Well AC (D) is a great summary/ inference to the stimulus. Basically, the stimulus is saying when an interest group exceeds a certain size, then there's a lot of conflicting economic views in the group. But in order to have a political impact necessary to influence legislation, they need to be united – so not that much conflicting economic views.

After reading this, I just connected the ideas together. This was my thought in my head, "Okay, so, basically if they (political group) exceeds a certain size, then conflicting views arise. But, hey, in order to remain influential in passing legislation, you need to be united. Thus, if they exceed their size – which leads to conflict and not them being united – it would follow that they probably wouldn't remain influential in passing legislation, which is exactly what AC (D) is saying: "A group can become ineffective by expanding to include as wide a membership as possible" (a.k.a. exceeding their certain size). I bolded the word "can" because this answer is really supported by the stimulus. If this answer said, "A group will become ineffective..." then I would've crossed it out because the stimulus never said that.

AC (A) is not right. AC (A) reads, "political groups are generally less influential when their membership is expanding than when it is numerically stable." There are two things wrong here. First, you see that I bolded the word "generally." That is a strong word to assert from merely this stimulus. What I mean by this is that "generally" is synonymous to "most," "usually," "typically." But the stimulus never says this. I think the closest phrase to "generally" in the stimulus would be with the phrase "large group of people tend to surface." But even here tend to is modifying a different idea. Moreover, by saying "generally" it seems as if this AC is trying to apply this answer choice broadly to other instances.

Secondly, the reason why this AC can't be right is because if you just take it as it is, what this is saying is that political groups are less influential when they expand rather than when they are stable. So, by this logic, you mean to say that when the group expands by 2 people that means they are less influential? Absolutely not! The stimulus said that if the group exceeds a certain size then, since there will not be that much unity, they won't be that influential This isn't the same as just expanding. It's like me (a 140lb, 6'0", college sophomore) telling you "hey man my doctor told me that if I exceed my BMI and become overweight, then I'll have really bad heart problems. I guess I can't gain anymore weight now. I guess I can't go out and eat a hamburger with you." No! Gaining a few lbs over 140lbs isn't going to hurt my BMI nor make me overweight; these two things aren't the same!

I hope this helps and it didn't confuse you! :smile:

Hi there,

Yes, the correct answer choice is (C). I think you may have been tricked by (E) by inferring that "number of other articles" concluded that financial problems are a major problem in divorces. However, they never concluded that. Only Ragnall concluded that. The relationship between Ragnall and the many other articles isn't that they concluded that money is a major problem. The similarity between them is that they simply relied on data that showed people choosing "money" as a major problem in divorces.

(C) is correct because the conclusion here says "The survey data do not establish that financial problems are the major problem in contemporary marriages." This is referring back to Ragnall's conclusion. This conclusion, translated, is basically saying "Nah Ragnall, you can't draw your conclusion based off the data. I'm not saying that your conclusion is wrong or false. I'm just saying that you can't draw your conclusion, because couples often express other types of marital frustrations in financial terms."

Moreover, this is somewhat a good argument. At first I though this was a unjustified/ reject flaw, which is when the author asserts that the other person's claim is unjustified, and then concludes the opposite or deems the other person's claim false. But, in this stimulus, the author is merely pointing to another possible "explanation," and drawing a relatively weak conclusion saying that "I'm not saying your conclusion is false or wrong. I'm just saying that because of this possible explanation, your conclusion can't be justified by the data you used."

I really hope this helped and didn't confuse you. At first when I read the stimulus and read the answer choices, I chose (C). But then my answer key said (E) which confused the hell out of me, until I realized that I was reading the wrong answer key!

Same here! Count me in!

Would love to help. What's up?

I think it's useful to drill the older PT LG's as there are some older LG's that are misc. and pretty difficult, which could definitely help simulate the difficulty you may face on the real test. There's no harm in reviewing the older PT's! I do it all the time! Hope this helps.

Inference question type and MBT are the same thing. These questions are provable and you need to find the inference/ what must be true from the statements given to you.

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Interested!

Hi there,

I hope I'm not late. Yeah I definitely have seen those around in LR. However, often times, the other person's conclusion is generally the conclusion of the stimulus when the author doesn't provide his/her/ their own opinion. Because I've seen LR questions like that where the author doesn't provide their own opinion, rather just explain the opinion of the other person.

But, when the other introduces a transition word like, "but, however, rather, etc." almost always the author provides their own conclusion.

I hope this helps.

