Stimulus, barebones structure: Carl's Coffee stocks two decaf coffees, X and Y. Yusef serves only decaf; coffee he served was too smooth to be X, so if he gets his coffee from Carl's, it was Y.

A: Sam's mom owns two cars, X and Y. Sam wants to take three friends. Y holds four, but X has a different good quality. So Sam will take Y. -- we don't see the flaw of eliminating an option because it lacks a trait....How many does X hold?

B: Anna must do either X or Y. She can't do X, and she doesn't like doing Y, so she won't do either. -- Doesn't match.

C: Rose can either do X or Y. She wanted to do something incompatible with X and incompatible Y, so she will do something she doesn't want. -- Doesn't match.

D: Arno can have a job in X or Y. He wouldn't do X if something else was available, so if he accepts a job, it will be Y. -- Similar to stimulus, given a condition, choosing one option over the other.

E: If Teresa doesn't do X, Y and Z will happen. X happening would also cause Z. So if we don't find a solution, Z will happen. -- Set up in a different way, and stays localized to one thing.

Conclusion: The claim that there is a large number of violent crimes in our society is false.

Evidence: This claim is based upon the large number of stories in newspapers about violent crimes. But since violent crimes are very rare occurrences, newspapers are likely to print stories about them.

Rephrased: "There's not a lot of violent crime in our society, since people say that because there are many news stories about violent crime, but because there isn't a lot of violent crime, newspapers will print stories about it."

Since the argument is using the same information from the conclusion as support, (B), in a rare turn of LSAT events, is the right answer. By using the conclusion as support, the argument "presupposes the truth of the conclusion" -- circular reasoning.

@Kevin_Lin Thank you so much for your reply! By "that doesn't make it what "minor" eruption means," just to clarify, do you mean what it means in the way the author is intending to differentiate between minor/major? Do you have advice for approaching similar impasses?

In the passage: "The Steadicam™ captures the dance in ways impossible with traditional mounts. Such new equipment also allows for the preservation of previously unrecordable aspects of performances, thus enriching archives." We have no evidence for A, B, or C; (D) says "replacement," but we're seeing Steadicam as an addition, or another way to make art, so (E)'s "enhance" works best here.

I was confused by the usage of "preempt" here, however, if anyone could clarify.

Is (A) incorrect because ""the whole body of law and legal customs" points to (C), "legal traditions and legislation," as opposed to one universal foundation, and

"....formulated since the beginning of the kingdom" -- so it has been formulated after the kingdom began, but (A) insinuates a document that helped generate the kingdom/one the kingdom rests upon? #help

"the readjustment movement advocated the end of the federal (10) government’s involvement in Native American affairs and encouraged the assimilation of Native Americans as individuals into mainstream society." Easy to be tricked because we're conditioned to see readjustment as the bad guy throughout the passage (so C/D/E tempting, etc), but the origins of readjustment were based around (B), leaving Native Americans "be," just their method of doing so was problematic.

@korcor Bumping! Would love to drill this. I think Pseudo-Sufficient Assumptions have sometimes

We're told: If told everything to every reporter -> they know an equal amount -> no one can scoop.

Conclusion: /Tell everything to every reporter. So, someone can scoop.

But you could still have them know an equal amount. Not telling everything to everyone is not the same thing as telling them all the exact same amount of said everything.

E addresses this: even if you don't tell everyone everything, there is still the real possibility that they were told the same amount. And if they know the same amount, no one can scoop.

A: Even if the press agent didn't tell everything to any, we still don't know whether any of them know more than the others know.

B: We don't know, though, that some reporter knows more than all the others. We only know that they weren't all told everything. Also, the conclusion is whether one can scoop, concerned with the possibility at all, not whether someone would act on it ("need not").

C: This doesn't tell us that they'd all know the same amount, though. This is just sharing one new fact.

D: Presumably the most knowledgeable reporter would be able to scoop.

Deforestation at present pace --> approach extinction

If stop deforestation --> koala saved

(B) is directly against the politician's claim. It doesn't go against the biologist's claim.

(D) Doesn't go against either claim. We see it no longer going at present pace, for biologist's claim. Re: the politician's claim, we weren't told that it is required to stop deforestation for the koala to be saved, just that if we stopped deforestation, the koala would be saved. So there could be another way to save them.

Why (D) is correct: If the airport's operating expenses were less than, or equal in amount to, revenue raised from sources other than the airport user fees, then presumably the airport would be able to pay its operating expenses, because they'd already have the money they need from other sources.

A: They could've been going to this airport and unable to pay; there could just be not enough necessity/desire for usage of this airport, regardless of whether there's another one nearby.

