Community Profile

dbershadskaya801

Thursday, Mar 20 2025

If you can afford it, 100% yes.

Score preview is just an insurance policy in case you end up doing worse than you're okay with reporting to schools. If you look around at different law schools' websites, many explicitly state that if they see a cancelled score (aka. they don't see any score, they just see a cancelled test take), they don't factor that cancellation into your admissions decision. Way better to have a canceled score, in my opinion, than a one-off bad test that a law school may factor into their admissions decision for you because they can easily see it on your record.

2

PrepTests ·

PT108.S4.P3.Q20

dbershadskaya801

Tuesday, Jan 07 2025

I was between B and C and ended up going with C because of the part in paragraph 3 where it describes how the Popular Front de-emphasized involvement in local African American issue-oriented politics.

I think the thing is though: C is a pretty broad statement, and it's not exactly indicating less involvement. In other words, organizers in the Popular Front definitely could have said C in the context of something like: "African Americans should strive to overcome racism in the highest levels of government! That is their duty! We support them from afar!" Do you see what I mean? C has this energy of ambiguity that allows it to exist in both contexts (TP and PF) because it doesn't exactly specify who is going to join African Americans in this fight, so it could theoretically exist in the Third Period (in which case, the organizers will likely ask everyone to join in the fight) or in the Popular Front (where organizers offer their thoughts of support, but don't actually prioritize involvement in these fights). The lack of clarity makes C one of those maybbbeee answers, where one possible version is the version you want, but there also exists a second version that would make the answer wrong.

Anyway, I don't feel too bad about my mistake because it seems like C was a pretty popular answer, but I figured it's still worth thinking about and trying to learn something from.

5

PrepTests ·

PT132.S1.P4.Q22

dbershadskaya801

Tuesday, Dec 10 2024

thank you for this!! I made the same mistake, and even though I agree with your first point, I feel like your second point is even better. C says "HOW did migration to urban areas..." So even though the passage does technically mention this sort of migration as potentially contributing to Jewett's divergence from domestic novels, it does not tell us HOW the migration would have contributed. The passage pretty much says "Some people speculate the differences come from migration! But anyway...." Which is not at all enough to choose C

0

PrepTests ·

PT150.S4.P3.Q16

dbershadskaya801

Saturday, Nov 02 2024

honestly... shallow dips for the win

0

PrepTests ·

PT150.S1.P3.Q15

dbershadskaya801

Saturday, Nov 02 2024

In case anyone had the same issue I did with question #15:

I chose B instead of C. Honestly, looking back, B was not a good answer. At no point does the author show reluctance, which would've been wording like "maybe" or "supposedly," something that shows us that they're not ready to agree. The only thing that truly stuck out to me about the vibes of passage A was the fact that the author kept quoting Borges, which made me feel like the author wanted to distance themselves from Borges or somehow poke at the language that Borges used to describe his ideas. In my head I was thinking, "why can't the author just paraphrase, why is every other word in quotes here?" I think it annoyed me, and so I projected my annoyance onto the author, when actually that was the complete opposite of what needed to be done.

If someone is just back to back quoting another person, that should indicate complete agreement. It's like in real life: if you were having a conversation with someone and all they kept saying is "Borges said this and then Borges said this and then he said this other thing," you would probably think that person is obsessed with Borges. It's the same thing in this passage, where the use of quotes is not supposed to be sarcastic or something - it's authentic, the author is just authentically so aligned with Borges that they're just borrowing chunks of his language directly.

This is also why A is the right answer over C: the author is not cautious here. They are mass-quoting Borges. Also, the fact that each paragraph ends with a statement that is not attributed to Borges is meant to show us that the author is just running with Borges' ideas and coming to conclusions of their own. What sorts of conclusions? Agreements with Borges, or applications of his ideas as "insight into the general nature of literature."

1

PrepTests ·

PT146.S4.P4.Q23

dbershadskaya801

Thursday, Oct 10 2024

In a similar boat as lots of other people with #23 - I chose A over E. While I see why E is right, I don't think it's fair to just say that A is completely unsupported - there is wording in the passage that makes A feel tempting.

The part in the passage that made me think A was right was the following: "Studying two freon gases - types of CFCs - they observed that, when released into the lower atmosphere (troposphere), these gases slowly diffuse upward into the stratosphere..."

