This argument was hard to understand, so I made an analogy to make more sense of it.

Some people think that we should get married because not doing so is "unnatural."

Philosopher: this is absurd!

Philosopher's argument:

P: Unnatural = violation of natural laws OR statistical anomaly.

P: Not getting married doesn’t violate natural laws

--- Unnatural = violation of natural laws or statistical anomaly.

P: Doing something to avoid becoming a statistical anomaly is a bad reason for doing it. So even if most people get married, that doesn't mean you should also get married.

SC: You should be able to things that are unnatural (=things that most people don't do).

MC: It is absurd to get married because not doing so would be unnatural.

Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong... bc/ I could be wrong lol

#help

P: it has not been scientifically proven that [there is no such thing as ESP].

P: there have been numerous failed attempts to prove [there is no such thing as ESP].

C: some individuals do posess ESP - opposite of [there is no such thing as ESP]

According to the argument structure above, the flaw seems to be:

takes for granted that the fact that a claim [there is no such thing as ESP] has not been demonstrated to be true establishes that it is false.

So I'm confused as to how answer choice E is correct, because for E to work, the claim should be [there is ESP].

ultimately, my question is:

1) not proven to be true = false (what I think should be the answer)

2) not proven to be false = true (answer choice E)

are these same the same flaws? Because I guess if we take the opposite of the claim [there is no such thing as ESP] to [there is ESP], E addresses the flaw.

Thanks!!

I also don't have connections to the legal community. Having said that, I'm wondering if you were able to have someone read over your personal statement and give you advice. I am assuming that you didn't spend money on consulting so I'm curious who you asked to read your stuff. I'm looking to apply upcoming cycle, and that's the stuff I'm wondering. Do I ask someone in my peer group, or someone who is in a professional field, even if it's not in law? Thanks for your thoughts. And congratulations!!!! :)

I skipped over B in timed condition because it seemed too trivial. I expected a more "enlightening" resolution, as opposed to just being told that computer models are often inaccurate... I'm still not impressed by this resolution... lol

#help

I wanted to ask your thoughts about C)

If we change the "presumes" to "overlooks the possibility that", then would C) be addressing the flaw? Changing it would say: overlooks that informed lifestyle (IC) choices are available to everyone. If IC is available to everyone, then how can we say that IC is the cause of something that occurs for only certain people?

I almost misinterpreted it as the "overlook", which made D) really attractive. I'm not sure if LSAT writers intentionally bait us in this way.

I'd appreciate any insight!

#help

P: Caused by social conditioning --> diverse mixture

P: NOT diverse mixture

(SC): NOT caused by social conditioning

C: Only caused by innate disposition

Assumption: P could be caused either by social conditioning or innate disposition, and nothing else. This is a false dichotomy. It's possible it's caused by neither social condition nor innate disposition.

Assumption mapped: [~result of social conditioning --> result of innate disposition]

I understand the flaw but what I'm confused is why D) addresses the flaw.

D) says P is a result of both social conditioning and innate disposition- so we are implicitly saying that there is not necessarily one single cause.

What I'm comfused about is how the assumption [~social --> innate] is consistent to D) which says [both social and innate] -- sufficient failed, rule irrelevant.

Is D) saying more than I'm understanding? Possibly implying that there are more causes other than social conditioning and innate disposition (which would be the flaw of false dichotomy)?

Don't let the postponing make you feel defeated. We all want to follow through with our plans, and we feel horrible, even guilty, for not following through. But sometimes we underestimate the situation, or overestimate ourselves, or for LSAT probably both.

I started studying last August, and my "plan" was to take the test in December. Well, I can tell you that I postponed my December test to Feb, took the Feb test, but ended up cancelling the Feb score. Now, I am looking to take the June test. As long as you don't give up, you will take the test one day and will feel so glad that you postponed it :) Good luck and don't feel bad. Just keep moving forward!

Innocent until Admitted

Something I failed to notice: the "colon" after "Mr. Smith has a violent character", which indicates that the statement after the colon is trying to support the statement before the colon. I just perceived the argument to be made of two separate premises but actually it was one premise, which leads to a sub-conclusion, which leads to the main conclusion.

P: S didn't deny the testimony by L saying that S assulted her.

(flaw: no denial of a claim = truth of claim)

SC: S has a violent character.

(flaw: ad hominem)

C: Mr. Smith is guilty of assaulting Mr. Jackson.

C) addresses the flaw between P - SC. Correct answer.

A) also addresses the flaw between P - SC but not accurate because it is phrased in terms of what argument overlooks. We want an answer choice that describes what the argument is incorrectly assuming.

E) addresses the flaw between SC - MC, but similar to A) it is phrased in terms of what argument overlooks.

@ can I ask how long it took you from PT'ing in high 150s/low 160s to PT'ing in high 160s?

P: Study A and B had different results.

P: Study A and B used different methods.

C: Different methods accounted for different results (=don't need to investigate more why results are different)

Assumption: different methods --> different results

D) fails to recognize sufficient without the necessary of our assumption

(different methods & same results)

Recent study:

P: Prav --cause--> lower C

P: Prav --corr-- lower HA & CD

Previous studies:

P: higher risk of HD --corr-- higher C

(reverse also true: lower C --corr-- lower risk of HD)

C: lower C --cause--> lower risk of HD

Flaws:

recent studies --> conclusion (flaw: correlation =/= causation & one possible reason --> the reason)

previous studies --> conclusion (flaw: correlation =/= causation)

As of now, recent study has no relevance to the conclusion.

We know that "one of the effects" of Prav is to lower C, but we don't know if lowering C is what resulted in lowering HA & CD.

For the argument to work, we must assume that Prav is correlated with lowering HA & CD due to Prav's effect of lowering C.

