I disagree here with JY's logic for A, and I agree with more with the assessment by the student that the word "require" is what is off about the AC.

Not voting could be consider itself as a single action. So, in the logic charts that JY drew where he said A is false because we cannot reach the conclusion that we SHOULD do something, I disagree. A can be viewed as we SHOULD NOT, NOT VOTE, and it therefore no longer breaks the logical argument presented in the video.

Because what we have in this questions is the following : if Action --> Harm, --> should not do action

In this case, we can consider our action as "not voting".

#help

Feel like 12 E was glossed over a bit too quickly here... seems to me like the author is saying that the country should allow excavation and allow people to keep what they find as long as it gets properly registered, and they can also pay a tax on it if they want to export it.

D to me sounded too strong. Yes, the author does seem to say archaeologist are more professional, but does that mean they should always be the ones to excavate if possible? Personally that didn't hold up to me when I read the passage, but I would love some help on this one.

Agree with the comment above that this question baits you into looking at this the wrong way.

Firstly, I would recommend rereading the stimulus for this question. It does NOT state that the people with books had better health. It concludes that due to the reduced doctor appointments. So, there is in fact no proof here that one groups health was better than the other.

The question tries to get you to attack the causal relationship between BOOK--> Less Doctor Appointments/Better health

And, though a different AC could have attacked that causal relationship, this one focuses on something different,

This question instead focuses on the fact that we say the following:

Better health --> Less doctor appointments

Book --> Less doctor appointments

Therefore, Book --> to better help.

When layed out like this, it is easy to say that this is not necessarily true. The book may simply tell people to stop going to the doctor unless extremely sick.

The correct AC basically covers this, by saying that the flaw mistakenly assumes that because 2 different events can causally lead to the same outcome, then they must also cause one another.

I think risky in this sense generally means "likely to fail", and I also believe this not really much of an assumption. Overall, I take risky as meaning "a NEGATIVE outcome is likely".

For banks, a business being likely to fail means they are risky, since they may not get their money back.

For an owner, a business being likely to fail also makes it risky, since the time/money they put into the business RISKS amounting to nothing.

For employees, and business being likely to fail would mean they are out of a job.

Overall I think this assumption is quite minimal even for the LSAT.

The second paragraph directly makes reference to this, saying the business was likely to fail.

The first speaker makes their agreement to this a little more subtle.

The first speaker says the business failed, and then follows it by saying they are NOT SURPRISED. This means the first person thought it was likely the business would fail. Thus, whether it was actually an objectively risky business or not, it is clear that the first speaker believed it was.

#help for q23.

I totally misinterpreted AC B for Q23. I was between B and D, but I end up going with B because I thought the author was saying that, while this advancement is good, it will be difficult to implement. The question was not asking for the authors opinion on whether the change is a good or bad change, it was asking about the authors opinion on the SUCCESS of the change.

My misinterpretation of B is that I thought open meant open to the idea of the change, and pessimistic meant doubtful/weary of its success in implementation due to all the barriers mentioned. It seems though, that "open" was actually referring to the author being openly pessimistic, as in not hiding their pessimism.

Still, this was a tough question due to the word "success". If it had simply asked for the authors overall opinion on the new system, I would have instantly chosen one of the more positive answers, since, as many have mentioned below, the author often mentions positive consequences of this new system and negative consequences of the old one.

However, the author spent a lot of time in the passage discussing the hurdles that South Africa will need to overcome in order to successfully implement this better system. Because of this and the wording of the question, I was a little more unsure about what position to take. As I have mentioned, it felt to me that the mention of the numerous hurtles meant the author had some doubt about the nations ability to successfully implement this system. Also, JY points to the final paragraph where an issue is brought up, and he says that the author claims they have faith it will be resolved. But where is the support in the passage for this? The passage says IF they want to be successful, they need to do XYZ. The author does not indicate that they are confident or have faith that the government will actually be able to do that. I actually saw this as another barrier they will need to overcome in order to be successful.

In the end, if the interpretation for AC B is that "open" means they are blatantly pessimistic, then I see how that is wrong. But is that really what open means in this case? Generally the AC's for Author's attitude questions for from strong negative, weak negative, indifferent, weak positive, strong positive. With this new meaning for "open", AC B seems way too strongly negative, even bordering on deep skepticism.