B: They could've been perfectly willing and still unable, or maybe not enough people were using the airport, etc. Not a requirement.

C: The airport can be unable to pay even if they had some funds from elsewhere. I mean, look at (D)!

E: Why? The airport can not be able to pay its expenses and people can frequent it more often in the future. These statements don't really affect each other.

"People's intentions can't be overall more bad than good. Because if we thought that was possible, then we wouldn't trust eachother, and trust is necessary for a society to survive."

The cynic in me: Okay, and so what if society just doesn't survive?

A: Right. The argument overlooks that it is possible for something that is harmful to be true. True beliefs ("people's intentions are overall more bad than good") that lead to deleterious consequences ("we don't trust eachother, goodbye society") are possible.

B: What are the two things that can't both be true? People's intentions are more bad than good, and society survives? And then, people's intentions aren't more bad than good, and society doesn't survive? Difficult to match up.

C: We don't see Louis calling into question anyone's motives.

D: We don't see the argument comparing two outcomes, this would be an extrapolation (that the two outcomes, I guess, are the statement being true or not? But then the argument would need to say "inevitably, then, people's intentions are more bad than good," etc).

E: We don't see various groups of individuals in the stimulus.

Consumer activist: Major airlines abandoned all but their most profitable routes. By allowing this, the government's decision to cease regulation of the airline industry has disadvantaged those who lack access to a large metropolitan airport.

Gaps: Were the most profitable routes exclusively those that went through large metropolitan airports? Would this not have occurred were it not for the decisions made by the government?

A: This doesn't need to be assumed. We're discussing whether lack of access caused a disadvantage. Even if there was an advantage, and that advantage was taken away, that wouldn't particularly put anyone at a disadvantage; if there wasn't an advantage, that doesn't tell us anything about whether now we're at a disadvantage for being below the "base" level, etc.

B: The activist doesn't make any claims as to whether the change should be reversed or not. Descriptive.

C: This doesn't tell us anything about the effect of this particular decision. Descriptive.

D: This helps demonstrate that the government's decision is what had an impact and consequently disadvantaged some. If the airlines were maintaining their less profitable routes because of government requirements, presumably the government allowing them to not do this anymore contributed to the negative effect. If this were not true, and the major airlines' maintaining their less profitable routes had nothing to do with the government requirements, then we cannot say that it is the government's decision that necessarily contributed to the negative effect/them not doing so anymore.

E: If (E) were negated, and they did not lack the resources to provide the same quality, they could still have not been the most profitable routes, and the government's decision could still have worked to people's disadvantage.

@ballazachary603 I know this is an old comment, but I had the same issue seeing this 2 years later -- perhaps supposedly "portrayal of violence on television" can encompass any program, so it ties in to "advent of television," as opposed to AC (A) specifying "violent programs"

This question felt tricky because both (A) and (C) appeal to what our brains think is going on here, primed for a correlation/causation flaw. Broadly, Statistician says, "Sun's luminosity controls land temp. on Earth," and Meteorologist says, "No significant aspect can be controlled by a single variable," denying the Statistician's claim, but the Meteorologist never says something along the lines of "your correlation /= causation."

Takeaway: Explicitly stay local to the stimulus, and ask, "DID this happen?"

Not A: This may be what we think, given that the meteorologist says "no significant aspect can be controlled by a single variable," but the meteorologist never says that the statistician's explanation is incomplete, the meteorologist may very well believe their entire argument is incorrect still. Also, the statistician doesn't think they're advancing a partial explanation, and we don't know if this is a partial explanation.

Not B: The meteorologist never discusses these two groups.

Not C: Taken literally, the meteorologist doesn't say that the Sun's luminosity doesn't correlate well with land temperatures on Earth. The meteorologist is instead saying that the Sun's luminosity can't be the only cause (X controlling).

Not D: This doesn't occur and the meteorologist doesn't mention scientific significance.

Why E: They state, "Any professional meteorologist will tell you," despite the Statistician saying, "Clearly—and contrary to accepted opinion among meteorologists." (E) maps on to the stimulus since the Statistician says "and contrary," thus, "putative counterexample," that the meteorologist doesn't consider the merits of, just dismisses outright.

Conclusion: 50 weekly behavioral therapy sessions are all that most people need.

Support: Researchers measured how quickly 60 different psychological problems waned as a large, diverse sample of people underwent weekly behavioral therapy sessions. About 75 percent of the 60 problems consistently cleared up within 50 weeks of therapy.

Gaps: What if "most people" don't have any of those 45 problems that cleared up, despite the sample being large and diverse?

A: The author says "most people," so this still leaves room for (A) to be possible.

B: This addresses the fact that "most people" might have one of the 25% of problems that didn't clear up within 50 weeks, so then the therapist is wrong.

