#help

Isn't AC D also a sufficient assumption? If not, why not?

RIP Kobe

This is a point of disagreement question.

Council Person X:

Premise: The Council has the obligation to help ensure low electricity rates

Conclusion: If we all agree that we have to approve construction of a new plant, we should build plant E because its the design that would allow for lowest rates.

Council Person Y:

Premise: The Council has other roles (other than helping ensure low electricity rates) -- one of which is to not lower quality of life.

Premise: Plant E's design would damage the air quality. This would offset the benefits of low electricty rates

Implied argument (or at least a kind of direction where Y might be going?): We should not go with Plant E.

Answer Choices:

A: ? ?

Neither is actually explicit about whether they want to build a new station.

B: N Y

First person does not mention quality of life, so we don't know if they would agree/disagree with this.

C: ? Y

First person is not given a chance to respond to the point about air quality

D: Y N

Yes. this is the disagreement. One person says go with the plant because it'll be the cheapest for electricity, one person does not like the design bc of air quality effects.

E: Y ?

2nd person does not say anything about this, if anything, they might concede this point.

This is an argument part question.

Conclusion: You can relax some regulations to increase availability of meds, but don't lift all regulations.

Premise: /maintain --> extinct

(If you don't maintain strict environmental regulations, then endangered species will become extinct.)

Premise: Why is this relevant? New medicines come from plants and animals.

Sub conclusion: Lifting of all regulations will be too much (for endangered plants and animals), so even if the goal is to increase access, what you're doing is using up resources and it'll actually be counterproductive bc you'll have less resources for new medicines.

What I am looking for: Premise 2

Answer Choices:

A: Not really, it's not a reason, but it's a set-up for a reason. Author is not also making an point about restricting/not restricting research.

B: No. It's not part of a contradicting argument that this one then undermines, but instead, the argument itself mobilizes this point.

C: Tricky but no. The disaster is not going to result from continued OVER-regulation, but instead, an effect from DEregulation.

D: Yes. This is the explanation for why endangering plants/animals matters.

E: This is a bit too specific? This is not the role of the point about plants and animals. Also, what is "narrowly focused efforts"? This is a potential implication from the argument, but the argument doesn't actually go there, and only says, don't deregulate completely. The narrowness or breadth of the "relaxation of regulations" is unclear from the stimulus.

I'm a little confused why JY didn't use conditional logic for this?

Here's my analysis:

This is a flaw question.

Premise: Pure Free Market Economy (PFME) --> Maximum Total Utility (MTU)

Premise: There are other types of economies that can also achieve MTU. (i.e. there could be other sufficient conditions)

Argument: High Controlled Economy (HCE)--> /PME; /PME = not acting in a way most likely to bring about MTU

(Rephrased: if something is a highly controlled economy, then it is not trying to bring about a pure free market economy. And because it is not trying to bring about a pure free market economy, it's not acting in the way most likely to bring about MTU.)

The hardest thing for me to parse was the 1st sentence. I realize that it is saying that something like 'the only way that Maximum total utility is assured, is a pure free market economy, OR, 'having a pure free market economy is sufficient to guarantee the maximization of total utility". i.e. (PFME is the sufficient condition) The 2nd sentence -- there are other types of economies that can achieve MTU -- seemed to just say that OTHER things can be a sufficient condition for MTU. We know this just from conditional logic lessons. If X implies Y, this does not preclude that other things could also lead to Y. X implies Y does not mean that X is the only thing that leads to Y")

Thus, what I am looking for: Something that is a sufficient condition (X) for something (Y) is not the same as saying that X is THE thing that is THE MOST LIKELY condition to bring about Y. This is answer choice D.

Answer Choices:

A: /PFME --> HCE

Wrong directionality

B: level of importance of distribution of utility is not the issue

C: This replicates the flaw. How do we know that PFME is the most likely way to achieve that end? We do know that PFME is not the only way.

