@sharonnghile98780 said:

@itonydelatorre373 said:

Took it earlier. Felt really good about LR as usual. Surprisingly RC felt pretty good. A little scared about LG. The first, third and last games weren't too bad, but for some reason, I just could not process something about the classes in upper and lower halls game. Had to guess on a few of those due to time.

I did great on that one (at least I think I did). I just drew out every possible scenario real quick. The museum game is the one that tripped me up. I was sure I had it all right and then the last question had me realizing my lineup was wrong and the previous five questions were probably wrong based on that. Oh well. This set of LG was definitely the one to get a -0 on, and I probably screwed that up. I felt like all the games would be labeled no more difficult than a 3 here on 7sage.

Feel pretty good about the test, but LR is always a toss-up. I've thought I did pretty well only to see I missed 12-13 on LR. So hopefully July 1 brings good news. That LSAT was definitely easier than any PT i've taken in the leadup to this thing.

I had the other LG section (the one about truckloads and presidents/secretaries/treasurers) so I have no idea about the LG w/ museums and economics, but based on what many others have said and Powerscore's perceptions on the exam, I feel like there'd be at least one game in that section that'll be rated higher than 3 stars on this site. Again, I have no clue how these games went specifically, but too many people thought this section was notably difficult, and even Powerscore inputted that this section MAY broaden the curve by 0.5-1 point, such that it doesn't sound so easy that all the games would be rated 3 stars or lower.

Sorry that it didn't go to your planning, but keep in mind that there may be a chance (based on Powerscore's curve predictions) that your LG section may broaden the curve!

@eriksisrael493 said:

What a wild ride this has been.

I also had the Japanese Bells LR/Econ LG/Brittain RC

Honestly, I'm feeling good. Like.... really good... It worries me a little. I know for a fact that I got -0 on LG as I had time to go back over the stimuli and my rule translations and all flagged questions.

RC felt ridiculously easy compared to the PTs in the 80s I've been taking. The passages were long and dense, but I felt like they took it easy on us with the actual question difficulty to compensate...

I had the same RC section and it's funny that you mention that part at the end about them taking it easy on us w/ the questions because I felt similarly. I was even scared that I missed something after completing my test because some people apparently thought this RC was very challenging. But based on Powerscore's prediction of this RC section being a reasonable section that did not make the curve any more lenient/broader (they predicted this RC section would +0 the curve while they thought that the other RC section w/ the copyright passage was more challenging, and hence broadened the curve -1), I feel like our suspicions regarding the rigor of the questions may be accurate. We'll see I guess!

@scottish-me0 said:

@ericchoi12713 said:

Had RC-LR-LG. Every section felt middle of the road in terms of difficulty, and the test as a whole felt average relative to PTs in the 70-80s, or potentially even a little bit easier. I found LR in particular to be a bit easier than normal, as I had 4 mins at the end to review my answers, whereas I usually finish right on time or with a minute to spare. I had the RC with insects and predator and preys, along with the passage about Inuits and territories. RC was my weakest section in my previous flex attempts, but I made a concerted effort this time to really focus on it, and I eventually got my RC performance about equal with my LR performance on PTs. I think my hard work paid off because in contrast to my previous attempts in which I felt like RC was noticeably challenging, this particular RC section did not feel notably difficult, tho I wouldn’t say it was easy either. Right about average to any RC section you’d see in the PT80s.

I feel most confident about this exam compared to my previous attempts. On my prior attempts there’d always be at least one section where I’d be scrambling for time at the end, but this time I finished with time left for each section. I’m hoping to score right along with my most recent PT averages, where I scored between the ranges of 172-174.

I took it on Saturday and had the same LG and RC sections it sounds like. The order I got was RC - LR - LG, which I think probably helped me confidence since I find RC to be my strongest section at this point.

RC was

Britain being pro-war before WWI and then a pacifist

the role of courts in interpreting the law

the two authors discussing aquatic keystone predators

I had a brutal time trying to remember the third passage, I vaguely came up with Canadian native tribes? ~you jogged my memory though; I had the territories passage as well.

I thought this was a pretty easy RC section - with the exception of the legal passage, that one was super dense to me.

