To overcome that, I began transcribing my thought process during the BR. It is definitely more time consuming and hard work but worth it if it helps you to ingrain the habit of parsing out the implications of key words and referential phrases. So, for each LR question I would right out the stimulus in the same way that I want to be processing it. For example, once I get to a referential phrase, I would wright out fully what it means and its implication. When I do this, I start to automatically pause and make sure to fully understand what is happening in the timed sections too. I do the same thing for answer choices. I would transcribe my process of thinking, see where the gaps are and eliminate them by doing this repeatedly. I started doing this about three weeks ago and my LR has improved from consistently scoring between -8 to -11 to between -5 to -3. Also I alternate between practicing timed and untimed problem sets so I make sure that I am sticking to the habits I've ingrained. Hope this makes sense and good luck! Also remember patience during the test and in general for studying. Sometimes I'm surprised how fast you go when you slow down and own the stimulus before going into question.

Yes 'physicians' in this case includes everyone. I think it is a safer bet to take the answer choices as they are presented and pull out the implication just from what is given. Also if you are unsure, reading all the other answer choices, they are more clearly wrong for the task. So in this case if you are not 100% convinced by 'A' but you think it is a contender eliminating all the other choices will help to pick A more confidently.

Hey @ the key here is to remember to stay on task. Specifically you want to make the conclusion that it is generally unwise for patients to have medical checkups when they don't feel well, more likely to be false. 'E' tells us that some physicians sometimes use the correct amount of thoroughness. If only some physicians out of the larger population of physicians use the correct amount of thoroughness, this does not make it less likely that the patients generally should not go get checkups. 'A', on the other hand, tells us that there are some diseases which physicians (all physicians) are able to detect early even though the patient does not not feel ill. If all physicians are able to detect early symptoms it makes the conclusion to generally not go to physicians more likely to be false. I think also remember that with strengthening and weakening questions the correct answer doesn't have to 100% destroy or strengthen the conclusion, it just needs to be enough for the conclusion to be less or more likely.

Hey @, So we're told (1)these sample from the floor in the rock center are dated by analyzing the carbon they contained, (2) the samples that specifically are associate with human activity form a consistent temporal series which starts from the present and goes back in time (for example the consistent temporal series of my sister when going back in time is 21 years before the present). Finally (3) there is a correlation ( a relationship) between the depth of these samples and this consistent temporal series. The oldest and deepest sample ( Let's say Sample A) is 19650 years old ( according to the depth). Now we know that there is a relationship between the depth and the temporal series. We also know that the temporal series we were given are for samples which are associated with human activity. However, the skeptics are not convinced ( despite the correlated depth and time series) that these samples could date to human activity because it is too early ( perhaps humans only came around 19000 years ago). So the skeptics offer an alternative explanation: the old carbon from nearby percolating groundwater coal deposits contaminated these samples ( keep in mind that these samples are the oldest and the deepest they found). So we are looking for an answer that makes the skeptics alternative explanation less likely to be true. A does just that!

'A' states that there is no likely tool/process of contamination from the groundwater that would contaminate these really deep samples and not contaminate the ones on the top layer. If this is true, then the upper layer of samples should also have been affected and perhaps with a similar time series. Since this is not the case, it is less likely that that the deep samples were contaminated.

'C' since our task is to weaken the skeptics argument this answer fails at doing that. First of all we do not know what "human activity" is so how can we assume that the humans were using these samples for fuel? Second, if there is no evidence of human activity this does not weaken the Skeptics who are arguing that there was no human activity.

Thank you for sharing! Hope that all the energy you've poured out here comes back to you 100x over!

Hey @, the conclusion is (B) ---> "two studies that found no link between x and y are UNSOUND" (i.e flawed, not wrong but flawed. In the first half of the first sentence, the author provides a phenomenon or some context about what the studies have deduced, then in the second half of the first sentence ( after "but") the author provides their conclusion (that the studies are flawed). In the following sentences the author provides more information (premises) about why they believe the studies were flawed to support his conclusion. The heart and conclusion of the argument is that he believes that the study is flawed. Break down the stim into parts to understand the role of each component.

Hey,

I think it is always wise to skip the difficult questions in any section then get back to them if you have time. Since all questions weigh the same, it is a better use of your time to do what you do well and get as many points as possible as opposed to burning time on something that you struggle with.