When I read that part, I assumed that Molina and Rowland could only have studied these gases through lab experiments. But I think that's the precise assumption that makes A wrong. That is, Molina and Rowland could just as easily have studied existing freon gases that were being released into the atmosphere without having created any experimental set up, controlling for variables, etc. The issue of CFC release into the air wasn't some rare occurrence - the passage explains how this phenomenon was extremely common because of different aerosol products + refrigerant chemicals. So that means that Molina and Rowland could have just studied the air, say, in a large manufacturing company. Or maybe scientific tools that measured diffusion of CFCs in certain regions were already set up for other purposes, like space exploration projects, etc., and Molina and Rowland just used that data for a new purpose. Regardless, my point is that "studying" the gases is not specific enough to assume that Molina and Rowland set up a whole experiment.

Also, A says "lab experiments." So in theory, if A had been answered, the passage would have said something like "Molina and Rowland ran Western Blots using the proteins captured in..." Something that literally states the precise lab experiment they ran.

I didn't have as hard of a time seeing why E is correct - it was just hard to eliminate A, which felt like the stronger answer to me when I took this originally.

1

PrepTests ·

PT146.S4.P2.Q8

dbershadskaya801

Tuesday, Oct 08 2024

I felt a little corny for struggling with #8, going back and forth between D and C. Here's my reasoning for anyone that might have had a similar issue:

When a question asks you "what did the author mean when they used this word/term/phrase?" one of the best things you can do is to read the sentences around that quote and rely on those for clues/implications. On its own, when the author said "engage a well known artist to produce something for display" I didn't think much of it. They probably meant something nice or something cool. But when it came time to choose between the answer choices, none of them felt like they really addressed that point precisely the way that I prephrased it. Which is why at first I chose D, and then C.

D says "was representative of the artist's broader body of work at the time." One of the reasons this answer is wrong, besides the fact that the context for it is not provided, is that it says "at the time." So imagine someone commissions Van Gogh for a painting - do you think they care if it is representative of Van Gogh's style at that time? Sure, they're paying for it, so they care that Van Gogh does it. But do you think this patron is like "Van Gogh, dawg, I love you but you need to paint Starry Night part 2 for me." No.... no. The passage never suggests that patrons cared about supporting artists only insofar as every one of their works was very similar to their last one.

And then the second reason D is wrong is because of what I said earlier: the sentence right after the one we're looking at says FOR INSTANCE, which is like striking gold. The author is literally clarifying what they meant. And what do they say in that clarification? "For instance, if one commissions a famous architect to design one's house, that may reflect great credit on one's taste, even if one finds the house impossible to live in." So "something for display" doesn't care about coziness, and it doesn't even care about fitting in with the style of the artists work at the time. It just cares about making a positive impact on perceptions of the patron's taste. And that's exactly what C says.

1

PrepTests ·

PT146.S4.P1.Q5

dbershadskaya801

Tuesday, Oct 08 2024

Thank you for this!! I thought the same exact thing regarding E. Also, to add to your point:

There is a part in passage A where the author says that jurors are unelected, unaccountable, and have no obligation to think through the long-term effects an acquittal might have. As you mentioned, not having an obligation to think far into the future does not mean that you don't have the expertise to evaluate the case in front of you. But also, the implication of D is that jurors do not know enough, and this is actually something that the author of passage A would probably disagree with. If jurors don't know enough, that means there is something wrong with the juror system. It would be a major problem if juries did not know enough to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of a case. That would be a huge loophole in the entire legal system and would suggest that many decisions made by juries are critically uninformed. The author of passage A doesn't think this - they just think that the power to nullify is maybe a little too big of a power to bestow upon jurors. And one of the points they use to support this idea is that jurors have no obligation to consider the repercussions of a nullification. The author of passage A probably thinks that if people are given the power to nullify, they should have those sorts of obligations. But the author of Passage A still seems to believe in juries and isn't just trashing the whole thing.

I think E tripped me up because it felt like it suggested that jurors don't know some big reasons why a case was brought against a defendant. But again, that's not really what the author of passage A says. The relevant part here is lines 17-22. There, the author says that juries only hear the reasons that matter to the technical question of guilt or innocence. For example, if someone is accused of stealing, juries are seeing evidence directly related to that one incident of stealing. But there are plenty of people who steal and don't end up in court for it - often times, it might be because they are first time offenders, or because they have a really good reason (poverty, hungry children, etc.) that resonates with a particular law enforcement person.

My point here is that E is alluding to these particular background events that sway officials for/against bringing a case against someone - these background events are not technically relevant to a person's innocence (which is more matter of fact), but they are relevant to why that person is sitting in the court room. The fact that someone is a defendant already brings with it a certain seriousness and importance that the author of Passage A might think the jurors aren't recognizing, in part because they aren't told about all of a defendant's previous run ins with legal enforcement in which that person might have been let off with a warning, etc.