The LR questions that I remember were

family vacation and choosing which motel to stay in after a bad experience

vampire stories and rabies

pilots and cancer

using folk remedies/plants to make medicine

ankle injuries and the type of shoe worn

ivy growing on buildings

I found this to be a fairly easy LR section. I had a little over 4 minutes left over at the end to go back and review, which was so nice.

LG was

the first one is the one I have the most trouble remembering - ordering of student seating?

upper and lower hall

economics classes & prerequisites (this one was just plain RUDE)

the order of events with the burglary in the museum, noises, etc

I'm already signed up for August - hoping/planning on that being my second (and last!) go at the beast. I know I can improve on my June score. God, waiting for the results in brutal.

I had a really wonderful proctor experience, no waiting, no weirdness, no interruptions. I was asked to move my desk a few inches so the proctor could see the door behind me, but it was honestly such a small change, didn't throw me off at all. I was a little apprehensive coming in because I saw other folks post about proctors telling them not to mouth the words and I read aloud A LOT when I practice, thankfully I didn't hear anything about my mouthing or whisper-reading.

Wish everyone the absolute best!

The only section I recognize is RC. I know for a fact I had a different LG (I didn’t have the museums and economics one) and I’m pretty sure my LR was different as I don’t recognize those topics.

Yeah I felt like RC was about average, possibly even a bit easier. I also felt like the legal passage was the most dense, tho I didn’t feel like the questions were so bad. The last passage about insects and predators/preys felt the easiest to me.

Good luck to you as well! Sounds like you did pretty well!!

@andrewrsn567 said:

Anyone else here keep replaying games in your head wondering if you made a huge mistake and second guessing everything? I honestly felt Games was pretty standard. One game was worded oddly in the stimulus (the museum game) but then I realized it wasn't anything new. I was just bummed I had Games last, since I was completely drained and bleary eyed by the time I got there.

I definitely relate to this. I had a couple mins at the end of LG to review, tho not nearly enough time to really review a lot of my answers, as I spent most of that time reviewing one question. Regardless, I feel like the fact that I finished with time to spare is a good sign. As I ruminate over the games, I too speculate if I made some crucial errors or incorrectly transcribed a rule. But I keep telling myself that they usually design LG questions and ACs in such a way that you usually can’t get down to just one AC if you made a crucial error. And when it comes to inferences, they usually require you to make important inferences with their questions, so you usually have to face such important inferences anyways even if you missed it initially.

Had RC-LR-LG. Every section felt middle of the road in terms of difficulty, and the test as a whole felt average relative to recent PTs, or potentially even a little bit easier. I found LR in particular to be a bit easier than normal, as I had 4 mins at the end to review my answers, whereas I usually finish right on time or with a minute to spare. I had the RC with insects and predator and preys, along with the passage about Inuits and territories. RC was my weakest section in my previous flex attempts, but I made a concerted effort this time to really focus on it, and I eventually got my RC performance about equal with my LR performance on PTs. I think my hard work paid off because in contrast to my previous attempts in which I felt like RC was noticeably challenging, this particular RC section did not feel notably difficult, tho I wouldn’t say it was easy either. Right about average to any of the recent RC sections.

I feel most confident about this exam compared to my previous attempts. On my prior attempts there’d always be at least one section where I’d be scrambling for time at the end, but this time I finished with time left for each section. I’m hoping to score right along with my most recent PT averages, where I scored between the ranges of 172-174.

e

For #17, I went w/ A over D because the author explicitly mentions that the book contains a political fervor that is clearly moral, and thus I figured I could assume that the author is suggesting that Rosenthal makes ultimately normative/prescriptive claims (i.e. that something should be the case). Therefore, I figured A is better since it is more in line w/ making a normative/prescriptive claim, whereas D simply illustrates igniting discussion and it's not clear if there's an ultimate prescriptive claim being worked towards.