C: The author says "most people," so this still leaves room for (C) to be possible.

D: We aren't talking about other forms of therapy.

E: In my view, the conclusion would still hold -- if the sample has even more problems than "most people," then "most people" would plausibly need 50 or less. Other people have said that the stimulus does consider this by saying that the sample was "large, diverse."

Conclusion: Since the jury found Pemberton not guilty, we can conclude that not all of the jury members believed Tagowa's testimony.

Support: Tagowa's testimony in the Pemberton trial was not heard outside the courtroom, so we cannot be sure what she said. // Afterward, however, she publicly affirmed her belief in Pemberton's guilt.

Gaps: But how do we know she was telling the truth when she affirmed that belief publicly? How do we know she stayed consistent in her stance when in the courtroom and out of it? Maybe when she was in the courtroom, she led the jury to think that she found Pemberton not guilty, so they did believe that testimony because that's what they interpreted.

A: I had trouble understanding what this said/how it mapped on to the stimulus and my pre-phrase, BUT: this is saying that Tagowa's testimony may have indicated the defendant was not guilty ("that witness's testimony in no way implicates the defendant") even though she believes the defendant is guilty. So if this is the case, there was consistency among what the jury believed and Tagowa's testimony, because Tagowa's testimony "didn't implicate the defendant" -- her testimony did not make the defendant appear guilty.

B: We aren't discussing what ought to be the case. We're just making a claim about what the jury believed about Tagowa's testimony.

C: The author doesn't say that the defendant committed or didn't commit the crime. We're just making a claim about what the jury believed about Tagowa's testimony.

D: The author doesn't say that Tagowa was dishonest. The author actually seems to preclude this possibility and assumes that she was honest/consistent and they just didn't believe her.

E: The author doesn't fail to consider this, since the author says "not all of the jury members."

What we know:

• First phase IR, advantage of machines was they worked faster than humans. This was economically attractive: many unskilled were replaced by a few skilled.

• Now, managers want to replace highly paid skilled with less less-skilled.

So presumably, you'd have to pay the less-skilled ones less. Even if not, having less employees means having less to pay anyways. So managers cared back then, and still care, about economically advantageous moves.

(A) demonstrates this - the managers of the past liked the economically attractive benefit of machines, and now managers are seeking to replace highly paid workers. You can make the assumption that they'd be overall reducing their costs because they'd have a "smaller number" of workers.

(B): We have no idea what would make them competitive; besides, we're shown that employers are favoring less-skilled workers.

(C): We don't know that they no longer have any advantage. We just have the example that managers are seeking to replace them with the less-skilled. Managers could be well aware that highly skilled workers are better, and more advantageous in a number of ways, but they still prioritize having less employees.

(D): We don't see technology creating any jobs here, the stimulus is localized to people being fired in both instances.

(E): We don't see a discussion of different types of industries, etc.

I understand that we can't assume for (C) that distributors/retailers will cease to have a purpose under the new model. But then how can we assume that, in (A), the warehouses will have a new purpose as opposed to not exist at all? It is definitely likely that "The need for warehousing will shift," but what if all these warehouses just close down? What if the paper/binding material is stored or sold elsewhere?

The whole categories aforementioned: "....the costs of warehousing, shipping books to wholesalers and to retail stores, displaying physical books in retail stores, and returning unsold books to publishers. This would make digital publishing much less expensive than traditional publishing."

D, describing what occurs in retail trade, touches on this the best.

What we know: 1. The 75 brands of microwave popcorn account for ~51% of sales of microwave food products. 2. It takes 3 minutes to pop microwave popcorn. 3. It takes 7 minutes to pop corn conventionally. 4. Microwave popcorn costs >5x more than conventional, by weight. 5. Many people are willing to pay a high price for just a little additional convenience.

A: This could be true, but it could go either way. The facts still stand even if this isn't true.

B: There don't have to be more brands for them to make up the majority of the sales. The facts still stand even if this isn't true.

C: This was tough to eliminate, since the last sentence says "many people are willing to pay a higher price for a little additional convenience," perhaps insinuating people buy more microwave than conventional. But this doesn't have to be true. They don't have to be buying more of it, they could be buying exactly the same amount. They could be buying less numerically/by volume and it would still be true that microwave popcorn is a popular choice that people are willing to pay a high price for.

D, correct: We know most of the money on microwave food products is that spent on microwave popcorn. We know that they take 3 minutes to be popped. Given this, 51% at a minimum is spent on the 3 mins or less group already. If the other 49% is longer than 3 minutes, this holds. If not all the other 49% is longer than 3 minutes, and some of the other microwave food is also 3 mins or less, this is still true. Regardless, this must be true.

