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angarce01261
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I'm going through the curriculum right now and I'm up to LR pseudo-sufficient questions. There were some lessons in which I felt sort of weak on (for example weakening questions), though I feel compelled to just keep going as I want to finish the curriculum in the allotted time I originally planned in my study schedule. How often should old lessons be reviewed? Should I drill down those lessons before going on? Or should I just keep going, finish the curriculum and then go back and review old lessons?

0
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PT104.S4.Q15
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angarce01261
Tuesday, Jun 2, 2020

So how I'm understanding this is that getting this question right depends on your understanding of subjectivity vs objectivity. Subjectivity in this context means arriving at a standard of beauty dependent upon another (earlier) culture's standard of beauty. Objectivity in this context means arriving at the same standard of beauty as another culture's standard of beauty INDEPENDENT of any connection between the two. We want to weaken the author's position that beauty is objective, and therefore say it is subjective. This is what C does.

I got this question wrong because the way the stimulus is set up. First author gives OPA (other people's argument - beauty is SUBJECTIVE) and then says it's false. But then he gives what seems like support for what isn't even his argument and seems like support for OPA. I failed to recognize that the third sentence and onward is NOT defining what objectivity is, which the way the stimulus is organized, makes it seem like it's gonna tell you what objectivity is (since author just said, hey you know that judgement that beauty is subjective? its wrong.) Of course, when I read it, I got mixed up thinking the author was mentioning the derivation of beauty from previous cultures as support for his own argument. So naturally, I thought I had to pick a choice that said, NO, the derivation of beauty does NOT come from previous cultures.

9
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PT18.S2.Q21
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angarce01261
Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Hardest strengthening question by far, due to the difficult vocabulary and sentence structure in both the stim and answer choices... But I got it right in BR.

Argument - It's hard to discern who actually painted a painting that is 200-300 years old, especially if the artist didn't sign the painting. Furthermore, due to this uncertainty the initial attribution (attribution meaning someone saying, oh Michelangelo definitely did this painting) is given special weight, also because the initial attribution carries "the presumption of historical continuity," which I translated as we believe who initially attributed the painting because we believe also history never lies, and consequently the person who attributed it doesn't lie either. Furthermore, if an art historian wants to re-attribute a painting (say for ex. Michaelangelo didn't do this painting, Leonardo did), they must keep in mind the generally will not convince the art world unless they can persuasively argue that Leonardo DID in fact do said painting.

We want to argue that the initial attribution (or traditional attribution as its worded in the stimulus) - should NOT be given special weight. In other words, we are allowed to be somewhat suspicious of the first person who attributes a painting to an artist and whether or not they are correct.

A - Correct. If this is true, we have reason to believe that the first attribution is not completely factual. Why? Because art dealers have always (the always means this includes art dealers who were around 200-300 years ago) attributed a painting to the artist that would make them the most money when it came time for them to sell their paintings. So even if an obscure artist painted something great, the art dealer would say a more popular artist did it. So, the initial or traditional attribution done by these art dealers would not be correct!

B - This would weaken. If it's true that there were eyewitnesses who saw a particular artist paint something, and they consequently attributed said painting to said artist. it makes it more believable that the traditional attribution is accurate, and thus should be given special weight.

C- Don't see how this is relevant. So it can be hard to tell the difference between the worst work done by a great artist, and the best work done by a terrible artist. How does this figure into attributing paintings at all? The stim made no connection between how great a work is and what effect that would have on its attribution?

D - Again, not very relevant, though I chose this initially under time constraints. This answer is a bit of a word mash, but its saying the attribution of a work to a certain artist "shapes the perception" of the work as much as the fact that if a major artist did a certain technique on a painting, and a minor artist did the same technique, it would be considered inferior artistry by the minor artist but not inferior artistry by the major artist. Okay? Again, stim makes no mention of how the quality or creation of the work affects its attribution, let alone its traditional attribution.

