfied. I'm unsure why the point about selective pressure is relevant because the stimulus doesn't state that the large abalones flourished when they did come into existence. It only states that they did come into existence, and, under E's framework, perhaps attracted and were consumed by the otters. But the existing discrepancy (how it is that large abalones were able to come into existence given the three conditional requirements) seems roughly equally resolved by the two choices.

PrepTests ·

PT148.S1.Q3

andrewnrabe705

Sunday, Nov 11 2018

fun parse! (in BR of course)

PrepTests ·

PT143.S2.P2.Q14

andrewnrabe705

Thursday, Nov 08 2018

Is there an LSAT translation for "may/can/etc."? These possibility terms to me seem akin to "some" (1-100%) insofar as there being at least some possibility, and possibly a very high or even certain (perhaps unbeknown to the speaker) possibility?

I also had difficulty squaring what the author "would be most likely to consider" to be accurate with something that the author only stated merely "may" occur. But maybe, coupling a "most likely" question stem with the "strongly implied" low end of the RC precision spectrum, one can infer E, especially in light of structural considerations of the passage as a whole. If the author didn't actually think that there has been at least one occasion in history in which the phenomenon in E occurred, the passage as a whole starts to lose coherence.

#help (Added by Admin)

PrepTests ·

PT143.S1.Q11

andrewnrabe705

Wednesday, Nov 07 2018

I'm confused as to why E can be so easily dismissed. It seems to me that it weakens the argument, though possibly tenuously.

The basis of the claim that crime fell by 20% due to the policing strategy turns in part on that strategy being implemented to concentrate on areas with the most crime. Choice E states that crime is more evenly distributed in the city in question than in other cities. Under this framework, couldn't you argue that it's (somewhat) less likely that a policing strategy that focuses on areas with the most crime will reduce crime in a noteworthy way?

D also seems to have no necessary impact on the argument as written. The police chief is not explicitly arguing that his strategy is effective insofar as being "good" at reducing crime. He is arguing that the drop in the crime rate is "the result of" his strategy. So notwithstanding the 20-30 disparity, that the national rate decreased by 30% doesn't seem immediately relevant. Rather, it arguably strengthens his argument: if his policing strategy is unique and yielded results different from the average, then perhaps the 20% (instead of 30%) drop was indeed the "result of" his policing strategy.

PrepTests ·

PT143.S1.Q22

andrewnrabe705

Wednesday, Nov 07 2018

Alternatively:

Part: Cheaper products

Whole: More economical to shop where the cheaper products are sold

Even if the products at coops were always cheaper than those at supermarkets (which as already discussed isn't guaranteed), it wouldn't necessary follow that it is more economical to shop at coops. Maybe, say, coops are located farther away, offsetting savings from price differentials.

Choice A parallels this flaw. But C does a better job overall by also including the "tend to" qualification and its attendant logical difficulties.

PrepTests ·

PT133.S1.Q21

andrewnrabe705

Friday, Nov 02 2018

Isn't E a flawed argument though?

The stimulus refers to calls on a twofold qualification, i.e. calls that are long-distance and on the Discount Phoneline. The answer choices parallel this twofold qualification by discussing not just university classes but university classes that "involv[e] extensive lab work."

E's conclusion seems to me not to parallel that qualification, because its conclusion only refers to "a university class" and we know nothing about university classes that do not involve "extensive lab work."

In real time I read through the answer choices and ended up guessing on another choice because E seemed flawed to me for that reason. When do we know that we can discount seeming inconsistencies like these on parallel questions?

LSAT

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Sunday, Oct 21 2018

andrewnrabe705

Weaken Q's "Conclusion" v. "Argument" Semantics

I know that for weaken questions we're supposed to be critical of how the premise(s) support the conclusion (e.g. select the answer choice that "most weakens the argument" (an argument of course comprising one or several premises and a conclusion). But what if the question stem is cast in weaken form but refers only to the "conclusion"? For example, a stem might ask for which choice "casts the most doubt on the conclusion above." Is there a distinction to be drawn between these stems insofar as what the test is asking the test-taker to do? In other words, if I'm asked to weaken exclusively the conclusion, should I pay no attention to premises and select the answer choice that would simply weaken the conclusion, or do I need to without exception be cognizant of the premise-conclusion relationship?