So now there are strengthen questions without premises. Fuck this test I’m out. The new prep tests are genetically modified mutations engineered to use the full extent of psychometric data to screw you

@christinamw98157 said:

I'm pretty sure it becomes available the same time as it does for everybody on Oct 23

Why would it be Oct 23? What about those who took it on October 8th? LSAC says it takes minimum 2 weeks; but that's rare

The newer prep tests bring infuriating arbitrariness to the LSAT.

How is it made clear that they're speaking about the same lake, and not some other bay or body of water?

Even without lawgic, you can tell from the context of the statement that the author is offering a counter example in support (as the premise) of the conclusion that it is not the case that X —> Y.

Once you recognize it’s intended as a counter example, you know that what the premise is trying to get at (or what it needs to get at to make the argument valid) is the idea that it’s possible you can have [EV INC and NOT CALIBRE DEC]. You can’t write two whole new premises in a SA Q, so you’ll need to realize that “the most entertaining” is meant to stand in for EV incl. which means, turning to the second part of the counter-example premise given, the sufficient assumption MUST be some way of equating “the greatest journalists” with [NOT calibre dec].

The AC here would be likely best reached by

(1)prephrasing the assumption as one that rests in the similarity between the 2 events in the principle and the 2 events in the counter example. And since the second event (2nd term in the CS) is the same across principle/CE; prephrase that the assumption must be related to the assumed similarity between the first term/event in each: that doing what a person promised to do is ‘something that one ought to do’.

(2) using PoE, mainly by recognizing A is wrong bc it offers the opposite (even when contraposed) of what we need, and bc it is a cookie cutter wrong AC in that it overgeneralizes beyond what is required for the arg.

To check D is correct, the negation test reads: If the promise to do X cannot be kept (is impossible to keep), then doing what one promised (doing X) is not something that one has an obligation to do (not something that one “ought to do”).

Bingo. The counter example loses relevance as support for the conclusion (it falls apart). If doing what one promised is not an instance of what one ‘ought to do’, the CE falls apart as a contradiction of the principle.

The main reason C is wrong is because you can upgrade the stoplights without adding new ones. Say you just replaced the old ones. Doesn’t help explain jack shit lol. Realized this in BR.

What do you think about E? This is by far and away the worst possibly justifiable disagreement Q I’ve seen and (from a glance at problem sets for Qs after this PT) it doesn’t look like future Qs commit the same mistake. Unless I’m missing something, the answer choice is arbitrary here - both E and the CA require an equally sized jump.

assumption: plant/animal fossils are the only thing that could (/must) be responsible for petro having biomarkers [and therefore it must be the case that [the conclusion follows]: their theory is refuted (as it holds as claim that petro was formed from carbon deposits, NOT animal/plant fossils)

Prephase: maybe there's another reason why petro has biomarkers (other than the fact that it formed from plant/animal fossils): Maybe something other than plant/animal fossils is responsible for it having biomarkers. Maybe petro was in contact with a different past/present living organism.

that's what the CA brings out. It exposes and casts doubt on the assumption. Maybe petro has biomarkers because it was in contact with bacteria (a different living organism), not because it was formed from plant/animal fossils. In this case, (by negating the necessity implied by the only evidence mentioned in favour of hypothesis 1), it's possible that petro DID form out of carbon deposits, and not out of animal/plant fossils, which would mean the premise/evidence (petro has biomarkers) does NOT support the Conclusion that the theory is refuted.

I

Copy pasted from a user below:

so thinking about this –the argument jumps from “plants and animals” to “living organisms” well couldn’t a living organism be super teeny bacteria or even a virus? We aren’t given a definition.

If there are bacteria inside the earth’s crust, maybe that’s why there are bio markers in petro! and if that’s the case then the theory that petro formed from deep carbon deposits could hold thereby WEAKNING the argument that petro formed from the fossils of plants/animals ~ answer choice (D)!

Anytime there’s a hypothesis presented in A WKN Q, our priority is to pre-phase and/or look for a competing alternative hypothesis.

For me, it looks like the trick in this question was the subtle and sneaky use of referential phrasing (or maybe it wasn’t so sneaky and it’s just my brain activity declining at 1AM)

“Since X, this indicates that...”

This is referential phrasing, referring to the claim that lake stickleback have no armour. So it’s saying:

Lake SBs have no armour to fend off predators. Since X is the case, this (the fact that lake SBs have no armour to defend against predators) must be because having a larger size (being bigger) is a better defence against predators than having armour.

Assumption: there isn’t some other reason why they have no armour. There’s no other reason or explanation for this phenomenon (of an absence of armour) besides this apparent evolutionary hypothesis. Maybe they have no armour because having a larger size helps them in some other way (and/or, like JY said, there ARE no predators near the lake SB).

Because the whole, to which a particular part belongs, is X, that part is also X.

(A) is correct. Because the system of interconnected lakes (of which X lake is a part of) is one of the most beautiful of its type, Wooded Lake is one of the most beautiful of its type.