4

PrepTests ·

PT136.S4.Q7

dbershadskaya801

Sunday, Oct 06 2024

Chose E over B here -

I think the reason this question got me is because I read the first sentence and immediately mapped it out, not recognizing that it doesn't play a role in the conditional logic. The fact that "the consequences and the motives of human actions have a bearing on the moral worth of those actions" doesn't actually tell us much. A bearing? Okay, so they contribute to the moral worth. But that doesn't tell us anything. We can't read the first sentence and write down

moral worth → consequences + motives of human action

because this ^^ statement is implying that if something is morally worthy, it has consequences and it has motives behind it. And that's so vague and not at all what the author was trying to say. If the author wanted to make that first sentence a conditional, he might've said something like "positive consequences and good-natured motives ensure that an action is morally worthy." But the actual phrasing of "have a bearing" is so vague and is not strong/certain enough to be conditional logic. What condition ensures what result? Based on the first sentence, we have no clue. So the key thing here, for me, was to ignore the first sentence.

Once I got to the second line, things became easier. We find out that to be a moral agent, one must have free will. So:

(1) moral agent → free will

and we know this ^ because:

(2) moral agent → desire to conform

This part was very easy to decipher as soon as I realized that the first sentence is not a conditional. If (1) is true because of (2), then (2) must be saying that a desire to conform requires free will

moral agent → desire to conform → free will

because this ^^ is the only way that we can get from (2) to (1).

1

PrepTests ·

PT136.S3.P4.Q26

dbershadskaya801

Sunday, Oct 06 2024

Chose E for 26 instead of D, but I now see why E is wrong:

I think the tricky part about this question is the use of the word "moreover." In line 44, the sentence begins with "moreover," which made me implicitly think the author's point had to just be building off what they said in the earlier sentence. The earlier sentences of that last paragraph talked about having duties not to harm people, etc. So when I saw "moreover," I thought "ah, this is connected." And sure, the sentences are connected, but not in the way I thought.

In lines 44-49, the author actually adds nuance to what philosophical anarchists believe. Not only do they believe that people have a duty not to harm others, but they also believe that people have "positive moral obligations." What does that look like? Caring for other people, helping those in need, etc.

When I was choosing between D and E, the part in D that said "substantial moral obligations" really made me feel like the answer was wrong. Substantial? I was iffy on that because I couldn't see why we would characterize these obligations as substantial. I felt like they existed, but I didn't see them as being a long laundry list of obligations. However, the "substantial" part is referring to the fact that philosophical anarchists have (1) negative moral duties (not killing people or assaulting them, not stealing, etc.) and (2) positive moral obligations (caring for others, etc.) Those are actually two different sets of obligations, and when you think about it, it's a lot of obligations because it means philosophical anarchists are obligated to not do wrong things and to try to do what's right. In my head, I wanted to believe that these people aren't subject to substantial moral obligations because they're anarchists... my own biases made me think "no way that anarchists have SUBSTANTIAL more obligations." But that's just not supported by the text, which actually highlights different categories of obligations.

Also, E just says "people" which could technically be interpreted as non-political anarchists, too. But more importantly, lines 44-49 simply don't talk about political anarchists refraining from crime. That is the topic of discussion in the sentences before line 44, but objectively, lines 44-49 are talking about positive moral obligation. So E is describing the wrong set of lines.

1

PrepTests ·

PT148.S4.Q18

dbershadskaya801

Wednesday, Sep 25 2024

Even though E makes sense to me, I really struggled with D for a while because I felt like it was bringing up a decent point. Anyway, here's how I'm thinking about why D is wrong:

The stimulus says: this tax reform is being criticized. people on the right are saying its too specific, people on the left are saying it's too vague. But because one sentence can't be both too specific and too vague, the tax reform is just as it should be (aka fine)!

So just to be clear, the reasoning here is:

tax reform is fine → one sentence can't be both too specific/vague

Initially, I thought D worked because I was stuck on the part of the conclusion where it says the reform is just as it should be. Negated, D says: the proposed legislation as it is framed WAS meant to satisfy one of these political groups. But take this thinking one step further: the legislation was meant to satisfy the left. Now, plug it back into the stimulus:

this tax reform is being criticized. people on the right are saying its too specific, people on the left are saying it's too vague. It was meant to satisfy the left. But because one sentence can't be both too specific and too vague, the tax reform is just as it should be (aka fine)!

Do you see how the negated version of D doesn't make the argument fall apart? D doesn't quite fall in the space between our premise and conclusion (italicized above). It doesn't address the actual reasoning that is being used to conclude that the tax reform is just as it should be, which is the fact that one statement can't be both specific/vague.