D: Yes, see reasoning above

E: This cost benefit analysis, then, is irrelevant to the argument.

This is a MSS question.

There isn't actually a clear argument in this passage, and it's sort of on the descriptive side. The author presents views, but is not clear on where he/she leans.

Premise: Cezanne inspired next generation of artists (these are 20th century modernist creators of abstract art)

Premise: Most experts agree that Cezanne is an early modernist

Premise: There are some who don't agree with this opinion.

Premise: One example is a guy, Cachin, who thinks interpretations of Cezanne have a biased point of view towards modernism.

Answer Choices:

A: There's nothing in the stimulus about controversy

B: This is a declarative statement that Cezane WAS a creator of abstract art. But, the stimulus doesn't imply this.

C: Yes. This is the first sentence.

D: This is a declarative statement that implies agreement with Cachin. But, the stimulus doesn't actually go there, it only present's Cachin's opinion.

E: This is a declarative statement that implies agreement with Cachin-- that interpreting Cezane as a modernist is a common tendency, AND that this is a misinterpretation. But, the stimulus doesn't actually go there, it only present's Cachin's opinion.

#help

I get why C is right, but I'm still not sure why A is incorrect. I was picking between the two and ended up picking A initially.

Here's my argument analysis:

Ruth: Politician --> Varied Experiences

If you're a politician, then you are required to have a variety of experiences:

Stephanie: Varied Experiences SOME /worthy

Having varied experiences is not sufficient to be declared worthy of public trust.

Answer choice A: is "The response simply asserts a point of view opposite to Ruth's without giving reasons for it."

JY says that Stephanie is not making an argument, but I think she IS making a statement no matter how off tangent it is (in logic terms, she's negating a conditional relationship), So the phrase in the AC "simply asserts a point of view" checks out for me. She also doesn't really support her own argument. Stephanie's sentence 2 is just a rephrasing of her sentence 1. So the phrase "without giving reasons for it" checks out for me.

Is the thing that is wrong the word "opposite"? Because Stephanie's point doesn't address Ruth's argument (since she puts words in Ruth's mouth), it's not actually 'opposite" to Ruth's?

#help

Does anyone else have trouble with diagramming when the words are slightly different? I did a double take on whether the phrase "derive pleasure from the satisfaction of their curiosity" is the same idea as "experience such pleasure", and so when I first did this question, I got tripped up if I could or should actually link the two.

(In reviewing this, I intuitively linked it up, but in the midst of being stressed out while doing the test, I seem to just forget my intuitive understanding of things!)

@ Also interested!

That said, could you clarify who the the target audience is for the program? I've finished the core curriculum and I'm now doing drills and PTs. Thanks!

#help

For Q17, "The author's attitude toward oscillation can most accurately be characterized as being?", I was picking between A and B.

I didn't pick A (the correct answer) because of the 1st phrase "satisfied that it occurs". I thought this ignored the possibility implied at the end of the passage that the oscillation might be proven wrong.

I picked B (wrong answer) because of the tone of the last section of the passage, where it seemed like the author is hopeful that proving this would be one stepping block towards understanding dark matter.

In another LSAT explanation blog, they explained that B is wrong because we don't know if other dark matter types are also theorized to oscillate, so the passage is only limited to discussing oscillation in relation to neutrinos.

I see the point, but I find this to be a rather narrow reading. I'm not sure how to not replicate my error in future readings?

Hi! Any updates on analytics for problem sets?

Did you change your study approach once you got to the mid 160s?

Same here! :( The drilling prep tests disappeared for me too!

I understand why E is the correct answer, and I picked E myself. However, when I read answer choices A and B, I didn't cross them out so easily because they seem to fit into argumentative flaw types. A is similar to an ad hominem argument and B had the word "most", which still kept open the possibility that the financial magazine is not part of this group of "most magazines". Therefore, I didn't think that these answer choices actually "strengthened" the stimulus. Any thoughts?

#help