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austingoldsmith1227665

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PrepTests ·

PT118.S4.Q20

austingoldsmith1227665

Saturday, Jan 18 2025

#feedback

I get that D is wrong but the flaw with sampling all men and no women as unrepresentative is not that men are only half of the population, which the explanation seems to imply when it says that men are "still 50% of the population." A study that samples a portion of the population systematically is valid for that portion, irrespective of how much that portion constitutes in the population. If men were 99% of the population, the conclusion would still have a representative error for the 1% of the population who were not men.

PrepTests ·

PT151.S3.Q18

austingoldsmith1227665

Thursday, Jan 16 2025

#feedback #help

I understand why E is correct / the most weakening answer because it reveals that the trend simply applies to no one, but I think that B still has weight as a part-and-whole critique.

Imagine this scenario: ten people post on social media daily. Each person posts 300 words on social media per day: 100 in the morning, 100 in the afternoon, and 100 in the evening. Three of them follow the anticipated pattern: medium (50/100), low (30/100), high (70/100). The rest, however, post almost uniquely neutral words. The resulting sum of positive words would be the following, daily:

- Morning: 150 (out of 1000)

- Afternoon: 90 (out of 1000)

- Evening: 270 (out of 100)

If true, these conditions would imply that, on average, positive words increase, decrease, and increase sharply. However, the majority of people (seven of them) would still not fit in the pattern described above. In other words, their effect on the average connotation is muted because they have no effect, but this would not imply that the whole applies to them as parts.

My question, then, is why the fact that stimulus restricts itself to positive word matters given that it expands it range to all people ("a person") and not just people who indeed use the positive words ("such a person," "these users," etc.).

PrepTests ·

PT145.S1.P4.Q26

austingoldsmith1227665

Thursday, Jan 09 2025

#feedback #help

For Q 26, if we tried to distill why E) is incorrect as a principle, could we express the error as the following: "This answer, despite demonstrating the predicted result of [someone's] hypothesis, does not demonstrate that predicted result through the mechanism that the hypothesis predicates its prediction on."

In other words, I understand why A) is correct, but E) seemed solid to me because the passage of information from a parent to a gestating chick seemed to match Steele's broad argument (that parents can pass information while gestating). Given this, would you say that E) is not the best choice as an example of the generalized error above, or do you have another reason in mind?

Thanks in advance for the help!

PrepTests ·

PT155.S3.P1.Q7

austingoldsmith1227665

Thursday, Jan 02 2025

#feedback #help

I see why D) is a clear choice, but I didn't understand from the video ("no, just no") why C) is wrong. Namely, I agree with the interpretation that the "other" versions in this context are the original, unedited / antique versions. Yet the author describes the restorations as only "supposedly" original / restored, and further critiques the setting of their presentation as "inauthentic," which, in turns, deprives the restored versions (but not the original ones) of being "allowed particular films to shine, [and] also to balance and react against other kinds of films." Thus, it's unclear to me that the author has established that any actual benefits do accrue to the restored versions in respect to their authenticity, despite their "supposedly" authentic quality. On this basis, I thought that the comparison between the (lower) level of authenticity of the restored versions vis-à-vis the original ("other") versions' (higher) level of authenticity was actually an apt representation of the author's view.

Rereading the passage and option, one error that I did notice was the illicit shift from "authenticity is sometimes allowed to go out the window" in the passage to "in many cases" in the answer. Would this also shift in frequency / set size be an independent reason to eliminate C), setting aside the debate over the author's weighing of authenticity?

Study Groups

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Saturday, Dec 21 2024

austingoldsmith1227665

Study Buddy Jan LSAT (online or Boston)

Hi everyone! I'm looking for a study buddy for the January LSAT who wants to do some intensive prepping. I'm aiming for at least one practice test per day, but I realize that this may be impractical for some people, so I'm happy to review drills or other material together on a daily / bi-daily basis as well. I would definitely want to discuss for about 1 hour at least every other day / once every three days at the least.

I already have a 170 on an official LSAT and have an average of 173 on the site, with a high of 177. I'm down to study with anyone, but primarily looking for someone also aiming to break into the 170+ range. I struggle most with the reading comprehension section and feel that I'm strongest at formal logic. I usually hit around -0 to -2 for LR sections and -2 to -4 for RC sections. I'm also an SAT tutor in real life, so I feel pretty comfortable analyzing question formulas and things like that, but I feel like I also get thrown off by questions that "break the mold." Feel free to reach out if you think our skills could complement each other's! :)

Lessons · [OPTIONAL] For, since, because

austingoldsmith1227665

Friday, Dec 20 2024

#feedback

That's a really helpful point that modal language like "must be" vs. "is" is indicative of an argumentative / speculative view from the speaker! Your example was very clear, and I'll be sure to keep that in mind as I'm reviewing.

For me, in both of these examples with Jimmy, Jimmy's getting an A is an established fact, but its premise is as disputed (sucking up or studying hard) as in my examples above and as in the Poseidon examples. In other words, to me, saying: "Jimmy got an A because he [did either action]" is as argumentative as saying "Poseidon is furious because his temple was destroyed."