Try this same thing with the negated version of E:

this tax reform is being criticized. people on the right are saying its too specific, people on the left are saying it's too vague. the legislation is made up of a bunch of statements, some of which are too specific, some of which are too vague. But because one sentence can't be both too specific and too vague, the tax reform is just as it should be (aka fine)!

Including negated-E makes the conclusion seem absurd because we clearly point out that the issue is not that one STATEMENT/SENTENCE is being accused of being too vague/specific. We clearly state that the issue is that there's a bunch of statements in this legislation, and there are groups of statements which are being called too specific, and other groups which are too vague. So the argument that "one sentence can't be both" is irrelevant, because we just acknowledged that the problem is not about one statement, it's about a variety of them. And that's how negated-E makes the argument fall apart.

12

PrepTests ·

PT105.S1.Q17

dbershadskaya801

Saturday, Sep 21 2024

Not like I'm stating something new, but just wanted to reiterate: this is an advanced question!! When I answered this, my instincts told me to not even consider A because "harm" was mentioned and I was like omg nope we never talked about harm here. And while the attention to detail in my reasoning is a good thing, I took it too far because it allowed me to cross out the only viable answer choice.

(B) and (C) are just way too absolute. Of course an immoral act could be a violation of etiquette, since morals exist in social and asocial contexts, and the social contexts are the ones that involve etiquette. Similarly, the rules of morality apply everywhere! We find out that morals apply to social and asocial contexts, so certainly there are instances of morals existing when you're around other people.

(D) a value judgement about importance that has no support in the stimulus. the stimulus never gives us anything to base an "importance" claim from.

(E) I chose this answer originally, even though I was so uncertain about it. E is saying that if something is social, there's no way morals could be involved. Again, that's just not true - we find out that morals are not necessarily social, but all that means is they could be social, or they could be asocial. So there is a world in which social + morals exist together, which is why E is wrong.

Even though A uses the word "harm," it still makes sense. All that A is saying is that a person could be immoral without impacting any other person. A doesn't put a whole lot of stock into "harm," it's just trying to say that there is a world in which a person is immoral and no one else experiences that immorality. And even if we are to take "harm" very seriously, yes, there is a world in which a person is immoral and doesn't harm anyone. That would be the case if someone is immoral when no one else is around. For example: not returning a library book is kinda immoral, but there's a world in which that library book is one of 10 copies at the local library, so keeping the book isn't actually harming anyone.

3

PrepTests ·

PT105.S1.Q10

dbershadskaya801

Saturday, Sep 21 2024

This question gottttttt me. I chose B originally but then switched to C, and looking back, I probably could've also mistakenly chosen A. Here's my reasoning for those three choices:

(A) there are general surgeons who are incompetent. This is a common answer choice that is literally always tempting but rarely the correct option. With any argument that a person makes, there are often exceptions. An analagous situation would be me saying something like "if you want a chance at a good LSAT score, you should study" and then someone being like "there are people who study and fail." Like..... okay. As Kevin points out in the video, the stimulus is just saying that if you want a shot at not having a risky surgery, you should have a general surgeon do it. We're not guaranteeing that things go perfectly here, but because general surgeons have this special training, choosing them to perform your surgery increases the odds that you end up okay afterwards. The fact that there are bad general surgeons out there is nonsense - this statement would be better if maybe it said something like "90% of general surgeons are incompetent" because at least then it's a staggering amount of bad GSs. But the simple fact that there are incompetent general surgeons out there can mean something like "out of 1 million surgeons, there's 2 that are incompetent," and that is a super irrelevant fact here. Another way to look at this: we find out in the second sentence that if you are a general surgeon, you are extremely competent. general surgeon → highly competent doctor. So in another sense, A is just not possible, according to our facts.

(C) the competence of the doctor performing surgery does not guarantee a successful outcome. For this answer choice, I think the best way to understand why it's wrong is to map out the conclusion, which would be: /general surgeon performs surgery → exposed to highly undesirable risks. The contrapositive to that would be: /exposed to highly undesirable risks → general surgeon performs surgery. In other words, if your surgery isn't highly risky, then it was performed by a general surgeon. But just because your surgery wasn't highly risky has nothing to do with whether or not it was successful. More importantly, a surgery that isn't highly risky could still be risky. It could be: medium risky, a little bit risky, or not risky at all. My point is that the conclusion isn't actually saying that much - it's only making a comment about highly risky surgeries, but beyond that, it never claims that general surgeons always have successful outcomes, etc.

