The sudden shift for me was so jarring, lord...

Just to add, I did AC B a little differently.

/A → /B = B → A

A → C

B → A → C

_

C → B

Incapable of Empathy = /A

Not good candidates for public office = /B

Capacity for Empathy = A

Manipulate others easily = C

People who manipulate others (C) are good candidates for public office (B).

For the original argument;

/A → B = /B → A

A → C

/B → A → C

_

C → /B

What almost threw me in the blind was that it had the wrong negation, but you have to realize that regardless of the negations in AC B not matching, it is STILL committing the exact same flaw that our original argument was; confusing sufficiency for necessity.

Humbled. As always, it is always the small things with the LSAT test makers.

I honest to god prefer conditional logic questions... If you just view the question as a math problem where you have to match the given expression, it becomes so easy.

Like, if the question says 1 + 1 = 2, then you are literally just looking for the answer choice that also says 1 + 1 = 2. The only real hurdle is grammar parsing!

Sunked 2 minutes, but got it correct. Parsing the argument on this one almost threw me because I didn't catch the "auto mechanics" vs "mechanics with expierence" at first. The shallow dipping really saved me from going over a lot though, very useful technique.

Thing is I am writing out the argument in lawgic, because it is hard for me to hold it in my head or really understand the conditional logic without writing. But I imagine that skill comes with practice.

Anyway, not too bad, we got this chat.

Overthought this one a tad bit, since I thought this one was trying to trick me like previous question with the last 2 AC. "You won't trick me this," to which they indeed ended up tricking me.

Got it in BR, but at what cost?

I knew this was a question of directionality, but I gaslighted myself under time pressure.

The argument grants us that the critics believe in the low general economic confidence. (A) Then to weaken this argument, you have to link it B, in this case, personal economic confidence.

Basically saying; Hey, even if it is B, A still leads to B regardless, which means the counter to the critics is flawed.

I read cogent as cognizant, and just thought it meant a convincing argument. I mean, it lead me to the right answer I guess!

Negation to me is dangerous, but the negation of B would be something like;

"In the selection of rocks for Japanese gardens, imitation of nature DOES NOT help to achieve harmony with nature."

Well if that's true, that means placing rocks vary widely in appearance (to imitate nature) does nothing to further a Japanese garden to its goal; displaying harmony with nature.

While, yes, you can negate this AC to help us understand why it is correct, it isn't the reason why it is correct in the first place. We had a gap that HAD to be filled for this argument to work. That is the more important reason for selecting the AC, versus just simply falsifying.

Not only that, negation of the other AC isn't all that useful, as they had way more glaring issues as to why they are wrong.

As JY said in the beginning, it is more important you understand the different ways of an argument can present itself, which in turn makes you capable of knowing what is necessary.

Well, that is presuming that "being natural" and the "imitation of nature" are the exact same thing. Which isn't particularly true, or at the very least not supported in our argument.

Another assumption is that placing rocks widely in appearance is attempting to be natural!

Literally, finally can rest tonight

Not going to lie, I was so confident I didn't really read the other answer choices. Lesson learned!

#Humbled me real quick after I was feeling good from the previous question. I think I got bogged down on trying to draw out the causal chain. While it is important to understand, SA's, so far, focus on an argument holistically. The causal chain is only important regards to the question; "Does it make sense?" It isn't the crux of the argument otherwise. Since I got fooled into focusing on all my brain power on it, I didn't even spare a glance that spaceships was just randomly thrown in inference in this argument.

These last two actually felt pretty functional.

Convinced myself I was wrong </3

I was so fucking confident bro

The fact I knew I was looking for a problem with the chain of support allowed me to get this instantly. Felt a little bit like cheating T_T.

100% Agree, when I am worried about the time crunch I make a lot more mistakes. Instead, when I am fairly confident in my understanding of the argument, I am able to comfortably come to the right answer choice without doubting myself.

Honestly, it depends.

I don't think it is ever a waste of time, but it is fairly important to watch the video if you don't know why or how to eliminate the wrong answer choices.