A couple weeks later, and I still got this wrong and chose C on my second run-through of this passage. I do not know why I keep thinking the author is implying "worse". Maybe its because they are negative, so I am assuming that means the proposal will make things worse, rather than just not move anything forward?

I mentionned this in an earlier comment, but I feel that the support for the increase of schools/grocery stores on a per capita basis is not just because the passage advocates for making them walkable, because then yes, we could just stack everyone vertically and have the same size/number of schools serve the population with everyone being closer.

The support for E comes from the fact that the passage is advocating for smaller schools and (though some outside knowledge is needed here since you need to know what a corner grocery store is), smaller grocery stores.

Logically, if we are going to serve the same amount of people with smaller schools and grocery stores, we will probably need to have more locations to meet the needs of the community.

Also on another note, this is a most strongly supports questions, not a must be true question. So, that means we can't rule out an answer simply because there is another possibility (such as making the schools walkable by just moving everyone closer rather than increasing their frequency). For a MBT, the strategy of thinking of any other way to achieve the same goal is a good way to eliminate AC's, but it is less effective in MSS. MSS is sort of similar to CBT questions, though I would say they fall somewhere in between, since you want at least a little bit of support that the AC is not only possible, but probable.

I think for me the use of the word "small" and "corner" when referring to the schools and grocery stores is what implies there will need to be more of them. I will admit that "corner" is a little less clear, but generally the term "corner grocery store" is used to reference a specific kind of small grocery store found at the corner of streets. Sometimes, especially on RC, the LSAT does require SOME outside knowledge/assumption, such as knowledge that corner stores are not just stores on the corner, but specifically are small stores on the corner of roads.

So, if we have smaller grocery stores and smaller schools but we need to serve the same amount of people, it follows that we will therefore need more of the schools and grocery stores for the same number of people.

As to why eliminating traffic zoning laws is an incorrect answer, to me, it seems like the passage is actually advocating the opposite. If we completely eliminate traffic zoning laws, than someone might come in and build a giant street in the walkable neighbourhood, since there is no zoning restrictions to stop them! This would essentially defeat the purpose. If anything, it seems like zoning laws regulating traffic flow would increase, since we would now be limiting the speed/amount of cars flowing through these neighbourhoods. In the end, you would still need some cars, whether that be trucks to bring food to the grocery stores, ambulances, etc. I don't think the passage advocates for completely getting rid of all cars.

seems like you have misinterpreted B and D here.

As JY says in the video, for B, the bad thing is guaranteed. Either people don't read it (fail), or if they do, she will be ostracized. In both possible situations, the only outcome is negative.

D actually leaves some wiggle room for the bad thing not to happen. Funny enough, this was initially why I chose B over D, since I had also missed the "risk" part in the stimulus. But, looking back and now seeing that in the original stimulus there is not a guarantee that a bad thing will happen. There is a risk. It MIGHT happen. D captures this much better, since it says he MIGHT miss the deadline.

be careful with the wording for D.

AC D does NOT say : Most managers are efficient.

AC D says: Most managers WHO ARE efficient.

That is a huge, huge distinction. The first variation is what you seem to have assumed. Firstly, this still does not mean AC D is correct. Maybe middle-level managers make up less than half the company. In that case, it is possible that all or most middle-level managers are not efficient, but that MOST managers at the company as a whole are efficient, making up for this.

But as I said, that is not really what AC D even says. AC D says managers WHO ARE efficient. This is not saying that the managers already are efficient. It is saying that IF A MANAGER is already efficient, than they don't need to improve on productivity. But how do we know which managers are efficient? Maybe there's none, or maybe there's only 1. We don't know. This does not do much to weaken the argument since it is very possible that all Middle-level managers at this company are not efficient.

#help Though I chose D, I am still struggling to see how the argument presumed that time on road is the PRIMARY factor in assessing total emissions.

I can see the author assumes it is a factor in the first place, and how the author assumes that time on the road is more of a factor in emissions than speed is.

But as many others have brought up, does the author's assumption really extend to time on road being the PRIMARY factor? More than the size of car or type of car? I believe the authors argument can still hold if we say that type of car is the primary factor in emissions, but that time on road still does increase it. In a scenario like that, the author's argument still holds, since decreasing speed limit would still increase emissions, even if it is not the primary factor.

Can someone explain this?

Funny enough, it seems like you actually answer the question here with the explanations you have given.