(B) general surgeons are not the only doctors competent to perform surgery. Let's just reiterate our conditionals here:

agree to risk surgery → surgery performed by highly competent doctor

general surgeon → highly competent doctor

----------------------------------------

/general surgeon performs surgery → exposed to highly undesirable risks

Seeing this mapped out was enough to help me realize the discrepancy: just because it's not a general surgeon who is performing the surgery doesn't mean it can't be someone who is highly competent. Sure, we learned that general surgeons are highly competent, but we never learned that they are THE ONLY ONES who are highly competent. So the conclusion is throwing the baby out with the bathwater: the simple fact that it's not a general surgeon doesn't mean that you're not getting someone competent.

If you're still confused: the second conditional is what's being messed with here. The conclusion is mistakenly assuming that /general surgeon → /highly competent doctor. But that's not the right way to understand the second conditional. The contrapositive of the second conditional would only be: /highly competent doctor → /general surgeon. Again, these statements are just reiterating the fact that general surgeons are awesome, but it doesn't help us reach the conclusion that ONLY general surgeons are awesome.

Lastly, the thing that I originally didn't like about this answer choice was the word "competent." Throughout the stimulus, we read things like "highly competent" or "extremely competent," which made me feel like B wasn't a good answer choice because we don't care about competent doctors, we need highly competent or extremely competent doctors. However, I think the reason this doesn't matter here is because there is a hierarchy of the flaws that LSAT writers care about. Kevin has a video about this on youtube (link below) but in short: mistaking sufficiency/necessity is one of the most important flaws out there. The passage does equivocate regarding highly competent/extremely competent, but that inconsistency is not nearly as important as the fact that the argument messes up the contrapositive of the second conditional statement. If you have to choose between the two, sufficiency/necessity is the way to go. For this stimulus, the equivocation is not the thing that's making it wrong, so when we choose an answer choice, lean towards something that also equivocates about competency over missing the answer choice that acknowledges the bigger mistake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQGkfDkVr9I&t=1s

2

PrepTests ·

PT105.S1.Q6

dbershadskaya801

Saturday, Sep 21 2024

Seeing the stimulus mapped out in this video was a game changer for me. For some reason when I answered this question, I just couldn't believe how many rules were coming up at once, which made me feel like I was doing something wrong or not connecting the puzzle pieces in front of me. Thanks Kevin!

3

PrepTests ·

PT105.S3.P2.Q12

dbershadskaya801

Friday, Sep 20 2024

OMG Kevin Lin!!!! I was so happy to turn on this explanation video and hear his voice - I watch his videos on youtube and was happy to hear that he moved to 7Sage :) Yay Kevin

I got 12 and 13 wrong, here's my thinking;

For 12, I chose C rather than B. Once I heard the explanation for why C is wrong though, it immediately made sense. The fact that C says "more KINDS of punishments" is what makes it wrong. Originally, I thought C could be right because the fact that the second rationale doesn't have this internal turmoil about unfairness made me think that it would have an easier time dolling out punishments. The first rationale is worried about justice, whereas the second rationale is like "you committed a crime, so you get punished." So I thought okay, with the second rationale, it might be easier to punish people because it's a yes/no situation - did you commit a crime or not? If yes, then punished. But the video makes a good point: the second rationale may have an easier time saying yes/no to punishment, but we never learn that because of this, more KINDS of punishments would be enacted. If the kinds of punishments include jail time, probation, paying a fine, or community service, there's no reason to think that the second rationale would justify more of those options than the first rationale. In fact, the first rationale is all about public benefit of a punishment, so I imagine that it would certainly be open to giving someone a fine rather than throwing them in jail. The reason I didn't like B is because I didn't take note of the fact that the second rationale bases punishments on "the severity of the crime." Taking that into account, B makes a lot more sense.

For 13, I chose D rather than E - I find the author's attitude questions to be challenging. The reason I chose D is because the author does acknowledge the idea that "if a shoplifter faced 20 years in jail, shoplifting may be deterred." This part really stuck out in my mind because it felt like the author was acknowledging that, if we operate under the first rationale, something like a 20 year sentence for shoplifting could be justified - since the author doesn't seem to outright dislike the first rationale, then I thought that he must be neutral towards its consequences. I see why D is wrong: in the very first sentence of the third paragraph, the author acknowledges that the 20 year sentence situation is a problem, even though it may confer some social benefit. The part that Kevin pointed out was a little less obvious to me because I felt like the author wasn't inserting their opinion into those sentences. I felt like they were saying "people think this is unjust" but they weren't saying "I think so too." However, the first sentence of that paragraph makes it a lot more clear to me that the author thinks this is a problem, which allows me to see why E is right.

10

PrepTests ·

PT145.S4.Q20

dbershadskaya801

Thursday, Sep 19 2024

Okay I actually hear you so hard on your frustration here, but I think fabien is right: the major argument against A is just the fact that this is an SA question, not an NA question.

