I empathize with this a lot! I have gone through a good portion of the PTs as well and often worry about if my scores are inflated because I have taken the PT before. I think the general consensus is 1) You should take scores with a grain of salt if you have taken the PT before and 2) While scores are a valuable metric, your ability to maintain/execute good LSAT habits is even more important.

When I am taking sections (or even PTs) I have taken before, I double down and make sure I am vigilantly going through my process (look at the question stem, parse through the stimulus, carefully read through each of the answer choices) as if it were a fresh section/PT. While I do check my scores and compare them to previous takes, I think what's valuable to 2nd (or 3rd takes) of a PT is my execution and reflecting on what I could have done better.

I think with re-takes, the temptation to take shortcuts (i.e not fully reading the stimulus or not carefully reading the ACs) because I remember the answer is really high. However, I have tried to use this temptation to take shortcuts as a way to pressure test myself to stick to my processes even when I know the answer already. This way, on test day, I will have had practice really sticking to good LSAT habits even if my nerves or something else is trying to throw my performance off.

TLDR; Take re-take scores with a grain of salt. Focus more on PT execution and identifying if there is room for improvement.

If we think about the psychology experiments in the form of a classic premise-conclusion setup, the conclusion of these experiments is that "It seems that children have the same thoughts that adults have regarding the phenomena but are much less capable of identifying these thoughts" and the premise/support for this conclusion is that "in certain circumstances young children tend to misdescribe their own thoughts regarding simple phenomena while nonetheless correctly describing those phenomena."

I absolutely see where you are coming from but I think there might be two assumptions your post is making (though your question is focused more on the 2nd assumption):

1. The assumption that describing a situation = describe their thoughts. Just because someone can describe the situation doesn't mean they can apply it back to themselves/their own thoughts. An analogous situation would be someone can describe the red flags of a toxic relationship but that doesn't always mean they will always be able to recognize it if they are ever in one.

2. The assumption that there isn't a difference in the language skills required for each of those tasks. For all we know, maybe a child in the experiments can describe themselves as "being really sad, being really tired, being bummed out, etc." The child has fully described their situation of being depressed but they don't have "depression" in their vocabulary. That would be an instance in which there is a difference in language skill.

The correct AC for #9 picks up on the 2nd assumption.

Yes, it would be too much of an assumption. Just because Judy was told not to reveal a secret doesn't imply an agreement. It's possible Judy disagrees with the doctor's recommendation to not reveal the secret. It's possible that Judy didn't hear the doctor. It's possible that Judy doesn't speak English and didn't understand the doctor whatsoever.

There are many assumptions you would have to make in order to draw the inference that the doctor and Judy had an implicit (or even explicit) agreement.

Hi, I would be interested!

Interested! I am scoring in the same range and have the same goal.

Interested! Same range and goal score.

Interested!

So something important to note is that the argument says the Bering land bridge no longer exists. Sure this statement may be true in the year 2020 but was this true back when the paleohumans roamed the Earth? It is possible when the paleohumans lived on Earth, the Bering land bridge still existed and they were able to cross back and forth. What is true now may not be true back then just like what is true back then may not be true now.

Alternatively, if we did want to be generous and concede the bridge disappeared while paleohumans were still on the planet, they could have brought the cache back to Siberia via boat or some other form of transportation.

Interested!

That's exactly the problem though. Just because there is correlation DOES NOT mean there is causation. This argument commits one of the most classic LSAT flaws: assuming correlation = causation. We shouldn't attack the premise but we can attack the relationship between premise and conclusion. The relationship here takes the correlation in the premise and pushes it out to causation in the conclusion and AC E destroys this link.

When I see analogies, a small (pink. not red) flag goes off in my head just because the LSAT constantly tries to reinforce the idea that just because an analogy is used in an argument doesn't necessarily mean the analogy is appropriate. For example, if I argued "Novel X has a blue cover. Novel Y also has a blue cover and was super boring. Therefore, Novel X must be boring as well.", you would question if the two novels having blue covers is an appropriate analogy to make. Maybe Novel X and Y have completely different plots. Maybe they have completely different styles of writing. Judging a book based on the color of the cover would be inappropriate.

Granted, this is not to say if you see an analogy AC that it is automatically incorrect. There are times when the stimulus does indicate that the analogy is appropriate or the question stem is explicitly calling out this assumption (especially in NA questions). If you see an analogy, ask yourself if this is a fair/reasonable analogy to make and go from there.

There is a neutral ground that you touched on. On a weaken/strengthen question, an answer choice can either weaken, strengthen, or do nothing at all. Those are the three options. For except questions, you would thus want to find something that does the opposite or nothing at all (so if you had a Strengthen Except question, you would want an answer choice that weakens or does nothing at all. Same goes for Weaken Except questions).

I will say those answer choices that are the opposite of the stimulus can be a bit more obvious (a weaken answer choice will be a lot more apparent against four strengthen answer choices) so to make the test more difficult, test makers will resort to an answer choice that does nothing at all. This is why it's important not to simply conclude an answer choice that doesn't weaken automatically strengthens (and vice versa).

I totally relate on the confusion. I think this stimulus makes the assumption that if you are able to afford quality (expensive) props, you should also be able to afford quantity.

An analogy I used to understand this assumption is if I have the financial ability and can buy a Porsche to fill a room, I would also have the financial ability to buy a ton of (cheaper) toy cars to fill the same room.

The contrapositive of this would be if I can't even afford a bunch of (assumed cheaper) props, how am I supposed to afford an expensive one? This is essentially what E says.

biancah0922@68748.com

Interested!

Me as well!

I vote for the database of the law schools by GPA and LSAT!

I would like to join as well! Thanks!