Assumption: Prav --cause--> lower C --corr-- lower HA & CD

I had to read this again and again before I could even understand what the argument was saying. The language is convoluted but the overall argument is simple.

P: Postmodernists reject modernists' belief about order and universality of truth.

P: Modernists are seen as limited (more to support why Postmodernists reject modernists - not really a necessary premise)

P: Postmodernists believe that irregularity and chaos are important.

C: We live in a world of irregularity and no universality of truth.

flaw: belief vs. facts

Postmodernists believe that irregularity/chaos is important and that there is no universality of truth. But this doesn't mean that this belief is true and we actually live in the kind of world that they believe in.

Maria:

P: Edison) CCTA and ~FE

C: ~(CCTA --> FE)

Frank:

P: CCTA --> ETK

C: CCTA --> FE

Frank assumes: ETK --> FE

I think C) is a trap answer for going auto-pilot mode. I just looked for keywords "criticism" and "reveal truth" and picked C) cuz it matched the conditionality that I was looking for

lesson learned: actually read the answer choice before choosing it

JY just amazed me with this explanation...

I thought D could work if it's reversed (and this is how I misread D) : Does most of the phosphate pollution in the municipal treatment plant come from municipality's waterways?

If the answer is no, then it means the municipal treatment plant is getting most of its phosphate pollution from other municipalities. That would severely weaken the conclusion that the decrease of phosphate pollution is due to some people using phosphate-free detergents within the municipality.

As I was reading the stimulus, I was caught up in the idea that argument is neglecting the possibility that insomnia is due to time difference between countries. Of course we can't sleep easily when we go to a place with a time zone not used to ours, right?

So I confidently picked A) because I thought: contiguous border = little difference in time zone. A) removes the an alternate cause, thus strengthens the conclusion.

Looking at this now, I can give two reasons why A) is incorrect.

1) "chronic" insomnia is different from not being able to sleep for a couple of days. This point is definitely something that I had missed in real time. Traveling to a place with a completely different timezone will cause some sleepless nights but not necessarily chronic insomnia. So actually this time zone thing doesn't really matter in the argument about "chronic" insomnia.

2) countries with contiguous border doesn't necessarily mean countries with similar time zones. Russia and China share borders but could have very different time zones. So my assumption about [contiguous border = little difference in time zone] is not supported.

When I thought I was seeing through LSAT writers, I was actually being played :O Time to be humble again...

Take home message:

When the conclusion (A--> B) is simply not supported by the premises, the argument is failing to consider the case of (A but B), which is what B is.

This is my take on the argument:

P: Moral code (ex. Be good) > Law (ex. Don't steal)

P: Law's adequacy is determined by how well it embodies the moral code it is expressing.

C: Moral code (Don't break laws) must have exceptions.

Why? Laws don't always perfectly embody the moral code (E). For example, "Don't steal" is not always going to embody "Be good." What if you are the mom with no $ and your child is going to die if you don't feed her? If you don't steal food, your child might die, which is definitely not "being good" for the child. In this case, following the law (don't steal) comes in conflict with the moral code (be good). The Jurist tells us that moral code "transcends" the law. So if following the moral code requires breaking the law, then one should be able to break the law. So there could be exception for the mom to steal the food for her child.

Tough question to process...!

Not sure if it's "motivating" but I love watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Classic escape movie lol

hey @ :)

I don't think I'm struggling with a particular type (except for weird, unconventional games), but I'm generally a 1-2min (sometimes more) slower than "target" times.

My most recent score was 161: LR -5 for each section, RC: -8, LG: -6

I am planning to take 2 PT's a week from now, but I can definitely take couple hours a day to drill LG. I just don't know which games I should focus on drilling since there are so many lol

P: MV and CH are similar in 1) genre 2) lyrics in some music

P: Jackie likes MV music.

C: Jackie will probably like CH music.

One of the gaps in the argument is that, CH has witty lyrics like some of MV's songs. We don't actually know whether Jackie likes those some MV songs with witty lyrics. Jackie might hate those songs specifically, then this similarity of lyrics would be irrelevant. To strengthen the argument, we would want to say that Jackie likes those some MV songs that have witty lyrics.

E) Jackie's favorite MV songs have lyrics that are somber and political.

I almost chose E) because I thought this was addressing that gap. But it's actually saying the opposite!!! "Somber and political" is quite the contrary of "witty, full of puns and sardonic humor." I don't know if it is intended but somber and sardonic, puns and political start with the same letter... as I was doing the question in real time, I mindlessly equated somber and sardonic cuz it sounded similar. Anyways, upon careful reading, E would weaken the argument, because CH lyrics would be opposite of Jackie's favorite MV lyrics. I'm surprised no one really chose E...!!

P: humans responsible for climate change --> humans control future climate change

C: humans being responsible for climate change is an opportunity.

B) : humans can control behaviors that can impact climate change.

Negation of B): humans cannot control behaviors that can impact climate change

Negation of B) questions the truth of the premise, by suggesting that even if humans are responsible for climate change, they cannot control behaviors that are responsible for it, which means they cannot control future climate change. So this is a necessary assumption.

I think B) is not appealing because its negation makes us question the truth of the premise, instead of breaking the link between premise to conclusion (which usually happens). In real time, this question didn't give me trouble, but during BR, I realized how much I don't like B) and I am glad I didn't think too deeply during timed section lol

I got confused in this question because there are just so many views to keep track of. I kept on being confused about exactly what I'm trying to weaken.

With questions like this, it might help to jot down the conclusion. Something like "NOT carbon", so that I know that's the view I'm trying to weaken. With that in mind, I will look for something that will show it "could be carbon."