E - Not very relevant, and even if it is somewhat, this would somewhat weaken. So ultimately, works are properly attributed to just the master, even though the master may have had help doing the painting. So, we should believe the traditional attribution!

1
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PT21.S3.Q17
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angarce01261
Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Definitely misinterpreted the argument and did not realize that getting this question right depended on your understanding that the voters who would "generally welcome the defeat of the political party," needs to be connected to the study. You essentially need to say that the 59% of people are the same people as the ones who would "generally welcome...." which is pretty much what D says. I chose B originally, but after reviewing I'm realizing it's not right from a chronological standpoint - It's saying we can use the study to determine the future prospects of said political party. But even if this is true, there is still not any support for how the voters feel now and their present attitude of welcoming defeat.

1
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PT109.S4.Q8
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angarce01261
Thursday, May 7, 2020

I originally chose E, but in BR I'm realizing E does nothing to the argument. The argument is saying that new marketing ventures are destined to crash and burn because managers with high skill are not assigned to them, they're assigned to the already established high-revenue product lines. So in an effort to fix this, managers should be assigned to these new marketing/development projects. E says the short term revenue prospects are a good indicator of how successful a product line will be. But we already know that the short term revenue prospects are bad for new projects! I didn't make this connection, and even if I did, I would have to make the additional assumption that managers should be obligated to save product lines with bad short term revenue prospects, which is essentially what the conclusion already says.

If D is true however, then it means the talented managers who are working on the high revenue product lines are free to move to these new product lines with no consequence, so why wouldn't they?

2
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PT23.S3.Q14
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angarce01261
Thursday, May 7, 2020

Well, first off, its one of the biggest LSAT sins to bring any personal experience to the exam. Don't bring any of your personal or real word experiences to the test! You have to live in the test world and accept the premises as the whole truth.

The reason that B is correct is that it doesn't strengthen. The right answer choice will either have no impact or go against the funding opponent's position, that the government program doesn't reduce strays. In fact, B could possibly even weaken. We don't know based on the answer choice how soon they are spaying, but lets say they are spaying the animal extremely sooner because of government funding, before it has the ability to procreate. In that case, it can reduce the amount of strays as a result of the funding. In the case of having no impact, well if the animal was spayed after it already had some time to procreate it's possible that the government funding could or could not lead to reduced strays, which essentially equates to no impact.

D is wrong because - if you take all the pet owners and give them the opportunity to spay, 80% would do it and 20% would not because they believe it is morally wrong, even if they are given government funding to spay. Therefore, the funding opponent’s claim that government funding would drastically reduce strays is challenged. You have to not overlook the fact that everyone has the opportunity to choose to spay or neuter their animal, and that any evidence that challenges the proposition that government funding reduces strays strengthens.

1
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PT23.S3.Q14
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angarce01261
Thursday, May 7, 2020

Thinking about it again, I guess it does strengthen.. albeit in a sort of abstract way. If you take all the pet owners and give them the opportunity to spay, 80% would do it and 20% would not because they believe it is morally wrong. Therefore, the funding opponent's claim that government funding would drastically reduce strays is challenged.

I had to make the assumptions not overlook the fact that everyone has the opportunity to choose to spay or neuter their animal (which is not really an assumption as the argument says the word "request,"), and that it is the goal of the government to reduce strays in their entirety all the way to 100%. (but then again, this is not a MBT question, it's a strengthening, so if we know that government funding is not reaching this subset of pet owners that won't spay no matter what, then it strengthens the funding opponent's argument).

1
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PT23.S3.Q14
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angarce01261
Thursday, May 7, 2020

I don't see how D strengthens, so I chose it.. The argument is saying the city should not pay for spaying and neutering in an effort to reduce strays, because 80% of people already spay and neuter their pets. As a result, the city paying for such an initiative will not reduce strays. D says, okay 20% of people don't think its right to mutilate an animal. To me, I fail to see how this is relevant to the argument. I get the point that "if you gave them (the 20%) money, they still wouldn't spay," but regardless, the other 80% would still spay, so it's almost like this piece of information does nothing to the argument.

