Besides reading science articles, I also recommended watching Kurzgesagt - In a Nutshell on Youtube. He explains complex science topics/debates in a very digestible way, which should give you a better general understanding of a lot of science topics/debates (he also covers a lot more). His vids are max 10 minutes I believe.

I also find listening to The Guardian's Science Weekly podcast helpful. They're 15 minute episodes and really help me with remembering what is discussed without a text. Which helped me significantly in being able to picture a low-res summary for RC rather than writing it down.

I think building a broad and general understanding of it all is the best way to go. You can always dive into more specific and denser literature to practice/get used to LSAT passages. But having a broad knowledge base of science makes many of the science related passages/stimuli less daunting and incomprehensible.

Hope that will help you a bit!

It's not a specific perspective/opinion of the author. I think it's more a "common sense" thing. Why would you reveal something that would damage your case if there is almost no chance the opponent would bring it up?

The charity call out lmao

It suggests it will compliment in the last paragraph as the author says that the costume illustrations will help to "clarify" medical jargon for those without the extensive medical knowledge required to understand the jargon. The author says it would be difficult for such people to "translate" the jargon to imagery themselves. Hence, the costume illustrations will provide this for them, supplementing the medical expert testimonies. The word "otherwise" is key here. If implies that without the illustrations accompanying the expert testimony jurors or judges would find it very difficult to understand the medical expert testimonies.

Think about it this way, why would you trust a lawyer to explain a medical illustration? You wouldn't (I hope), you need a medical expert to make your argument as a lawyer credible. You also would not go to a doctor for a legal advice (I hope). You want "advice" for a specific situation from an expert in that specific field.

If you know what the reason is why you are struggling, I would suggest going back to that part of Foundations. Also, memorizing the list of "indicator" words really helps with having a rough idea of the argument with just a glace.

Something I've noticed in question regarding animals, is that the "trap" answer almost always goes from a specific animal subclass (mammals/reptiles/birds) to all animals. Whereas the right answer stays true to the animal subclasses mentioned in the stimulus.

you're super slay!!!!

The stimulus does not say that only members can receive the discount. It just sets out the rules for the members.

Thank you so much, all the examples of invalid arguments just confused me more than it helped me. This clarified a lot of things for me!!

#feedback would it be possible to get a video for this?

So are "conclusions" that can be inferred from the Opera example that:

1) there are some trained who cannot recite the lyrics

2) there are some who can recite the lyrics who are not trained

And with Harry:

1) some of Harry's friends are not wizards

2) some wizards are not Harry's friends

If not, why not?

So the premise does not say: "if one is a Jedi, then one is a Force user". Rather it says "If one uses the Force, one must* be a Jedi."

I know it sounds very similar, but there is a slight difference. However, where in the first premise it is possible to be a Force user but not a Jedi, the second premise disabuses that notion.

The first says that in the superset "Force users" there is a subset "Jedi". The second says that the entire set "Force users" overlaps exactly with the entire set "Jedi". Meaning that there is no possible situation where one is a Force user but not a Jedi.

If you take this example:

"Only orange cats eat lasagna. Garfield is an orange cat. Therefore, Garfield eats lasagna."

This says that in order to be a cat that eats lasagna, one must be an orange cat specifically. You cannot be a brown, yellow, purple, blue, or green cat. You must be an orange cat.

Translating this to the wrong way:

"if one is an orange cat then one eats lasagna" says that there are other 'things' that eat lasagna. But that is not what the premise is saying. A cow cannot eat lasagna, not even humans can eat lasagna according to the premise.

If you translate that wrong statement into lawgic:

orange cat -> eat lasagna wrong

If you negate it: /eat lasagna -> /orange cat.

That just doesn't make sense. It implies that a cat has to be eating lasagna 24/7 to be an orange cat. As if the moment an orange cat stops eating lasagna it is no longer an orange cat.

So the correct lawgic translation is:

eat lasagna -> orange cat.

Because one can be an orange cat an still not eat lasagna. An orange cat can eat brownies, salmon, a rat, whatever else. But an orange is the only thing that can eat lasagna, and nothing else can.

I hope this helps a bit.

Because the "positive" statement says that the time required by experienced workers is either the same as that of inexperienced workers or shorter than that of inexperienced worker.