For #16 I went w/ B over C because tho you could POSSIBLY argue that author B's central purpose is to examine shifting scholarly attitudes on plagiarism (answer C) based on their first paragraph, Author A clearly does not make a concerted effort in examining such attitudes. Rather, author A merely mentions such attitudes in claiming that the fact that changing attitude standards exist does not mean that such ethical standards are nothing but expressions of power. But the clear higher purpose w/ author A is to find issues w/ the approach discussed in the first paragraph (their entire last paragraph is basically dedicated to critiquing the view in their first paragraph), and w/ author B, even if you did not understand what their last paragraph was finding issue w/ exactly, you could've used the fact that author B says "yet" as a transition word after initially acknowledging some points of agreement w/ Rick's work, to assume that Author B is likely disagreeing w/ Ricks to some extent. On nearly every RC passage, if the author grants positives/points of agreement w/ a particular perspective, and then follows it up w/ a sentence start w/"yet/however/but," then you can be almost certain that they're going to disagree w/ or criticize said perspective to at least some extent.

Unjust does imply a normative claim, but to say something is "bad" also arguably implies a normative claim. The way I understood this question, and how I got to D was, I acknowledged that the group of scholars prescribing sanctions against individuals of corporations are ultimately pointing out that the fact that higher costs will be incurred by the public is a bad thing, as that is the only reason for them to mention that w/in the contexts of their entire argument. And if you accept that this group sees that particular fact as a bad thing, then you can reasonably argue that they believe it is unjust. At the very least, this is much better supported than the other ACs; B and C for instance (the other popular ACs), have no explicit support in the passage at all.

I hesitated too at the "unjust" thing but when I really thought about it, when you're saying something is bad, in a way you're basically saying it's unjust.

But even in the real world, if I was late because of a traffic jam, the fact that no other coworker was late because of that same traffic jam, by itself, lacks any real bearing on the validity of my excuse. It could just be that no on else used that same route that I had to drive on, and of course in that case no one else would be late for the same reason. If I left my home w/in a reasonable time frame (let's say it normally takes 20 mins to get to work via that route and I left 40 mins before the start of my shift), and a huge crash just so happened to occur around the same time I was driving on it that resulted in a large jam, while no other coworker drove on that route, then my excuse seems valid for the most part.

I definitely do understand where you're coming from tho, as I guess there are certain bosses that would just never be okay if you were late for any reason whatsoever, but idk if such bosses should be considered reasonable, which the LSAT assumes (i.e. a standard of reasonability).

It's tricky to see why A is incorrect because the author's overall conclusion RELATIVE TO the Economists' position (i.e. the author's opponent) is an implied, or unstated, one. So while the explicit overall conclusion in this stimulus is the last sentence, the author has an even higher-level, implied conclusion, which is that price gouging is not efficient i.e. they're arguing for the opposite of the Economists' position. Therefore, A cannot be correct because A implies that the author in this case is arguing for the same position as the Economists, but merely providing a different explanation. That's not what is occurring, as what the author is ultimately opposing in this case is the Economists' conclusion/position, not simply their premise/explanation. The author denies the Economists' premise/explanation in order to subsequently deny their conclusion, but they're not simply denying the premise and leaving it at that while accepting the Economists' conclusion, which is what A assumes to be the case.

That's ultimately what is the tricky part about this question, as properly eliminating A requires you to see this distinction and identify the author's implied/unstated conclusion.

Yes, a work does not have to fulfill at least one of those 3 conditions to be considered world literature, because as you said those are sufficient conditions for a work to be properly interpreted w/in a national tradition. However, E is correct because of the first sentence, as the author requires that for a work to be considered world literature, it must be interpreted within the writers own national tradition and external national traditionS (S is capitalized for emphasis that it's plural). Keep in mind that the sufficient conditions written in the last sentence deals only w/ what's sufficient for a work to be interpreted w/in a single national tradition. But because the first sentence necessitates that writer's own national tradition AND external national traditions are affected, a work being properly considered a world literature ultimately requires affecting the development of at least 2 national traditions.

So imo (and I'd love to hear if ppl disagree), everything in the stimulus after the first sentence can actually be disregarded to get to the right AC for this particular question.

Based on my understanding of the passage, the estimations proposed by the newer model of greenhouse effect theory (the one that accounted for sulfates) do match the actual observed temperatures, and the author used those observed temperatures to conclude that the earth's equilibrium temperature has been rising. So it does sound like the number is consistent w/ the theory, and rather the issue w/ this AC is it's strength relative to D.

