Great catch. Also, I think it can be argued that even conceding this distinction, (E) is inferior to (B) because the passage appears to center on Gilman's views and her role in this theoretical debate, and the social and scientific theories feel like they're supplementary to the description of Gilman. (B) makes Gilman's role more pronounced compared to (E).

Nope. The author cites the educators' argument in the first two sentences of the stimulus, beginning with "Some educators claim..." and "These educators argue..." The author's argument starts with the third sentence, "But...", which indicates that the author is arguing against the position of the educators.

I think it's possible. I went from a ~162 to a ~172 (give or take 2 points on each end) on my PTs in about a month and half, but that happened after a few months of studying the core curriculum on here. Thinking hard about and having a really solid grasp on each question I missed (and those I didn't understand fully) was helpful. I found that I improved the most during a period when my mind became more focused and disciplined during studying.

And I second the comment about putting more effort on drilling LG, as it's the most learnable section of this test. (And I'm sure you heard this before but make sure you warm up before taking a PT or the actual test)

You got this!

I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this, but in my opinion, a primary reason (D) is correct is that it maps to the author's reasoning the best (it conforms to the "gist" of the author's argument) and takes the author's premises closer to the conclusion. Leaving a gap here is tolerable because it's a PSA question.

This is one of two questions I missed in this LR set (the other one I ran out of time), and it's a bit alarming because I find that, in 70-up PTs, I've been missing as many as 2 questions in the Q7-Q12 range even in some sets where I'd get the rest of them correct. Is anyone else having this problem?

ffs stared at this question for half an hour and realized it's an agree question, not disagree; keep getting -2 on LR on questions 1-7 for some reason and not getting the harder ones wrong :/

lol I only realized I did this after reading your comment

Yeah I think an answer with a "most" qualifier is usually pretty suspect in Necessary Assumption questions, because it's a very specific/ restrictive requirement (from more than half to the entire population). So I'd say in addition to switching "fatalities" to "head injuries," if we switch "most" to "at least some" that'd make the AC a more convincing candidate.

I think a big reason B is correct, as opposed to E, is that B says the existence of violent television programs is a cause of the violence in society. This statement definitely spells out three facts, which we're to accept to be true:

(1) Violent television programs exist

(2) Violence in society exist

(3) Violent television programs cause people to act violently

The first two of these facts are what differentiate B and E.

Comparing it with E, all we know from E is that there's a causational relationship between leisure time and the inclination to act violently. We know neither (1) if leisure time increased, nor (2) if the inclination to act violently led to violence.

I think your assumption that A) implies the fish would possibly contain "other toxins not related to the bird" is too far-fetched to be reasonable for an LSAT question. The answer choice needs to be able to stand by its own merit, and neither the stimulus nor the answer choice talks about the possibility that the fish may contain other toxins unrelated to the bird.

But let's pretend that the above is a reasonable assumption. Even so, for A) to work, it needs to incorporate other assumptions, including (1) if the birds contain multiple toxins, the government's program cannot distinguish the toxin in the birds that originated from the fish, and further (2) even if the government's program, from examining the bird carcasses, sometimes fails to distinguish which toxins originated from the fish, this translates to the fisherman's not having the motivation to turn in the birds. Both of these require somewhat extraneous information not supplied by the AC and the stimulus.

I think to avoid over-thinking, it'd be helpful to accept the premises' factual basis and focus on attacking the support: accept the fact that the recommended program can exist and operates as described, yet, contrary to the author's conclusion, it shouldn't be instituted because of some external information.

I find for a lot of the Weaken questions featuring an experiment, the correct answer will often present an external condition, which, if true, would mean that the experiment no longer models the conditions that it sets out to model.

In AC D's case, it is no longer true that the "original statements" told to the test subjects were the test subject's only source of knowledge to develop their beliefs, as was presumed in the stimulus. The subjects had an external source of knowledge - the "confirmation" - that undermined a key controlled aspect of the experiment, and this meant that the experiment is no longer a valid premise to support the conclusion presented.

From my understanding AC D is attacking the stim statement featuring a sufficient-necessary relationship “any reform which makes somebody happy is achieving its purpose.” Answer D is practically saying, "a reform that makes somebody happy isn't necessarily achieving its purpose," therefore taking away the sufficient-necessary relationship that the author uses to support their conclusion:

Original: Reform_makessbdhappy -> achieving its purpose

AC D: Reform_makessbdhappy -/> achieving its purpose

I think a strategy that helped me to get to AC C) quickly is keeping track of the subjects described in the stimulus. The descriptions of the subjects in this stimulus are limited to subsets of "celestial objects" (stars and brown dwarfs) so any answer choices that describe a quality of “any celestial objects” are likely wrong for they'd be prescribing a quality to something not mentioned in the stimulus.