#help

1
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PT17.S2.Q7
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angarce01261
Monday, Apr 27, 2020

Argument - The fishing industry has no incentive to accurately tell the government how many sea birds accidentally perish due to net fishing, because if they did tell how many sea birds, their net fishing would be restricted. So, the government should give them an incentive - they should introduce a program in which tissue samples from dead birds would be able to tell them if there are any toxins in the dead birds from eating the fish they are catching. If the program was enacted, the fishing industry would have incentive to turn in birds because they are concerned about whether the birds - and therefore fish - have toxins.

We want to strengthen. So we want to empower the fact that this program should be used. This is exactly what C does, (and is sort of an underlying assumption). If the government needs the fishing industry's cooperation, then all the more reason for the program to be enacted.

A - So this means the birds that accidentally die from net fishing could or could not have toxins. So what? Doesn't really do anything to the argument or doesn't even seem to introduce new information. It's almost like this is restating a premise, or an underlying fact of the proposal.

B - Who cares if the government hasn't done anything in the past? They're trying to do something now.

C - Correct

D - If we rely just on what the premises say, the government is neutral or isn't concerned about whether the fish caught have toxins or not. That is the principal concern of the fishing industry. The government only cares about finding out how many birds accidentally die from net fishing.

E - We don't know what happens after the government restricts net fishing, so this is automatically out. We know what could possible happen before - in that the fishing industry submits enough dead birds in that the government says woah this is too many bird casualties and consequently they restrict net fishing, but after that, who knows?

1
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PT17.S3.Q6
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angarce01261
Friday, Apr 24, 2020

I intially chose A, but then switched over to E after reading it. In A, we don't care about what smaller manufacturers are doing! We care about whether the new concentrated detergent is going to survive selling on the shelf or not, which is strengthened by choice E. If E is true, customers have motivation to buy the new detergent (environmental concerns) and thus we can assume more people would buy/favor the new detergent, and would result in the events playing out as the stimulus says (old-style detergent being virtually disappeared because people prefer the new style).

1
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PT109.S4.Q15
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angarce01261
Friday, Apr 24, 2020

I chose A... I suppose I made the unwarranted assumption that "taxpayers should not NOT subsidize" means that they shouldn't give any money to the government to mountain climb, which would not support their proposal of mountain climbers should post a bond to the government... But I misinterpreted taxpayers as mountain climbers, but there are obviously taxpayers who aren't mountain climbers. J.Y. saying "make for them pay for it [mountain climbers] themselves" made it make sense to me.

12
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PT18.S4.Q7
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angarce01261
Tuesday, Apr 21, 2020

The way I saw it was - what happens in E is way too in the future in reference to the stimulus, we're concerned about what happens when people go to the dealership and test drive a Zenith car? They are more than 80% likely to buy it. We want to weaken the fact they are buying it because they are test driving it - and that's exactly what C does, C says that people who test drive it already have the intention to buy even before the test drive. So, the EFFECT already happens before the CAUSE, there is a reversal of chronology here. If they go to the shop and buy it due to test driving it, who cares about what happens to the car a year or two from now?

Also, a bit of an aside but for me whenever I see the word "some" in answer choices I get very wary. You have to think, is what is happening to -some- Zenith cars strong enough evidence to account for -all- Zenith cars (which is what the stimulus seems to purport)? And the answer a lot of the time is no. If don't see "some" in the stimulus but then you see "some" in the answer choice, be on alert.

1
PrepTests ·
PT106.S3.Q14
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angarce01261
Monday, Apr 6, 2020

Made the same mistake I made on another one of these MP. I picked D, thinking A was context. #help what are other people's strategies to discerning whether something is context or the actual conclusion? I tend to think okay, which proves which?

3
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PT103.S2.Q8
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angarce01261
Monday, Apr 6, 2020

Got it wrong due to the complex argument structure. I overlooked the first sentence as context, and mistook E as the main conclusion instead of sub-conclu.

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