An increase in global population may be a safe general assumption to make, but when were talking about a single country (as this stimulus discusses), I'm not sure if it's just safe to assume that the population has increased over 20 years w/o there being any indications of it in the stimulus or in the AC. Ultimately w/ E, you just have to make the assumption that the overall crime rate has been decreasing (the supposed decrease estimated by the survey is not simply relative to the police reports, but encapsulates overall crime rate), as that assumption is better to go w/ than any other assumption you have to make for the 4 other ACs to work.

Idk if this was necessarily a valid method of getting to "detached," but personally for me, the way that author A used the terms "you" and "we" made me assume that they were being more personal. From that, I inferred that author B was less personal, and hence more detached.

Also, there's an ultimate prescriptive claim that is made in author A's passage, whereas author B seems to make merely descriptive claims

No, you really shouldn't if you wanna finish on time unless you know for a fact you have enough time to map all of it out. But generally speaking, you can usually take out 2 ACs out of the equation by simply matching conclusions (like in this case, we have a "most are" conclusion, so an AC making an"all are" conclusion would be eliminated, like C). You can also eliminate E as it makes an "either or" conclusion. So pretty quickly and w/o mapping, you can get down to 3 ACs. From that point, it's up to you if you want to map out or not. If you've put in a ton of practice, you can usually do most of it in your head, as the most important part of this question is to identify an AC w/ a "X→Y‑m→Z, therefore X‑m→Z" structure.

Agreed. The test writers likely wrote A to specifically take advantage of those very people who were turned off by it sounding like an NA. We have to keep in mind that necessary and sufficient assumptions aren't mutually exclusive, which why in some rare instances a correct AC to an NA question could be a sufficient assumption as well.

what you pointed out is certainly important, as there is some ambiguity regarding the strength of the "usually" quantifier, but ultimately it's better go w/ that small ambiguity over what is factually incorrect regarding E, as the author explicitly mentions the researchers recommending to factor in conditions that could accelerate lichen growth, which we could reasonably assume to mean that the researchers are completely fine w/ lichenometry being applied in conditions that could accelerate lichen growth. Recall that B says "unlikely" so even if "usually" doesn't equate to "all" we can infer "unlikely."

This was just my thought process when I was deciding on this question. It's definitely pretty tough tho and I had to do some re-reading to really verify that I could reject E.

When it comes to conditional relationships that use "unless," I personally like to use a different method than the one 7sage prescribes, as I like to negate the sufficient condition and replace "unless" with "only if." So I'd translate the statement you referred to as, "such illustrations would be admissible as evidence in the court room only if a medical expert were present to testify."

See if that method could potentially help w/ you translating unless conditions, I know they can be difficult/annoying at times.

it helps to understand the "general" modifier as similar to the "most are" quantifier. If a particular sample generally believes something, then we can reasonably assume that more than 50% of said sample believes in that thing (it's similar to the "usually" modifier). Thus for this stimulus, we can keep in mind that Waller's argument merely commits him to most of the population accepting ESP as a real phenomenon, ultimately leaving open the possibility for SOME of said population NOT accepting esp as real, and thereby allowing us to clearly eliminate B.

I have similar reservations regarding that line of reasoning to get to A. But perhaps it can be argued that the term "resembling" was utilized by the author to imply that the accelerated evolution was artificial i.e. it merely appeared to be like accelerated evolution but was not natural evolution.

However, w/ this question stem being a most strongly supported inference rather than a MBT, we naturally have wiggle room w/ the ACs. So while what Jeff pointed out about something not being known =/= not in nature is certainly a valid and relevant point, I don't think it can be used by itself to eliminate the support regarding the fact that there was no known peptide that could bind to semiconductors before the researchers synthesized the billions of peptides and conducted their study. Ultimately, I think that the fact that no known peptides w/ the aforementioned quality existed until the researchers came in and composed peptides in their study provides at least some support to A, whereas w/ the other 4 ACs there isn't any support to be found. And overall, that is what's most important w/ this question as we are finding the inference that's most relatively reasonable, rather than a MBT inference.