For AC D, in the same way that you say we can't assume that cars will not inevitably spew more exhaust, we also can't assume that they will. That is a flaw that the author makes - they provide no evidence that this is true. It COULD be true (we don't know), but the author does not back it up.

For AC E, the use of ONLY IF is way too restrictive. The author is definitely arguing here that the lowering the speed limit will result in more accidents and thus no lives are saved. However, you can still make the argument that NO lives will be saved and also imply that there are other things that can increase the number of accidents. Say for example that we allowed people to drive while blindfolded. That could increase the number of accidents. But, just because letting people who are blindfolded drive would increase the number of accidents, does not suddenly mean that driving slowly won't. They can BOTH increase the risk of an accident, and the authors argument would still hold true.

AC E would be correct if it was framed more like D. If AC E attacked the fact that driving slower increases accidents in the first place (and not whether it is the ONLY way accidents can increase), then it may be correct.

I feel like I am the only one not convinced about 23. I personally got the impression that the author was implying the recommendations will make things worse than they are now. I do concede that there are few comparative words used (for example, the author uses burdensome, which does imply bad, but does not imply that it is more or less burdensome than it is now). For that reason, I can see C being wrong.

If anyone has any other reasoning, please let me know. I was between C and E on this one and just felt like the author was implying that the recommendations would make things worse, given their negative tone, hence why I went for C. However, that may just have been my own assumption that I projected onto the passage.

This may due to my previous knowledge/experience with this topic as a Canadian (nothing passed what is talked about in school though), but I think an important distinction here is that throughout the passage the author is arguing that the way the constitution/laws are being enforced has not always been faithful to the intent of protecting aboriginal traditions.

The navy seal analogy you gave does not really work, since in what way are the LSAT and Navy seal training related? The point the author is making about oral text is that, it is counter-intuitive to create laws that INTEND to protect the traditions of a group, but then the courts say its only enforceable if you have written documentation, despite the fact that that group traditionally did not document their practices in writing.

On another note, I feel like AC A,C, and D, are way too strong here for an assumption question. B is actually worded very weakly. "Sometimes" on the LSAT means greater than 0. So anything between 1-ALWAYS is fine. I think the line you mentioned was more than enough evidence to suggest the author would agree that there are at least some instances where oral documentation should be allowed.

AC E is tough, but I actually feel like there was some evidence against this AC. In the first paragraph the author says:

"But this decision has placed on provincial courts the enormous burden of interpreting and translating the necessarily general constitutional language into specific rulings. "

The author actually explicitly states that, though it caused problems, the general language used in the constitution was necessary. Instead the author seems to argue that courts need to do a better job interpreting the constitutions intent, rather than reforming the language used.

To me, the use of the word necessary is quite strong. Strong enough to eliminate AC E even though AC E used weak language.

EDIT: just watched JY's explanation for this, and seems like he echoed mostly the same points, especially for AC E.

This likely to be due to the book printing the passage in a different margin, meaning there are more or less lines, and thus they had to adjust accordingly. Guessing the way the book printed it, disease organisms is entirely on line 48, where as in 7sage it is at the tail end of 46 and beginning of 47. I wouldn't worry too much about this.

If AC D had said MASS Water shut offs, rather than just saying shut off the water at households that are late, then I would have likely picked it.

For Q24:

Lines 44-47 it says that "Officials plan to target only few privileged residents who will be in no position to complain since they were caught stiffing the system".

firstly, I saw this has the author saying the rich are privileged and are not in position to complain, which is what pulled me towards C. Even if this is the OFFICIALS view on the rich, the author does not seem to imply that they disagree, or even clarify that this is a view held by the officials and not the author.

AC D was not even on my radar. Sure, we know there are some people whose water bill is outstanding by many years, but how can we say for certain that the city never/rarely turns off the water of people with late bills? Maybe there are tons of people who did have their water turned off. To me, the plan of turning off the water in ENTIRE neighbourhoods is the new strategy. Just because they haven't done mass water shut offs before, does not mean they haven't shut off the water of individual households before.

Anyways, I would love to hear what others think about this.

The answer choice for 22 makes sense in the world of the LSAT. Q22 asks us to assume each AC is TRUE.

The last sentence of the passage is: For example, increasing the number of species would probably increase the number needing protection as well.

Therefore, we are looking for an AC that, when true, has the potential to increase the number of species needing protection.