For SA questions, we can't use the negation test. SA answers just need to be so powerful in their wording that they allow us to smoothly sail towards the argument's conclusion. There's no twisting an SA right answer into a different version of itself to see if it works - at face value, the right SA answer choice is just amazing all on its own, no questions asked.

So taking A, which says "no one else has yet been found to have psychic powers," we need to read it at face value. At face value, the fact that no one else has psychic powers does nothing for us because our whole stimulus is about testing out if Selena has these powers. Saying "no one else has these powers" is almost just bolstering the fact that we desperately need to figure out if Selena has these powers, because there's literally no one else who has been found to have them. Maybe Selena is the first person. Maybe Selena is the 17th person. Regardless of the truth of A, we need to play along with every single word of the stimulus: Selena's abilities decide for the rest of us if its possible to have psychic powers.(Now, I chose A during timed and BR, so I completely get your frustration - also, a lot of others chose A too, so I agree that JY dismissed a good 2nd answer choice for no reason).

In NA world, A is awesome. In NA world, we are allowed to use the negation test, which would say "someone else has been found to have psychic powers." In this case, yeah, that would make the argument fall apart!

At the end of reviewing this question, besides learning why B is right, I think it also made me re-realize the importance of identifying the question type before you even look at answer choices. Knowing that this is a SA question immediately puts horse-blinders on my eyes: I cannot use the negation test, the right answer just has to be authentically amazing exactly the way it is written and with no other re-phrases.

Hope this helps!

2

PrepTests ·

PT145.S3.P1.Q6

dbershadskaya801

Thursday, Sep 19 2024

thank you for this explanation!!! my head was in exactly the same place, the UN "assembly" point especially was something I hadn't even noticed while reading

1

PrepTests ·

PT104.S1.Q19

dbershadskaya801

Saturday, Sep 14 2024

Here's how I'm thinking about it (I chose C initially):

The stimulus' conclusion says that "histamine plays no role in the process by which colds produce their symptoms." In other words, histamines, which can cause runny nose, congestion, sneezing, don't cause colds. Something else causes colds, even though the symptoms are the same as the symptoms of histamines.

C says "antihistamines, when taken alone, are ineffective against congestion caused by colds." What do antihistamines do again? Oh yeah, they block the actions of histamines. What do histamines do? They flip the switch and turn on your runny nose, congestion, sneezing. So antihistamines flip the congestion-switch from "on" to "off" in your body... But wait, if that's what antihistamines do, why wouldn't they work to relieve cold symptoms? An important thing to note here is that we never learn that cold-related congestion is relieved in a different way than allergy-related congestion. At the end of the day, congestion is congestion, and if antihistamines flip the congestion switch from "on" to "off", maybe they could work in resolving cold-related congestion. We don't know this for a fact, but there's a chance that it's true, which is why C doesn't have to be true.

Another way to think about this, more broadly: you see a puddle on the floor. What caused it? Well, someone could've spilled something. Orrrr, the window was open during a storm and some of the rain came in through the window. Regardless of the cause of this puddle, your solution to it can actually be the same thing, either way: grabbing a paper towel to soak it up. The point here is that this question is getting at the idea that just because two problems could be caused by different actions doesn't mean that their solutions have to be different. Antihistamines could be effective against cold symptoms - based on the passage, this is a completely valid possibility.

All that E is saying is that if antihistamines do work in relieving cold symptoms, it's not because they're blocking histamines. This statement must be true because it is practically reiterating the simple fact that cold symptoms are not caused by histamines. So whatever remedy we try for cold symptoms, it's not going to be about blocking histamines.

Hope this helps!

13

PrepTests ·

PT104.S1.Q13

dbershadskaya801

Saturday, Sep 14 2024

Just a lil bit frustrated with JY's dismissal of answer choice A here. For anyone that also chose A, here's how I'm thinking about why it's ultimately wrong and C is right:

A says "within the next few years, Country X will impose a system of fines for illegal waste disposal by its industrial companies." The reason this answer seemed tempting to me is because we learn that increased industrial development + over time = resources to tackle pollution. So in my mind, these fines are the resources that are going to diminish the pollution. That's why the argument is fair to assume that these problems are about to start diminishing in the next few years.

However, the reason this is wrong is because we skipped a step. From the stimulus, we learned the following:

(1) poor country = no industrial development = not causing too many pollution issues

(2) mid-tier poor country = 4k-5k economic output = some industrial development = causes worst pollution

(3) mid-tier poor country = 4k-5k economic output = increased industrial development = resources to tackle pollution, making it less bad

When the stimulus ends by telling us that Country X is currently at the point where their economic output is 5k, we have no clue if they are at (2) or (3). The only way that the conclusion follows is if we assume that Country X is at (3), where their economic output is 5k, but they've gotten to a much farther point in their industrial development. This is what C is saying, and why C is the correct answer.

