(P.S., I know this is a long and dense post, but there's an opportunity at the bottom for anyone reading this to get paid, so hopefully that's an incentive to read this :P)
Hi guys! I wanted to get some feedback from you smart people on the LR question about brown dwarf stars.
We're asked for an assumption on which the argument depends, so this is a NA and the right answer should strongly undermine if not completely discredit the argument when negated.
The claim is that any star found with no lithium is not a coolest brown dwarf (CBD.)
The support is that all stars except for CBD are hot enough to "destroy lithium completely."
The right answer, A, is that "None of the CBDs have ever been hot enough to destroy lithium."
Formal logic wise, I get CBD ---> Not(Hot enough to destroy lithium)
Negating it, you get that not none (so, some) CBDs have ever been hot enough to destroy lithium.
I don't understand how this even undermines the conclusion, let alone discredits it as we would hope for in a NA. In fact, this sounds perfectly congruent with the argument. The support says that CBDs cannot destroy lithium /completely/, completely being a deliberate word choice that does not appear in the answer. If "completely" had no bearing on the meaning of the text, it wouldn't be included.
Therefore, our negated answer, suggesting that some CBDs have ever been able to destroy lithium in some capacity, does nothing to undermine the claim that a star found without lithium cannot be a CBD.
Maybe in being able to destroy lithium in some capacity, said stars are still not hot enough to destroy lithium content in full. Even if you need to make a small assumption jump for this question, I think the most reasonable assumption is that CBDs being able to destroy lithium by some means does not really even scathe the claim that it can't finish the job. This would be a stretch for a weaken question in my opinion, let alone a necessary assumption.
My other question on the matter regards the rules for dangling modifiers in LSAT texts. In this question, a sentence reads "All stars but the CBDs are hot enough to destroy lithium completely by converting it into helium.
I'm a bit confused about how a dangling modifier would apply here in the absence of context. Does the clause following "destroy lithium" imply that the dwarfs cannot destroy lithium in full, (the process by which happens to be by converting to helium,) or that they cannot accomplish the task exclusively by converting the lithium to helium (implying that in order to complete the task in full, CBDs must destroy it in some other way than converting to helium.)
As a native English speaker, I probably wouldn't even have second thoughts and assume it was the former option, if reading or hearing that sentence. However, as an LSAT student who is actively analyzing precision of language, I find myself confused. I feel like I've seen other situations on the LSAT where failure to consider the precision of language, instead using traditional colloquial interpretations, in fact leads you to the wrong answer. Why is it different in this case? (Assuming there isn't some grammar rule I'm not aware of, which I'd love to discover!)
I realize that there is a degree of "picking the best answer" with LSAT questions, and NAs in particular. With that in mind, I still felt that B was a better, albeit still lacking answer.
Negating B leaves us with the statement that it's not the case that most stars too cool to burn hydrogen (TCBH), (which concretely includes CBDs,) are too cool to destroy lithium completely. This still leaves open a wide range of possibilities for some (but less than 51%) TCHB stars to indeed be able to destroy lithium completely. If we know that this class of star may very well have members capable of destroying lithium completely, and that CBDs are a member of that class, we at least have a hint that maybe some CBDs can destroy lithium completely, undermining his support and damaging the argument consequently.
Do I like answer choice B? Definitely not. However, it matches the specific, important diction of the prompt ("destroys completely") whereas A does not, and it gives concrete reason, when negated, to suggest something that directly contradicts and soils the argument. A, when negated, simply refrains from counting out a possibility that would damage the argument, rather than in any way suggesting that the argument is in fact damaged. Knowing that some CBDs have ever been hot enough to destroy lithium at all leaves the possibility that they can destroy it all the way, which we would want to be the case for this answer to be right since that breaks the argument. But, it just as neutrally, it allows for the possibility that they still can't go all the way, which would leave the argument in tact and reaffirm the support from which the conclusion is derived.
TL;DR, I see A suggesting an ambiguity that reads neutrally: If negated, A only weakens the argument by indicating that the opportunity for the argument to be undermined exists, not that it likely does or does not.
B, when negated suggests an ambiguity that, while still concluding nothing, leans towards something that would hurt the argument. Obviously that's a fine distinction that the question doesn't even mean for you to consider, but I don't think it can be avoided if you read the text precisely, and reasonably interpret "destroy completely" and "destroy" as meaning different things. If they meant the same thing, they would say the same thing.
Lastly, any question I ever get wrong on LR is similar to the conundrum I have with this one. I overanalyze the question, but even when I recognize that I'm overanalyzing and need to read a little more simply, I cannot for the life of me figure out when it's appropriate to make which particular little assumptions. If I redid this question 1000 times, I'd think that the logic leap in choice B is more realistic than the choice B counterpart all 1000 times.
Are there any tutors who would be particularly well suited to help me with this very specific challenge? It's frustrating because I literally have no clue what I need to change in order to get these questions write. I'm a native English speaker, born and raised in the midwest United States, and so I don't know what other factors could be causing me to be so clueless when it comes to figuring out which little logic leap/assumption is the right one. If I'm not overlooking some other caveat to this problem, how can the LSAT justify the correct answer if there isn't a concrete reason why their leap is more valid than mine.
If anyone thinks they would be able to help me remedy this conclusion, I'd be more than happy to pay for your time. I'll take help any way I can get it, so don't hesitate to take my money even if you're not a tutor and are a fellow student! Thanks guys :)
I think the usual advice of starting with major life events for essay topics can actually be counterintuitive. Remember, the event itself is arbitrary: what you learned from it and how it reflects who you are is what matters. The circumstances are merely a vehicle used to reflect those characteristics in a narrative fashion.
Try this: look at some random object in your room. Maybe it's a computer, maybe it's a bag of chips, maybe it's an eraser shaving sitting next to your keyboard. The more mundane the better. Now, consider your relationship with that object. Where did it come from? How did it end up in your possession? What actions or feelings or personality traits indirectly led you to have that object at this time in that position.
Eraser shavings could be from a pencil that you "borrowed" from a classmate, used to write notes for a history class whose professor drives you nuts.
Is the bag of chips scrunched up, or is it folded neatly with a clip holding it together? Did you eat straight out of the bag, or did you portion out a serving size and eat out of a snack bowl?
Everything we do and touch reflects who we are in some indirect manner. If a speck of dust can indirectly reveal something about you, the potential implications and insights from any life event are 100-fold.
tl;dr DONT think of an interesting story and then figure out how to turn it into a reflective essay. INSTEAD, come up with something (anything) you want to convey to the admissions team, and weld together stories/examples (no matter how boring) that fit the message you're trying to communicate. Boring examples can make for an interesting essay if they're used to drive an underlying idea.