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Hi! I wasn't sure who to ask, so I figured I'd ask the 7Sage community since I've seen so many comments here that have been really helpful.
I took the official September LSAT for the first time a week and a half ago. I'm registered for the October test since I'm not sure how I did on the September one. I took a few days off after the test and have been studying about 3 hours a day for the past few days (I have a full-time job, so I've been studying from about 9 PM to midnight).
However, I found myself STRUGGLING to even process and retain LR stimuli. I'm getting confused by 2- and 3-star questions that I used to get right easily without even flagging them.
I was wondering why this might be happening, and more importantly, how I can overcome it. I have to say, my motivation has also been pretty low since the official test, and I've been forcing myself to study. This is different from when I was prepping for the September test, when I genuinely tried to enjoy solving LR questions.
Has anyone experienced something similar after taking the official LSAT? Any advice on how to get out of this slump would be greatly appreciated!
@yuyuecarly468 I thought the same thing initially. However, this AC is saying that factors unrelated to irrigation would probably have caused the civilization to collapse sooner or later. This is different from saying that factors unrelated to the use of irrigation were the actual cause of the civilization's collapse, rather than irrigation.
I think this distinction is important because the AC is still compatible with irrigation being the cause of the actual collapse. For example, irrigation could have caused the civilization to collapse in 2000 BC, while some unrelated factor would have caused it to collapse eventually anyway, say in 1800 BC. In that scenario, the AC would be true, but the stimulus’s claim that irrigation caused the collapse would also be true.
So I don't think AC (B) exposes the gap, because it doesn't preclude irrigation from being what actually caused the collapse. It just says that the civilization would probably have collapsed at some point anyway.
I'm still not sure why AC (D) is correct. I understand that it is correct via POE, but objectively, I don't understand it.
This AC says that the highlighted part -- specifically, the claim that "transportation will be much more expensive on semiplaning monohulls than on traditional ships" is "subsequently countered by an analogy drawn between ships and airplanes."
But isn't this statement itself not actually countered by the analogy between ships and airplanes? Rather, the analogy counters the implication that, DESPITE monohulls being more expensive than traditional ships (i.e., the COST side), they may still be more profitable because they could potentially generate more revenue by attracting enough passengers. But the fact that monohulls are more expensive/costly than conventional ships still stands...? What am I missing?!
I'm confused because I thought to eschew something meant to avoid or refrain from engaging, etc. Not engaging in a discussion does not necessarily mean actively arguing against it, which is why I did not choose AC (C) for this question.
I was torn between AC (C) and (D). The reason I went with AC (D) was because I thought Passage B was not really contending/arguing a position. Yes, the author of Passage B does describe Gumbrecht’s argument using modifiers like “persuasively,” which signals that he agrees with the argument, but he is not advancing the argument as his own.
Describing or restating someone else’s argument that one finds persuasive does not mean that the author is advancing the argument himself.
Also, the modifier “well-defined” is not supported by the passage. We can view the “standards” for valuing athletic performances as standards of beauty, but the author does not provide any evidence to support the view that those beauty standards are well-defined.
Oh my. Idk how AC (C) just flew over my head. Literally, it was the only AC that I immediately crossed off because I saw that this AC was actually claiming something different from what is stated in the stimulus: the stimulus talks about the increasing number of species, whereas this AC talks about something that did not occur.
TL;DR: Don’t eliminate an AC because it seems like it is talking about something irrelevant or opposite to the stimulus. LR is not about keyword matching.
I eliminated AC (E) because it concerns when we are seeking to increase the population of a given species. But here, we are trying to protect the species, which is not the same thing as increasing its population; rather, we are trying to prevent its population from decreasing.
For this question, I thought the flaw would be that we cannot conclude that those who regularly drink drinks with aspartame will develop a preference for sweet products because what if it is the other way around (reverse causation) -- that is, what if those who have already developed a preference for sweet products regularly drink drinks with aspartame, so it is their preference that causes them to regularly drink them?
But this is actually not a flaw in the argument -- rather, it is merely a reverse-causation possibility and hence a loophole. A flaw is something that undermines the argument based on the information given. Here, because the argument gives us no reason to believe that the reverse causal relationship is true, we cannot say that the possibility of reverse causation is actually the flaw.
If the argument had made the classic correlation-causation error, then pointing out reverse causation could be a flaw. But here, the argument is not based on an observed correlation between drinking aspartame and preferring sweet products.
TL;DR: Don't call something a causal/reverse-causation flaw merely because you can imagine the reverse relationship. We need to have some reason, based on the argument, to think that the alternative explanation or reverse causal relationship could be the case for us to identify it as a flaw.
Whenever RC passages ask us about the author's argument, I have found it very helpful to do a quick prephrase of what the argument advanced in the passage was, even if I had no idea what the passage was about in detail -- as was the case with this passage. Here, the argument is essentially at a very, very high level: premise explaining why the legal decision was problematic -> conclusion that the legal decision was problematic.