A doesn't help us reach the argument's conclusion. Since the conclusion never specifies to us if Country X has been industrially developing for a while or not, we need our answer choice to state that fact. A jumps the gun and brings up resources to combat pollution, but for all we know, Country X could be at stage (2) and just rolling out random initiatives while still being a top polluter.

Hope this helps!

4

PrepTests ·

PT104.S3.P2.Q14

dbershadskaya801

Saturday, Sep 14 2024

This was actually so helpful for me. I also chose A but was deciding between A and D. What initially pushed me towards A was that the last paragraph does continue to talk about Hopi names, and so I figured that if this passage really was a criticism of Mill and Levi-Strauss, maybe it wouldn't have brought up Hopi names at all in the end, and just focused more on the criticisms. But your point that, "Yes – it may not be a strong criticism to show that only one small group does not adhere to the rules, however, it is still a criticism, it doesn’t have to be a strong, airtight one" actually made me realize why D is the better answer. You're right, even if this argument isn't awesome and feels like it veers into the territory that A describes (anthropological vibes), it's important to consider what the author's motivation seems to be. The author does talk about Mill and Levi-Strauss again in the last paragraph, and in a very pointed "these guys are missing the point" sort of way.

Anyway, thanks for your comment! You reminded me that when I answer "author's purpose" questions, it's important to consider where the author is coming from in writing a passage and also remember that many of these passages are part of bigger texts, so the argument may not always feel air-tight.

2

LSAT · Score Release Day-Feeling Defeated

dbershadskaya801

Wednesday, Aug 28 2024

I haven't tested yet but I do know someone who had the following trajectory:

171 first time

165 second time

176 third time

These are amazing scores. And at the same time, when this person saw their 165, they panicked and doubted everything about themselves. Luckily, they kept going and got the 176 at the end. My point here is that someone who can score a 171 can also score a 165 - sometimes, there are just things about one specific test that might play more or less to your strengths. The best thing you can do is to keep pushing yourself to achieve the score you want, and not get lost in the sauce of this one score. It's easy to look at someone going from a 171 to a 165 and say that they started slacking off, etc. But in reality, I think it's hard to know the real reason behind any of these differences when they're as small as a few points. Give yourself the credit you deserve, and if anything, let this 163 power you through to where you want to be next. If you score above a 163 the next time, then you made progress, and I've heard a lot about how much admissions officers love to see some progress.

2

LSAT · PT49.S4.Q23 - Counselor: Constantly comparing oneself to those

dbershadskaya801

Tuesday, Aug 27 2024

@lukerldavis280 said:

I hope there is no rule against reviving old posts, but I have struggled with reconciling how answer choice D is correct and here is how I addressed it broadly and concisely:

Broad Flaw: The counselor is using their majoritarian view of "Comparing" to justify a majoritarian view of "not Comparing," it also causing a majority response without considering "something else (the non-majority causes in the premises outside of almost invariably being at least 50%+1 but not 100%)" and other variables:

Concise/Generic Flaw: Assuming that if a majority of variable-effects are true, the opposing or opposite variable-effects are also true in the majority; all without considering other causes of the opposing or opposite variable-effects.

Does this make sense or is this the wrong way to approach getting to answer choice D?

Okay, honestly, your wording was a bit tough to understand, but I think your broad flaw sounds like it could be correct. I'm just going to break it down here for my own sake, but hopefully this also helps someone else.

The author says the following:

compare to more successful -> self-disparagement

compare to less successful -> dismissive of others

The correct contrapositive would be:

/self-disparagement -> /compare to more successful

/dismissive of others -> /compare to less successful

However, the author instead concludes that:

/compare to more successful -> /self-disparagement

/compare to less successful -> /dismissive of others

I think this is a sufficiency/necessity error. Refraining from comparing yourself to others does not ensure that you are not going to be self-disparaging or dismissive of others. On most questions, an answer choice will kind of whisper something along those lines by saying something like "confuses a condition that is sufficient with a condition that is necessary" or so on. But in this case, none of the answer choices do that, even though we know in our hearts that the stimulus is drawing an invalid conclusion. What do we do in that instance? Read all the answer choices, see which one speaks to this truth the most.

(A) if A is true, then all we end up with is the reality that someone can be both self-disparaging and dismissive of others. You can actually be both if you compare yourself to people who you believe are less successful and more successful. Is that a flaw here? No, it's just a completely different point. The flaw is rooted in what the author thinks will allow a person to be self-accepting and accepting of others.