The statement is not "debating" who takes longer. Its giving you an "absolute" statement. Therefore, the negation should also be "absolute". Could implies that experienced workers finish the job quicker than inexperienced workers, but that would not be an accurate negation.

No, because few intuitively implies a far smaller quantity than not most. If you have a 100 people, and you say most people, it is 51+ people. However, if you negate that and say few if not zero people it doesn't quite capture it. 50 or 49 out of 100 is not a few people that do not take the train, yet 50 or 49 is still not most. It more than a few. I think few can be used to negate many. Both are "fuzzy" quantifier.

I don't think "negating" itself is the point of this, it's more that practicing how to negate and learning the meaning of lawgic negations is what we learn through this.

For example a most seriously weakens questions:

"According to statistics on drunk driving some drivers with an alcohol permillage 5 times the legal limit are not a danger to other drivers"

Lets say the following are the two answers you're oscillating between:

a) no drivers with an alcohol permillage 5 times the legal limit are not a danger to other drivers

b) some drivers with an alcohol permillage 5 times the legal limit are a danger to other drivers

Do you see the difference between the answers? a) completely undermines the statement above. b), however, sort of agrees with the statement above. It says that there are some drivers who are a danger, which also implies that there are some drivers who are not a danger. Even though b) may seem like a 'negation' of the statement. (I know here it might be fairly obvious which answer is correct)

So learning how to recognize the correct negation of the different types of statements will help you recognize the right answer quicker and more accurately. Saving you time to focus on question you find more challenging.

I don't know if you also get notified if someone replies to a reply to your comment. So just in case, I tried to clarify things below. I hope it helps!

I see what you mean, but that is not entirely the case. My attempt to explain is going to be yappy, so buckle up.

"All dogs are friendly" does imply a relationship. It says "If 'you' are a dog, then 'you' must be friendly". D → F. If you negate this "It is not the case that all dogs are friendly" says that at least one dog is not friendly.

If you see it as a venn diagram. The all statement says that the "dog circle" falls entirely in the "friendly circle". By negating the all statement, you basically pull a part of the "dog circle" outside of the "friendly circle" (if that makes sense). But because all is a quantifier, we cannot say how many dogs are not friendly if we negate an all statement. We only know for sure that at least one dog is not friendly.

The conditional statement does not say anything about the quantity of Jedis. It just says "if you are a Jedi, then you must be able to use the Force". If you negate that, you say that you do not have to be able to use the Force to be a Jedi. So all we know is that it is possible to be a Jedi and not be able to use the Force. We do not know if there are any Jedi or at least one Jedi who can not use the Force.

So if you negate a conditional statement you say that there is a possibility that the relationship between A and B does not always apply. Whereas with negating an all statement you say that there is at least one instance that it does not apply. There has to be at least one individual from group A that is not a part of group B.

I hope this example might be a little bit clearer:

"All cats have four legs"

"If you are a cat, then you have four legs"

If you negate the all statement, it means that at least one cat does not have four legs. For example, a cat has three legs because of an accident.

If you negate the conditional statement, it means that there is a possibility that a cat does not have four legs. But for all we know, every single cat does have four legs. The possibility of something occurring does not mean it has to occur.

I hope that clarifies things a bit.

No you cannot ignore the conditional relationship because it gets negated. How I've seen it show up in LSAT question is like this:

John Doe: All drivers who drank alcohol and drive are a danger to society.

Jane Doe: No that is not the case, not all drivers who drank alcohol and drive are a danger to society. Those who drive with an alcohol permillage below the legal limit are not a danger to society.

And it'll ask you about the point of conflict, or what can be inferred from Jane's statement if it is true.

He said that being able to explain LSAT questions/answers to other people, at different levels, is the best way to learn and grow in your ability to understand the LSAT.

I am going to try and explain, I'm sorry in advance if its still unclear.

Unless we drive out the poachers, none of the pandas that relocated to this part of the forest will prosper.

Lets look at the second part of the sentence first. "none of the pandas that relocated to this part of the forest will prosper". What does this tell us? If a panda is relocated then it will not prosper. From this we can extract the rule: relocated -> /prosper.

So why won't they prosper? Because the first part of the sentence implies there are poachers in that part of the forest that will prevent the pandas from prospering. Hence, if we "just" relocated the pandas and that's it, so to speak, then they will be killed by the poachers and thus won't prosper.