Because this question is asking about the principle underlying the argument, the conclusion of the principle has to be that the legal decision was problematic. AC (D) is the only AC that matches the conclusion of the passage/author's argument.
I eliminated AC (A) for two reasons:
The chimpanzee may have evolved from an extinct diurnal species of lower primates, and thus from an organism other than the lemur.
The stimulus says that all higher primates are thought to have evolved from a single diurnal species of lower primates. This does not mean that they did in fact evolve from a single diurnal species of lower primates.
One thing I've noticed on the LSAT is the importance of distinguishing between what is thought to be true and what is actually true, so I think the second point is also worth noting.
I was tempted by AC (B) for different reasons from those mentioned in some of the other comments. I thought AC (B) could weaken the main conclusion because it says that most cases of OPV-caused polio occurred in a specific group of children, namely those who have "preexisting but unsuspected...disorders." So I thought, okay, that means the conclusion that we should switch from OPV to IPV "as the most commonly used polio vaccine for NA children" does not necessarily follow from the premises, because we could simply administer IPV to that specific group of children with preexisting disorders.
But this line of reasoning, and AC (B), actually does not weaken the argument because of the modifier "unsuspected" in the AC. Because the preexisting disorders are unsuspected, meaning that they are not known, doctors cannot selectively administer IPV to the specific group of children with those disorders. So the conclusion still follows even if AC (B) were true: it makes sense to make IPV the most commonly used vaccine rather than something selectively administered because we don't know which children have the preexisting disorders.
This reminds me that a single word in an AC can make it clearly wrong.
I was torn between AC (C) and AC (E).
I was initially drawn to AC (C) because of this text:
In 1996 he [Sibley] wrote that "Evolution produces all degrees of genetic differences between populations of organisms, but, for practical reasons, we must limit the number of degrees we choose to 'recognize' by names.
However, if we zoom out from what seems like supporting text for AC (C), we should remember that Sibley himself is a “splitter.” Splitters are those who “divide...populations into full species,” in contrast to “lumpers,” who “group separate but very similar populations of birds into a single species.” Just from the names of the groups themselves, lumpers would tend to lump populations together into fewer species, while splitters would tend to divide them into distinct species.
If we look at AC (C) from this perspective, AC (C) is no longer persuasive. Why would Sibley, a splitter who tends to divide populations into distinct species as opposed to lumpers, say that the goal is to reduce the total number of species?
@ja4718b761 I think the two words will not be written the same, because I'd assume that dang-tang would be written in Chinese characters, not in alphabets. I thought dang-tang being italicized meant that it was meant to show pronunciation, whereas "downtown" being in quotation marks was intended to show how it is actually written... But yes, I was confused as well.
@bichonlua Oh now I get why AC D is right -- it's because the answer choice is framed as the phrase being "used to weaken the claim," rather than saying that the claim itself weakens the claim. I guess my studying is paying off...?
I've been confused about this question for a while, not because of the difficulty of the question itself, but because of AC B.
Wouldn't AC B weaken the argument rather than have no effect? Because we are showing that even without the purported cause (video game violence), we see the effect (aggressive behavior being acceptable) in some cases, wouldn't that weaken -- i.e., make the purported causal conclusion less plausible/likely to be true, albeit minimally?
I get that the conclusion is not saying that violence in video games is the ONLY cause, but even if that's not so, wouldn't showing that without the cause we still see the effect in some instances make the conclusion slightly less plausible/less likely to be true?
Or, thinking about it a different way: we know one way to weaken a phenomenon-hypothesis stimulus is to suggest an alternative hypothesis. In this argument too, the conclusion is not necessarily saying that the proposed hypothesis is the only explanation for the phenomenon, yet providing an alternative explanation weakens the conclusion because it makes it less likely to be true.
I'm confused as to why that logic applies in a phenomenon-hypothesis stimulus but not in this case with AC B..?
I debated btw AC B and E during timed session, but I think I've figured it out.
The reason I was hesitant to choose AC B was the phrase "not the CORE of a public official's job." I initially thought: even if making decisions about these matters is not the core of a public official's job -- and hence, say, a less important job than the core jobs/responsibilities of a public official -- they could still be jobs of a public official. However, given that the bar for weakening question is low, and that we just have to make it LESS PLAUSIBLE that biz execs are public officials, AC B works. For example, if we look at this argument:
P: I make PPT decks for work.
P (akin to the logic of AC B): Making decks is not the core of the job of a management consultant.
=> The conclusion that I am a management consultant is WEAKENED, as it has become LESS LIKELY or LESS PLAUSIBLE that I am a consultant, although it does not guarantee the falsity of the conclusion that I am a consultant.