E: Similarly to (B), they can make up the majority of the sales regardless. The facts still stand even if this isn't true.

Conclusion: When a randomly chosen group of people is tested for cocaine use, the vast majority of those who test positive will be people who have used cocaine.

Support: When 100 people who have not used cocaine are tested for cocaine use, on average only 5 will test positive. By contrast, of every 100 people who have used cocaine 99 will test positive.

A: The author isn't making a value judgment ("a subjective assessment of the worth, merit, goodness, or badness of something, based on personal, social, or ethical standards rather than objective facts").

B: We don't know anything here about properties of the average member....We aren't attributing anything to all people either, the conclusion is about a randomly chosen group. This would make more sense if the author said something like, "The average person does not do coke."

C: This AC shows the author's underlying assumption in the conclusion -- that there aren't significantly more people who don't do cocaine, so then if you were to take a randomly chosen group and there were positives, those wouldn't all be false positives. It is very likely that the vast majority of the positives, or all of them, will not be people who have used cocaine, since we know that false positives are a possibility.

D: Disproven by the underlined portion - here we see one person not testing positive. Besides, this is not the flaw committed in the argument.

E: The argument doesn't explicitly advocate for anything, just outlining the scenarios.

For this one, I spotted the right gap, just didn't properly understand how the correct AC articulated it. This is my break-down, in case it helps anyone else:

Understanding the argument: We're concluding that it's unlikely the education party is viable, since we need 30% that would either join or donate money. But what if we do have that? We have 26% that would join, 16% that would donate. Together that's 42%, so we would have enough. Our argument is assuming that these groups overlap substantially, or that the 16% are a sub-group of that 26%. Either way, the argument doesn't consider that the groups could add on to one another or that there is at least significant enough lack of overlap that it totals over 30% that fall into either camp.

E: What this means: Some of those in the 16% donating group do not fall into the 26% joining group. I got caught up on "might not be prepared to join" and the wording ran laps around me, but what this is bare bones saying is "The argument fails to consider that not all of the 16% belong to that 26%/overlap with it."

A: If anything, this strengthens the argument/makes the situation worse.

B: By using the word "it is unlikely," that leaves room for the author to believe that there is a chance.

C: The argument doesn't discuss 30% of voters contributing, we're talking about 30% being wiling to join or donate, not about the money necessary for a party to be viable.

D: The author places limitations on the exact support we need (support by donating/joining).

The salary is much lower for one reporter group than the other. The justification: well they receive such valuable training, that makes up for it.

Why might this not help? Perhaps they receive the exact same training. Perhaps the executive's definition of valuable training is silly. Perhaps they're receiving training they don't even need.

A: This isn't about the group in the stimulus. This doesn't tell us anything about whether the executive's argument is a good one or not.

B: "Most" is a key word here. If most of them have been there for more than ten years, and the average is lower than the other average, than we can assume that some with more experience at this newspaper are being paid less than some with less experience at the other newspaper. So this weakens enough to demonstrate that the practice isn't justified for at least some of them.

C: This doesn't tell us anything about whether the executive's argument is a good one or not.

D: This doesn't tell us anything about whether the executive's argument is a good one or not.

E: This doesn't tell us anything about whether the executive's argument is a good one or not.

A: We're told that this practice and targeting of individual consumers generates increased sales, so we can deduce (A), that their using these computers and receiving targeted ads makes them spend more money.

B: We don't know, we're just talking about one situation here.

C: We don't know if they'd spend basically nothing, we just know the sales have increased.

D: We're told that they can offer them free of charge because of increased sales. Maybe they'd get increased sales and targeting of individual consumers even if they ads weren't playing continuously.

E: This isn't included in the information we have in the stimulus.

Concl: It is likely that the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease could be reduced by including in one's diet large amounts of B vitamins and folic acid.

Support: People with higher-than-average blood levels of a normal dietary by-product called homocysteine are twice as likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease as are those with average or below-average homocysteine levels // B-vitamins and folic acid convert homocysteine into substances known to have no relation to Alzheimer's disease.

A: "Many," this doesn't matter. We're addressing the group with the heightened homocysteine.

B: This doesn't matter. We're addressing the relationship between homocysteine and Alzheimer's.

C: We're told they'd be including it in their diet as opposed to as supplements. Still doesn't do anything to the reasoning. This doesn't tell us anything about homocysteine.

D: This doesn't tell us anything about homocysteine.

E: The relationship is reversed. More homocysteine -- likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer's, doesn't mean that more homocysteine causes Alzheimer's and lowering it would help. Could go the other way, which (E) says: Alzheimer's increases homocysteine, that's why this correlation relationship exists.