If the exception of "driving out the poachers" is applied, as in we drive out the poachers, then the relocated pandas will prosper. This we can rewrite in lawgic as: /drive out poachers -> (relocated -> /prosper). Or in English, if we do not drive out the poachers then the relocated pandas will not prosper.

Basically, if the poachers are still in that part of the forest we relocated the pandas to, they won't be able to prosper because they will be killed.

The reason /driving out the poacher -> /prosper is incorrect, is because we are talking about only the pandas that are relocated to a specific part of the forest. Driving out the poachers doesn't mean all pandas will prosper, only those relocated to that specific part of the forest. By saying /drive out → /prosper, you're implying all pandas will prosper if the poachers are driven out, which we simply do not know.

No restrictions should be placed on the sale of merchandise unless sale of that merchandise could endanger innocent people.

The first part of the sentence (until "unless) says the following if paraphrased: "On the sale of merchandise there should not be any restrictions placed".

So the rule is not (/restrictions -> merchandise). Why? Because merchandise is not necessary for no restrictions. That also doesn't really make sense. Why would the existence of merchandise be necessary for the absence of restrictions?

However, what is necessary, is a for the sale of merchandise to not have restrictions. Can you sell something if selling said thing is restricted? No. So its: sale of merchandise → /restrictions.

The exception in this example is not merchandise itself but a property of the merchandise, which is the possibility of endangering innocent people.

Lets take Lego for example. Lego does not endanger innocent people (unless you count stepping on a piece with your bare feet endangerment). So no restrictions should be placed on the sale of Legos according to the rule. If we take guns for example, they very much can endanger innocent people. Thus the exception applies, and restrictions should be placed on its sale.

So the crux of this question is in the use of the word only. In the first sentence only sets a condition for being tutored: being in danger of failing.

Therefore tutor → failing

In the second sentence the word only set a condition for what group of students are in danger of failing. In this case, a danger of failing is not necessary to miss Mondays class. That doesn't make sense. Why if the students is failing do they have to miss Monday's class? The students in danger of failing weren't obliged to miss Mondays class. Rather it's saying, if the student is in danger of failing then the student must have missed Monday's class. Thus, failing → missed

"High school teachers who teach AP courses will only tutor students they believe to be in danger of failing and they believe that the only students who missed Monday’s class are in danger of failing missed Monday's class."

I paraphrased the last sentence so the relationship becomes more apparent. We know that the only is an indicator of a sufficient condition, not a necessary one. The only in front of the students indicates a subset of students who are in danger of failing. Which students? The ones who missed Monday's class.

I hope this helps a bit!

Please correct me if I'm wrong. But would it be safe to say that the "domain" essentially functions as context? In the sense that "yes its a condition" but it does not really "determine" the right to keep a pet or not in the example given. As the explanation says "why would a Londoner care about NYC laws regarding pets?" Would saying that everything that falls outside of the domain is "whataboutism"? It's irrelevant to consider those things outside of the 'context' of the premise.

So if I'd say:

Only black cats with four paws who are nice and like salmon are allowed in the house.

domain: "black cats with four paws"

rule: "nice and like salmon -> in the house"

Here "black cats with four paws" is the context in which my rule applies, right?

No we cannot chain them. Why? Because the relations set out are between

mixed and bacterial increase

mixed and casting the spell

You concluded the wrong thing from the first premise. The first premise says that if you mix the soil then bacteria will increase. You flipped the two, leading to a wrong conclusion. So there is no relationship between bacterial increase and casting the spell.

We know that mixing the soil will for sure lead to bacterial increase. However, bacterial increase can also come from other things besides mixing the soil. For all we know putting a dirty sock in the soil will also lead to bacteria increase.

Similarly, we know that to mix the soil you need to know the charm. But just because you know the charm does not mean you have to mix the soil. We know that bacterial increase is a result of mixing the soil and that the spell is necessary to mix the soil.

I hope this helps!

I thought it was an invalid conclusion because we do not know if the attempted failed just because she was not on the ship? She could have been standing next to the ship and still been killed? I know from my "outside" knowledge, I've seen the movies, that the attempt failed, but in stimulus it is not explicitly stated that it failed, that is an assumption we make.

But I also translated it correctly into logic after and came to the same conclusion. Can anybody help me out? Is my first line of thinking wrong?