For AC E, I was very tempted because I thought: if biz execs and public officials cooperate, doesn't that make it less likely that biz execs are public officials and hence weaken the conclusion? However, I think I was able to get rid of AC E for these two reasons:
AC E uses the word "often": it says that public officials and biz execs OFTEN cooperate, meaning they sometimes cooperate. But does this cooperation happen with matters discussed in the stimulus, such as making decisions about work org patterns, resource allocation, etc? We don't know.
AC E says execs and public officials cooperate in making decisions "of national importance." But again, do these decisions include or refer to the matters discussed in the stim? We don't know.
In sum, because AC E seems rather open to interpretation, we should eliminate it.
TLDR: My takeaways from this question:
The bar for weakening is not high; weakening does not equate to guaranteeing the falsity of the conclusion.
Always pay attention to modifiers that indicate frequency (e.g., "often" in AC E).
Don't interpret an AC the way you wish it to be interpreted (e.g., don't assume "decisions of national importance" in AC E includes or refers to the decisions in the stimulus).
I didn't necessarily use a conditional diagram to solve this question. I thought the flaw in the stimulus was sort of similar to a flaw we're familiar with: just because the evidence against a claim is flawed does not mean that the claim itself is true (lack of evidence /= evidence of lack).
Here, the argument shows that Theresa disagrees with the disapproval most people have about the increase in income tax. The fact that she does not agree with this claim does not mean that she supports the conclusion these people draw (namely, disapproving of the prime minister's overall job performance).
With this in mind, I went into hunt mode to find a similar answer choice where one person disagrees with other people's opinion against a certain conclusion, and the argument concludes from this that the person agrees with the conclusion these other people disagree with = AC A.
I got this question right, but... how is AC C a valid argument? Isn't it conflating a "most" relationship with a causal relationship?
Just because most students who study pass their courses doesn't mean that it was studying that caused them to pass. I mean, yes, logically in real life this makes sense, but strictly from a logic perspective, isn't this not a valid argument?
For example, we cannot say:
Most people who study are diligent.
Therefore, studying "causes"/produces diligence.
Am I missing something? Help would be appreciated!
I chose AC C via POE, and was hesitant to choose it, especially because of the phrase "approval or disapproval of that character." But I chose the AC regardless of the reluctance, because it seemed to fit the bigger picture, and something I've realized in RC is that I should not eliminate an AC just because I am unsure of certain elements in the AC that seem to fit the big picture of the passage. I think this is especially the case because these uncertain elements would probably get support from the passage -- whether explicitly, very subtly, or even implicitly -- upon careful review.
During BR, I think I was able to find support for the phrase "approval or disapproval." The passage says in P1 that "the film is emblematic of Allen's career precisely because of its extravagantly exaggerated censure of a life dedicated to and obsessed with art." The fact that Allen's film censures a life dedicated to art implies that he is disapproving of that life. And therefore, I think it would be reasonable to assume that Allen would disapprove of his artist characters.
I'm confused by this question. Upon reading the stimulus, I identified two flaws:
(As JY mentions in the explanation video) Just because consumer cooperatives usually sell the same products more cheaply does not mean that shopping at a food co-op is more economical than doing so at a supermarket (the incorrect inference made from A->B-m->C)
The argument does not take into account other components that could make shopping "economical" besides the price of products.
For example, food co-ops might all be located in rural areas, so driving there might cost more in fuel, or they might have other cost factors on top of product price, like different sales tax.
I thought AC A especially mirrors the second flaw, because it concludes that those who own sports cars use more gasoline than those who own other types of cars on the grounds that sports cars use more gasoline PER MILE. As JY mentions, the conclusion seems to ignore other factors, like the fact that the distance sports car owners tend to drive might be greater.
Given this, I thought AC A and AC C both tackle different flaws present in the stimulus. And since none of the other ACs seem to tackle both flaws, and neither A nor C contains the other flaw in the stimulus, I was unsure how to decide between AC A and AC C.
In the explanation video, JY diagrams "more economical to shop at a food co-op" as meaning the same thing as "offering the same products usually more cheaply." But isn't this making an assumption? Why aren't we treating this as a flaw?
I was hesitant to choose AC (D) because I thought the word “contrast” had to mean showing that the two things are literal opposites of one another. So, for some reason, I thought this AC was absurd because acquiring inside information cannot be the literal opposite of analyzing a stock -- that is, one is about the act of obtaining information, while the latter is about the act of analyzing it. These are two different actions.
However, I shouldn't impose such a narrow definition on the word “contrast.” Contrast does not necessarily mean literal opposites; rather, it can mean that the passage puts two things in different categories, relationships, etc., in a broader sense.
TL;DR: Don't get too hung up on the literal semantic definition of one word esp if the AC fits the gist/big picture of the passage.