Building on your distinction above, however, I think that this would be more clearly an argument if the examples were something like: "Jimmy must have gotten / surely got / should have gotten an A because he sucked up to the professor / because he studied hard for exam." I'm not sure how you feel about this, but from your point above and my sense of the difference, it seems like these modifications ("must have / surely / should have") imply that the speaker is not factually sure that Jimmy got an A, but views their knowledge of the premise ("studied hard") as sufficient to conclude with varying degrees of speculative certainty (but not factually certainty) that Jimmy did get an A.

PrepTests ·

PT122.S2.Q19

austingoldsmith1227665

Tuesday, Dec 10 2024

Thank you for the explanation! I'm glad to see that the fairest /= fair point is true, but your point about A) also containing a whole-to-part fallacy helped a lot to understand the video's point more clearly.

PrepTests ·

PT122.S2.Q19

austingoldsmith1227665

Tuesday, Dec 10 2024

#feedback

I also chose A) incorrectly and was also wondering if this explanation of A) is correct. Namely, does the use of the word "fairest" not mean that the system is "fair" in a binary / objective sense? I think that would be a reasonable point – for example, saying that a green T-shirt is the "warmest" T-shirt in a pile of greens, blues, and purples does not mean that the T-shirt is actually a warm color – but I was hoping that someone could confirm that this was the flaw in A).

Appreciation to dscalzo20 for pointing out this reasoning! The video explanation didn't really get me to understand why A) was wrong, since presumably the professional athletes' salaries exist in a society.

Lessons · [OPTIONAL] For, since, because

austingoldsmith1227665

Tuesday, Dec 10 2024

#feedback

This is a really solid explanation of the stages that an argument can take! I appreciate the walk-through, since it was quite illustrative. The point that the just being able to contest the cause of something does not mean that the cause is a premise for its effect in the sense of a claim was the most helpful.

However, I think that brings up a different problem then.

If I understand correctly, your point is that an argument is defined not merely by a cause and its effect, but rather by some previous premise supporting our conclusion of that cause - effect relationship. (For instance, your added premise that Max and James hung out and Max was sad when he left was differentiates that point.) If that's the case, though, I'm confused on why any of the "Poseidon is furious because X" statements are any more of an argument than "Max hugged James because X" is. Obviously, we know experientially that hugging is a more objective state than being furious is. However, let's assume we could put on our "is-that-guy-furious?" glasses and see Poseidon being furious, in the same way that we see Max hugging James.

If that's true, then I can't see any distinction in the syntax of these two statements:

- 1) Max hugged James because she missed him.

- 2) Poseidon is furious because [it was] his temple was desecrated.

In fairness, you could just say that my assumption is ridiculous, and it kind of is. Yet if there are at least some instances where that assumption is true – that Poseidon being furious is as factual / objectively perceived as Max hugging James – then what would distinguish the two statements in terms of statement 1) not being an argument, but statement 2) still being an argument?

(To preempt a point of confusion here, I think that a self-evident answer is just that the author's intention is to convince the reader that Poseidon is furious, but I think that this would, in turn, contradict your point above that the reader isn't trying to prove that Max hugged James because it's merely a factual occurrence. In other words, my point is to assume that his being furious is something factual, which would require the argument to lie elsewhere based on my understanding of your explanation about why "Max hugged James" is not the conclusion of an argument.)

PrepTests ·

PT101.S2.Q18

austingoldsmith1227665

Sunday, Dec 01 2024

Really helpful explanation! The video's explanation that "that doesn't explain anything" is obviously not the clearest explanation, and the material under the answer, that it would "need to suggest that salary growth has outstripped the funding increase and that those salaries are a significant draw on that funding" seems to rely on the same level of assumption, our ability to infer the proportions of the budget, as E. Your explanation, that B requires the additional assumption that the salary of the scientists is part of the budget to begin with (and could only then be a proportion of it), is really sound. Thanks!

Lessons · [OPTIONAL] For, since, because

austingoldsmith1227665

Monday, Jul 22 2024

#feedback

I understand that this is getting into the weeds, but the reason that "for" and "since" don't lead to arguments in the counter examples because the parts of speech have shifted. (Illicit changes!) In the example with "for," it's become a preposition, whereas it's a conjunction in the main example. In the example with "since," it's still a conjunction, but it's a temporal conjunction (like "after" or "before") instead of a causal one (like "because," "so," or "but").

In the example with "I hugged you because I missed you," I would argue that this is actually an argument. The premise is that the speaker misses the listener. The conclusion is that the speaker hugged the listener. If we switched the pronouns for names, we could easily see this as an argument that could be challenged:

Person 1: "Max hugged James because she missed him."

Person 2: "No, she didn't. Max hugged James because he asked her to."

In a parallel situation, we could also imagine this conversation:

Person 1: "Max endorsed James because she has confidence in him."

Person 2: "No, she didn't. Max endorsed James because he asked her to."

Evidently, the second scenario involves an argument, so surely the first does as well.