Hi there,

I hope I'm not late.

If the sentence is: "Beth cannot go to the store without Tim," I would just translate it using group 3, with the word "without." I do this because group 3 is "negate anything, and make it sufficient."

I already know that Beth is negative (i.e. Beth cannot go), so using group 3 translation, I would just negate this term, making it positive, and leaving it as sufficient.

So after the translation, it would go like,

Orig: Beth cannot go to the store without Tim.

Trans: Beth can go to the store [only when/with] Tim.

To fully answer your question, you'll see a lot of LR questions with group 3/4 translations combined. Your example is a perfect example of this. Usually when I see that (/A unless B), I automatically translate it using group 3, making it ( A --> B).

Hope this helped. Sorry for the late reply.

Does anyone know where Sami's podcast is at? Thank you.

Hi there,

I’m not going to answer all the questions, just a few problems that I did do.

PT 71, S3, Q11

If you don’t understand my explanation, please refer to LSAT Hacks as this is where I got my question clarified/ answered. Plus, there are plenty forums such as Powerscore and Manhattan that answer all your questions!

This was definitely a tricky conditional problem. Basically, the logic as this:

If taught w/ methods appropriate and devote significant effort —> student achieve broad mastery of curriculum.

Thus, if such broad mastery is not achieved (failing the necessary), those students are not being taught w/ methods appropriate to their styles.

If we want to break this down even further, it goes something like this:

A and B —> C

Not C, —> Not A or Not B

However, the conclusion in the stimulus states this: not C, therefore not A.

When working on this problem I thought to myself, well yeah, if we don’t have C, therefore we don’t have A or B. And they just stated that we don’t have A. Isn’t this valid? Well, you’re missing B.

In order for this to be valid, we need a sufficient condition to state it is not B. Because if this is not the case, could actually still be there. But the author is making it certain that if we don’t achieve broad mastery, then those students are not being taught w/ methods.

So we would have to add this sufficient condition: “As long as secondary school students are taught w/ methods appropriate to their learning styles, they will devote significant effort to their studies.” Which is just “A —> B,” where the contrapositive is “/B —> /A”

It would look something like this:

/C —> /A

Or

/C —> /B —> /A

In either scenario, the conclusion is being drawn that the students are not being taught with methods appropriate to their learning styles.

PT 71, S3, Q17

Translation of the stimulus:

If you want a successful economy, then you need a flourishing nat’l scientific community. If you want a flourishing nat’l scientific community, then requires many young ppl to be excited to become professional scientists. And to spark this excitement, good communications between scientists and public is necessary/ needed.

An easy conditional chain that can be read like this:

Successful economy —> flourishing sci. Community —> many young ppl 2 b excited —> good communication

Simpler chain: A —> B —> C —> D

Question is a MSS, but I also feel this may be somewhat a MBT. But MSS is still okay. Let’s go for process of elimination.

A) “if scientists communicate…” stop right there. When I read this I was like okay this is wrong because we can’t start with the necessary condition. This is like starting with “D” in the simpler chain above. WRONG.

B. This was okay for me when going down so I didn’t cross it out. So, I left it in the back of my mind and continued with the answers.

C) “No nation can have a successful economy unless at some point scientists have communicated well w/ the public,” which is just “nation can have a successful economy —> communication happens between scientists and public” which is exactly our “C —> D” part in the simpler chain above! Correct. At this point I would place this high in my mind on correct answers; but I will still look at answer choices D and E to eliminate.

D) I think this is probs a trap for anyone who thinks that one phrase “in any nation” is part of the conditional. To me, I don’t think it is as it merely qualifies that we are talking about any nation, not just a specific nation. This is wrong.

E) “in any scientific endeavor” I’m like what scientific endeavor? I know endeavor means goal and like aspiration for something. But they never mentioned this in the stimulus. Plus, the question stem is telling us that the stimulus provides the most support for which one of the following statements. This means the answer choices should be provable and can be supported by the stimulus. This AC is wrong.

Okay, so in my mind I would choose C. But double checking (B) which was my contender, the reason why this is wrong is because it is saying that the extent to which a scientific community flourishes depends on the number of young people. Well, what does this even mean? In the stimulus they say the requirement is that “many young people become excited.” To me, Answer Choice B was kinda off because the these two things are not the same thing. Answer choice B is specific. They’re saying for a community to flourish, it depends on the number of young ppl excited. But what number??!?! Did they say a flourishing community depends on a specific number? nah, they just said many.

Hope this helps.