This is an interesting point you've noted. You're right in that models based on observations are not always a type of empirical approach (e.g. I can create a model based on what I observed from my friends in my memory off the top of my head, but the data in such an methodology is not rigorous enough to be considered an empirical approach). However, imo the specific approach in constructing the type of model as prescribed by the author ultimately describes an empirical approach. In the last paragraph, the author doesn't talk about merely informal or speculative observations; they specifically mention operationalizing the true, generalizable positions made by the individual viewer, along w/ the need to control for potential extraneous variables like the disparate contexts each participants views media in, along w/ the variability of human responses. Thus w/ this in mind, in conjunction with points made by the author in preceding paragraphs that explicitly highlights an empirical approach (the author explicitly calls for an "empirical approach" then talks about two needs in creating such a model in paragraphs 3 and 4), I'd argue that it is quite clear the author is advocating for a single, empirical methodology.

There's also another matter regarding the knowledge you're privileged to due to your individual expertise vs. common knowledge in conjunction w/ everything in the given RC passage, the latter of which is what we're supposed to go by. Based on common knowledge + everything in this passage, it seems that an "empirical approach" can simply be defined as a methodology that utilizes data that is observed and measured externally (i.e. in the real world).

I thought something similar. D doesn't say that the bill will be lower by at least $200B, rather it states that is will be lower by $200B, specifically. Thus this AC does not account for it being higher than $200B, which is what's more in line w/ the argument, as the argument's conclusions states savings of "more than $200B/year."

However, you can also add the reasoning regarding the difference b/w savings vs. total cost to eliminate D aswell, as saving $200B/year as the argument concludes is not the same as having a total cost lower than $200B or more i.e. the bill could be even higher than what is now and yet depending on the amount of energy utilized they could still save more than $200B. Overall I feel like this line of reasoning is more appropriate in eliminating this AC, as I suspect that the LSAT writers wrote it w/ the intention that we'd recognize the difference b/w total cost and savings.

I think this question sort of illustrates the value of older PTs, and how older PTs are still relevant to the most recent tests. The older LR sections tend to test on very mechanical, formal logic like the one used in this question. the harder questions to these sections will often require the test taker to juggle multiple variables in their head, and to be able to properly follow along a seemingly complexly written logical path, to ultimately keep yourself from making faulty assumptions that trick ACs will tempt you to.

you have to make that inference here, it is not explicitly stated that the author does not overlap those two samples, which is probably the reason why this question is a difficult one w/ less than half getting the correct AC.

You make that inference by analyzing their argument; the author has concluded that an education party is not viable in the long run, from the premise that only 26% and 16% of the people polled, respectively, would be willing to join the party or to donate, in conjunction w/ the premise that 30% of voters being willing to join OR to donate is a necessary condition for long term viability of a party.

Naturally, when you read this, your attention should be directed at the fact that 26% + 16% is well over 30%, and that the author never explicitly states whether those two samples are mutually exclusive or not. From this, we can infer that the author has assumed that these samples do not overlap, otherwise their conclusion makes no sense from their premises.

Say I was testing a particular textbook's efficacy w/ a group of students, and I concluded, from the premise that the students who read the most amount of pages had the best test scores, that we should introduce this textbook to the general population of students to improve understanding of whatever subject the textbook is on. Note that in my argument I'd be assuming that the textbook, to some extent, is contributing towards higher test scores.

If it was revealed that in my study, I used the exact same criteria to measure both the amount of pages read and test scores, that would ultimately weaken my argument as it would create doubt in the validity of the relationship (i.e. more pages read= higher test scores). In essence, this would destroy my aforementioned assumption that the textbook to some extent is contributing towards the higher test scores, as I may have simply measured the same one variable (amount of text read) twice. Basically, when you measure a set of variables w/ the same exact criteria, you could reasonably assume that I simply measured the amount of textbook pages read twice, and of course when you something twice, there will appear to be a positive correlation.

Agreed, I didn't particularly like B but I felt like it was the only answer that was relevant. The stimulus' conclusion is regarding the approach judges should have when deciding punishments, but the other ACs are dealing w/ legal permissibility or laws.