Totally spot on, man. The way I think of it is that most seriously weakens /= weakens at all. Some questions are simply process of elimination based, and are testing our ability to use reasoning to eliminate wrong answers instead of our ability to identify the correct one.

Here’s a better explanation: A is wrong because it says “likely” rather than “more likely”.

If it said more likely, it’d probably be the CA, given that D is not really a supported AC due to a subtle ambiguity. The only source of discouragement mentioned, technically speaking, is the isolation. The passage mentions two contributing factors to that phenomenon/source, but that doesn’t mean those two factors are each individual sources.

“Unwarranted” is the key word here that makes D require an inference larger than the one required for C to be true.

Note, the conclusion has the word “probably”. So it’s certainly a stretch to infer that this conclusion statement means it is unwarranted

Does “will have worse effects than proponents may believe” = “may have worse effects than proponents (do) believe “

Because that’s the only thing that I can see justifies this AC

C is literally a virtual rewording of “none of the issues at the meeting are relevant to terry”

So in summary I’m pretty sure this is how you’d approach it

NOG

MTC → E

——————-

AA → E

SA: AA—> MTC

This would complete the premise structure like this: AA→MTC→E

Allowing us to draw the conclusion that: AA→E

I tried hard to understand this Question despite getting it right. It seems that many explanations in below comments apply strategies that don’t work in other questions like using lawgic to bring the premise down into the conclusion. I was frustrated also at JY’s explanation at first but now believe it does a more accurate job explaining the Q than any of the comments I’ve seen. This is how I see it

Quite simply this would be the lawgic

NOG

MTC → E

———————-

AA→ E

The SA then is: Since [anyone who manages to convince → expert], [almost anyone → expert]. (Read only the words written)

You can’t diagram this resulting sufficient assumption in terms of lawgic. That’s the problem. But another way of phrasing this sufficient assumption is: anyone who manages to convince, is almost anyone (is equal to almost anyone).

The author is arguing (rightly or wrongly) that because anyone who MTC can X, that must mean that almost anyone can X.

Anyone who hears this argument intuitively thinks: ok so it sounds like you’re assuming that: anybody who manages to convince = almost anyone. Assuming that: because anybody who MTC is X, almost anyone is X. By saying “this is true for X because it’s true for Y”, you’re assuming X and Y to be at least fundamentally similar in one sense. If I say: anyone who skateboards is good-looking, therefore almost anyone is good looking, I’m assuming that almost anyone skateboards (well, at least, this is an assumption SUFFICIENT for my conclusion)

S—> GL (Standing in for MTC —> E)

AA —> S (SA)

—————-

AA —> GL

The SA makes the argument valid.

The fact that you’re deriving your conclusion this way literally means you’re assuming if you’re anybody who MTC, then you’re almost anybody; or how (A) puts it, if you’re almost anybody then you can MTC. This isn’t reversing the logical structure despite it seeming like it is, bc the terms are taken to be equal. A is B and B is A.

Even if you ignore all this, don’t get upset with Qs that seem invincible to your strategies, the vast majority of them compensate by making the WAs pretty obviously wrong

Update: ignore the first sentence. We simply know A MBF because we know it is always the case that investment is not decreasing and the economy is not weak (inference derived from the contra positive, using the final premise to run the chain back)

For those that had trouble with this Q at first (like myself): you can think of (A) alternatively as saying: It is always the case that either the economy is weak or investment decreases. We know this must be false because we know by virtue of the contra positive that if investment does not decrease, the economy is not weak. We know that investment does not decrease, so we know for certain that the economy is not weak. Therefore, the current situation is one where investment does not decrease AND the economy is not weak; or in other words, a situation where neither investment decreases NOR the economy is weak.

So it must be false that it is always the case that either the economy is weak or investment decreases.

As far as I can tell (though I could be wrong), the matter of whether the “or” is exclusive is irrelevant to the AC in this case. Regardless of whether it’s possible that BOTH the economy is weak AND a investment decreases, the thing that makes (A) a MBF AC is that you can (and indeed do, per the last premise) have a situation where NEITHER occurs.

Again, I have to call out a discrepancy here between the way this Q requires you to approach it, and the whole “never attack the premises or conclusion” structure taught in the lessons. How would, C, for example, be weakening the support structure? The necessary assumption you need to draw from it to relate it to the stimulus is a statement that contradicts the premise. The Only mechanism by which it weakens the argument is by undermining the premise that access to a recreation centre is a necessity for people in the neighborhood. Am I missing something?

If we’re assuming/conceding the truth of the premise, how does C still weaken the argument?

#help (Added by Admin)

Assumption: The consideration of gender-balance in (/the gender of) the patients base on which data is collected is irrelevant to science.

CA: Restricting the gender of this patients base to only males can lead to inaccurate results. [Therefore, the consideration of gender-balance in the patients base on which data is collected IS relevant to science.