I also like to listen to why the right answer is right, just to make sure my intuition/logic is lining up with expectations, and that I did not come to the right answer via a fluke.

For the very easy questions, where I know for fact I understood the argument and why the wrong choices are wrong, I just skip. But maybe that's problematic, who knows.

I knew my time on this one was going to be fucked so I just sat with the answer until I knew it was right.

A whopping 9 minutes LOL.

Craziest thing is that I picked A a lot earlier, but these fuck ass test makers always make me doubt myself.

These test makers are ruthless bro... If I didn't catch the single word "believe" on a second read of the stem, I would have chosen E with no hesitation. I am learning that you just have to read slow and methodically both the question stem and the answer choices.

Don't let these assholes catch you lacking, lock in twin.

Bro these questions! I read Main Street location as the MAIN LOCATION as in, that Walnut Lane Street had to be the MAIN LOCATION of the video stores. I literally parsed out the grammar correctly, but got thrown by that simple misread of Main Street. Very annoying test makers. Welp, gotta read carefully.

This is what tripped me up! I am so used to automatically taking the negation of something as NOT that thing. It didn't even tickle my brain that NOT comfortable is well... uncomfortable.

The reason why C is more valid than A is more so on the fact that A just takes more of leap than C does.

Our premises are without a doubt talking about the universality, commonness of storytelling. We have our first sentence as a sub-conclusion, which is then supported by the remaining portion of the argument (which have their own support.)

There is simply nothing in our question stem that lens credence to the idea that we are talking borrowing. If we take our first sentence as a sub-conclusion, how do we support A at all? Universal just means common, it doesn't imply that there is actually some form of diffusion between these cultures. While we shouldn't use real world examples, I can easily name cultures that have similar beats of storytelling, but were geographically separated. How could they have possibly borrowed from each other?

Where s C is supported by the idea of "Storytelling appears to be a universal aspect.." While yes, we do have to assume on the quantifier "All" and Universal are the same thing, it isn't as big as a leap to say that the reason storytelling is common around the world is because everyone was borrowing from each other. All C is stating is that there are some "concerns and interest" that appear all around the world. Connecting it to our question stem -> One of these things being storytelling. The connection there isn't a leap at all, it is direct question. It is just a matter of scope at this point versus something completely unfounded.

Before I say anything, we are looking for the MOST supported. The test makers understand that we want a "cookie cutter" answer that puts our minds at ease, so they use that against us. Sometimes you genuinely just have to realize, "Man this isn't a comfortable answer, but it sure is better than the rest!"

Let's start with D; Storytelling was no less important in ancient cultures than it is in modern cultures.

The mistake in your logic is that universality equivocates importance, which it just doesn't. Universal just simply means we see it everywhere. Yes, you can stipulate that because it is seen everywhere it is important, but that's a stipulation. We don't want to stipulate anything on this test. Just off of our premises in question stem, there is nothing to suggest this is a conversation about universality = importance, or importance matters at all here.

SO if you don't see universal as equal to importance, then D is just simply not supported anywhere in this argument. There is nothing in our premises that state "Hey we are talking about importance here." In fact, I would say this argument is just that; Support for the UNIVERSALITY / COMMONALITY of storytelling.

Well then why C; Certain human concerns and interests arise in all of the world's cultures.

"Interests" is implied here to be taken as "things that are done." Any interest? No, the specific interest of humans. Well what about these interest? Well they arise in all of the world's cultures. Oh so, a certain thing that humans do in all cultures. Well do our premises give us as a certain thing that humans do in all cultures (or close enough to it)? Storytelling! And they give us exactly the reason as to why storytelling is universal.

What makes this tricky is the word "concerns." When I first read this choice, I saw concerns as something negative, maybe bad. But concern could also just mean, something of particular note, which could describe storytelling, but it is hard and a bit of stretch.

However, when I sum this all up, then there is without a doubt some support for C! Maybe not the strongest, cookie cutter support I want, but more than the other answer choices.