(B) There's often one of these answer options. Sure, maybe there are other beneficial effects. We're focused on the negative effects, though, and ways to prevent those negative effects.

(C) C is almost restating the point. It's like "the author didn't explicitly state that if you are dismissive of others, you are not accepting of others." Is that why this whole argument is wrong? Did we need the author to say "if you are dismissive others, you do not accept them?" No, because ultimately, the main issue here is the necessity/sufficiency confusion. At the end of the day, even if the author did tell us that

compare to less successful -> dismissive of others -> /accepting of others

the counselor still went ahead and concluded that

/compare to less successful -> /dismissive of others -> accepting of others

Even if C was implemented in the stimulus, it wouldn't change the fact that the author derives their conclusion from mistaking necessity/sufficiency.

(D) D is tough because it hints at the flaw without stating it as explicitly as a lot of other questions have in the past, which was my understanding of @ethanchuang2013296 explanation above. D is saying "okay, you can be self-disparaging and dismissive of others even if you're not comparing yourself to them." In other words, D is saying that comparing yourself to others is not sufficient to being self-disparaging or dismissive. Sure, maybe comparing yourself to others is a necessary condition, like so:

being self-disparaging -> comparing yourself to others

But we know that the rules of lawgic say that just because you don't have the necessary condition doesn't mean that you don't have the sufficient condition. So just because you're not comparing yourself to others doesn't mean there aren't other conditions that might contribute to you being self-disparaging.

I think the other reason that this answer works is because we know that the argument in the stimulus is not valid. Answer choice D is like one step ahead of the game. The first step would be to acknowledge the flawed conclusion. The second step would be to acknowledge the other contributing factors to actually being self-accepting and accepting of others. D does step 2.

(E) not true. The stimulus does not assume that all people who compare themselves end up in a spiral of badness. The stimulus is saying that if you are actively comparing yourself to believe who you already believe are better/worse than you, then you're self-disparaging or dismissive of others. But if you're comparing yourself to someone who you have no pre-conceived ideas about, or are neutral about, the author doesn't saying anything about what happens then.

1

PrepTests ·

PT105.S2.Q18

dbershadskaya801

Tuesday, Aug 27 2024

You're right - when you read B, you were supposed to take "high CO2 = vital" as true. Thinking that that statement is false would definitely trip you up.

The reason B is wrong is because instead of resolving the paradox, it only makes it worse.

The question asks us to resolve the following paradox: if warmer temps and increased humidity usually help crops grow more than usual, how come in the next decade, when Northern Asia is supposed to have warmer temps and increased humidity, scientists say crop yields will decrease? In other words, why is the thing that is usually true (warm temps + humidity = more crops), not true here?

B says that when there are warmer temps + humidity, there is more CO2, which is vital for plants. According to B, plants will be thriiivvvinnngg in these weather conditions. CO2, which plants love and need for survival, is going to be even more plentiful than it was before, due to the warm temps and humidity.

Meanwhile though, we're supposed to explain why plants wont be thriving in these weather conditions. B only makes the scientists' predictions all the more confusing, because it adds to the laundry list of reasons why warm temps + humidity is a good thing for crops.

2

PrepTests ·

PT140.S4.P3.Q15

dbershadskaya801

Monday, Aug 26 2024

agree with mannatsinghh017 ^^

Another thing that helped me see that E is right: not getting lost in the sauce of the word "inference." The non-lsat half of my brain sees "inference" and thinks: prediction. But I remember reading somewhere (might have even been on 7Sage), that the lsat takes "inference" to mean something like: a valid conclusion that hasn't already been stated by the author/data/etc.

Applying that to the last paragraph: what are the two valid conclusions that the author makes that weren't already given to them?

(1) "The evidence does not, therefore, support the claim that a notion of innate talent must be invoked in order to account for the difference between good and outstanding performance." This one was tricky for me to recognize as an inference because the non-lsat half of my brain was like... wait, but that's not a prediction, it sounds like a conclusion. But that's exactly the point: the author is writing from a place of following this research to the present day. In the present day, the author has a bunch of sets of data, the most recent of which shows that "a surprisingly large number of anatomical characteristics.... develop from extended intense training." The author is taking that data and drawing their own conclusion by saying that the evidence doesn't support the old claims that talent=innate. The data is just the data, but what the author concludes from it is their inference.

(2) "motivational factors are more likely to be effective..." This one was easier for me to spot because it was the first time motivation had been brought up in the stimulus, so it was easier for me to recognize that the author is inferring something here.

Hope this helps!

4

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