Knowing this, AC E tells us that the splitters are less likely to fight to split up a population into multiple species if no member of that population is endangered. This implies that they are MORE likely to fight for splitting up a population if some of those members are endangered (even if the current classification for this species is not endangered). This means a species that was previously not considered to be endangered, but that has endangered groups within it, would be split into 2 species, adding a new endangered species to the list of species needing protection.

AC E therefore supports the final sentence of the passage.

I mentioned this in an earlier comment, but this situation is not describing "goal 1 guarantees goal 2". We can see for ourselves that the original situation of making patients enjoy the physical skills more does not necessarily mean they will spend time doing them more. However, the LSAT is asking here to use some of our outside intuition (rare for the LSAT), and to understand/assume that people tend to do things they enjoy for more time.

The same can be said about AC A, B and E. None of their "goal 1's" guarantee goal 2 will happen, but they do contribute positively towards them. The same applies to goal C. If we assume that even 1 person who normally loses the book ends up returning the book on time, then achieving goal 1 helped with goal 2.

However with AC D, the causal relationship is mainly non existent. In what way could the construction of a new warehouse (goal 1) incentive employees to help plan to extend the old warehouse (goal 2). These 2 goals are disconnected, and any potential relationship is likely to be in a negative sense.

This concept was what made this question difficult to me. Being able to identify the fact that a causal relationship DOES NOT mean the same thing as "if X then Y". Once I wrapped my head around the idea that just because there is a causal relationship between X and Y does not mean X guarantees Y, this question became much simpler.

Even in the original passage, just because the patients derive more pleasure from working on the skills (goal 1), this does not mean they will necessarily spend more time doing them (goal 2). However, goal 1 COULD lead to goal 2. This is why AC A,B,C,E work.

AC D, we are talking about building a new warehouse for more space, and then talking about converting the old warehouse into more space too. There really does not seem to be any causal relationship here. These two things are independent from one another. Think JY even touches on goal 1 for AC D may in fact push people away from goal 2, which does not match our analysis.

Hi,

I have been doing live classes for a couple months now so I think I can speak and hopefully offer some guidance.

The live classes are most beneficial when you are earlier in your LSAT journey or are scoring in the low 160s and below. The live classes can almost act as a substitute to the CC, and they are a good way to get hands on experience with LSAT test taking techniques/getting familiar with the uniqueness of the LSAT.

As you get better and better at the test, many of the live classes may prove less useful. There are some classes that are tailored towards higher level students, but even then, they often move slowly. I personally find that at this point it just easier for me to drill/take PT's and then watch the explanation video by JY if I come accross something that I don't understand.

I did still keep my live subscription around, since I find it useful to be able to jump into classes if I want a refresher on a topic, if I want to gain a new perspective on approaching certain questions, or even have any specific questions that I am still confused about after watching the explanation (or if there is no explanation). There even some live classes dedicated to solving difficult questions that students have run into throughout the week. These have been the most useful at this point in my journey, since these questions are generally 4/5 star.

Lastly, I also find the classes useful when you might need to be doing other things and can't be actively drilling. You can put them on while cleaning or cooking, and still participate. Some may say this actually puts you further behind since you are not focused, but I think as long as you do this on top of your regular studying, then it should be beneficial.

For the price? Its worth it just to have tutors you can ask questions to. Class sizes are small and feel personable. If you learn best by asking questions live - go for it. An in-person course would charge the monthly cost of LIVE on a per hour basis, so to me its a steal.

#help I am confused for Q18.

Weirdly enough, I did answer this correctly, since I felt E hit the nail on the head for this question, EXCEPT for the fact that it focuses on mammalian subgroups. To me, I feel like it is a flaw to assume that just because one type of subgroup (mammalian) was found to not be able to survive long after splitting off, that other subgroups experience the same issue.

Still chose E since besides this nitpick, it was exactly what I was looking for, and the others ones missed the mark by quite a bit. I feel weird about it though. I could totally see this coming up in a different question that has different AC's A-D, where E is considered incorrect due to needing that assumption. Sometimes feels like the LSAT plays it fast-and-loose with when an assumption is "ok" to make, and when it is not. I feel like an important skill in taking the LSAT is learning to distinguish between those moments.

Also just to be clear, as JY says, the wording in E is also not necessarily supported by the text. You are right to say that there is not substantial evidence provided. However, I still felt that the more important aspect making E wrong is that the entire concept of witnesses getting incentives to testify is not the conclusion. The impact of doing this is the conclusion.