@ sorry but it wasn't even feedback. I read your 250 and I just thought you might think another idea was interesting because it is related - hence "you would probably enjoy thinking about." I regret mentioning that your statement isn't perfect!
@ thanks yes just sharing thoughts. Maybe I shouldn't have led with 'it's not perfect' lol... Sorry if I offended. Of course it's good you got into Yale
It's definitely not perfect but the ideas are actually very interesting and it's a bold subject... insider non-trading is super interesting and original. I don't think I've ever heard someone give that perspective, or even point out that it's a potential problem. You would probably enjoy thinking about vaccine hesitancy through the same lens... applying a vaccine being the "active" and neglecting a vaccine being "passive," and the weight-on-conscience of each option in the case of a bad/good outcome. I think it's true that acting and having a bad outcome feels worse than neglecting to do something and having a bad outcome... it's all interesting. Thanks for sharing!
As far as the subjunctive goes, I don't believe it's accurate to say that it automatically negates anything grammatically.
The subjunctive indicates a hypothetical event, but the factual status of the hypothetical is un-inferable from observing use of the subjunctive. The reality is that "if" statements often ought to use the subjunctive. "If I were rich, I would..." has been colloquialized to "if I was rich, I would..." but the meaning of those two sentences is identical. There is an implication that you're not currently rich, but not that you could never be rich, and really the issue with this application as an example is that there are two options "rich" or "not rich." What if I had $100, and my friend had $10, and I said "If I were you, I would get a sandwich, but, me, I'm getting lobster." "If I were you" doesn't imply that I don't have $10, and I do in fact have $10. The rich/not rich is bimodal, so I think there is a stronger implication in that case. If only one of the two choices can be true, then the hypothetical aspect of the subjunctive probably does imply that the one you mention is not factually true.
To the other example, "If I were to go to bed at 10pm..." doesn't imply that it is absolutely not a possibility to go to bed at 10pm, it might imply that you are weighing alternative hypotheticals. Like if I said (were to say), "If I were to go (went) to bed at 10pm, I would get enough sleep; however, if I were to go (went) to bed at 11pm, I would not." I don't think the attainability of either of these possibilities is implied by the phrasing or use of the subjunctive.
In Spanish, the subjunctive is used much more often than in English, and occupies a large role in daily speech. For instance: "Ojala que tenga un buen dia" = "I hope that you have a nice day." Anything that you hope for is naturally a hypothetical, and thus ought to be subjunctive, but English doesn't bother with an explicit subjunctive in this context, and we don't have a convenient conjugation to specify the subjunctive here. Despite "tenga" being a subjunctive, the speaker is not implying that it isn't a possibility that the person he's speaking to "has" a nice day, the direction of the day could go either way and the speaker implies no knowledge or thought on what might happen.
These are just my thoughts on the question. Feel free to contest any of them I'm not an English teacher or anything.
Adding**: I think the bimodal point is the best one in here but not sure if bimodal is the right word... I mean two discrete possibilities. Bi-something I don't remember.
edit 2: "If I were you," does imply that I am not you.
@ jw, if you outscored all your PTs on your first take, why did you take again?
They use a good number of ideas in LG that are originally presented in LR. It depends where you're starting from and whether you find the LSAT intuitive or challenging. If you find the ideas in the LSAT challenging, I would just do everything as prescribed.
ProctorU was completely fine, no issues at all except the guy was a no show for like 3 min after I finished. Firefox no pop-ups.
RC-LG-LR-RC, first RC was rap (easy) second was Native Americans. That RC section could realistically break my goal score depending but we'll see what happens. Standard LG and standard LR but leaning towards hard. No idea what the content was in LR or LG. Questions and games probably.
Realized after taking this that I have no real way of gauging how well I did because I never think about it after practice tests!! Should I have been practicing that too? We will see in 2 weeks
I think the difference between the two is the most stark in that correct Strengthen answers could be false, whereas correct Necessary assumption answers MBT.
Consider something like this argument "Researchers never find tools in ancient dwellings of People X who lived in area Y 10,000 years ago. Therefore, People X did not use tools." A good strengthen answer could be anything that would even tangentially support the argument...
Like: "At the time, other groups nearby made tools out of materials that would not naturally degrade over 10,000 years." This would strengthen the argument because it would indicate that, if these people were making tools, researchers would probably have found them, because they would have probably been made from stone or some other material that would stick around for 10,000 years (as opposed to wood or something like that). Therefore, we gain some confidence in the idea that they weren't making tools, even if it's not absolutely conclusive evidence.
So that is an ex. of a strengthen answer... it's probabilistic, and it could just as easily not be true. If it were not true, maybe we'd want another explanation or info to evaluate the argument, but it could feasibly not be true without making any crazy leaps.
Consider the negative version "other groups nearby made tools out of materials that would naturally degrade over 10,000 years." This doesn't help the argument anymore, but it doesn't completely destroy it (although I would say it weakens it pretty substantially). The argument is still logically coherent in both cases, Strengthen answers are just increasing the likelihood that the argument is correct - the probability that the explanation is good. If this answer choice was presented for a necessary assumption Q, it would be wrong
A necessary assumption answer might be "Other nearby groups did not take tools from People X's abandoned dwellings." This is something that absolutely must be true for the argument to hold. Consider the negative version, "other nearby took tools from People X's abandoned dwellings," this makes the argument nonsense. If other groups took tools from People X's abandoned dwellings, then 1. they had tools, and 2. there's a good explanation for why there aren't any tools there now. So this is a necessary assumption because it must be true for the argument to be logically coherent.
@ that specific test must just be an outlier. Honestly, that tool isn't really that useful. Each individual test has its own raw score -> result calculation, and that one must be especially unforgiving, perhaps because most takers found it slightly easier than average. A common metric is the "curve" which is the number of wrong questions it takes to get 170. common curves range from -9 to -11 where -11 is a very difficult test, so you can get more wrong without losing points, and -9 is an easier test, so you can't get as many wrong.
How about "Old C -> ^P(M)" ?
Old C -> increased probability of a monarch
P(x) is classic stats notation for "probability of x" and it seems like a relatively smooth translation here.
Thanks for posting!! crazy amount of info to take in... If you get pretty far in and get stuck, read quote below. There is one sentence with a very ambiguous meaning, and the correct interpretation is not really the intuitive one. I had both interpretations written with a big OR on my page and only one worked so I figured I was right.
One of the top comments on the reddit thread:
"
For anyone trying to solve it on their own who stumbled across this thread:
There is a sentence that reads "Someone else carried a valuable [Heirloom 4] and when she saw it, the visitor from [Home 3] next to her almost spilt her neighbour’s [Drink 2]."
Based on my run through, the correct way to read this (absent ambiguity about 'her' and 'she') is:
"Someone else carried a valuable [Heirloom 4] and when the visitor from [Home 3], next to the owner of [Heirloom 4], saw it, the visitor from [Home 3] almost spilt the [Heirloom 4] owner's[Drink 2]."
"
@ I would say that the two approaches are pretty much clones. 7Sage
gives quite a bit more tangible advice on RC, but the ideas are conceptually the same, "big picture" is more important than the details. Honestly, both systems are just designed to help people avoid the trap that is attempting to memorize information in the passage as you read, or losing sight of what the writer is saying because you're focusing instead on every little thing he says.
Facts in the passage are much less important than the structure, but that's because the LSAT is designed to test understanding of arguments and logic rather than fact retention. If the LSAT were designed to test retention of specific details (i.e. reading comp Q's were 10 detail questions) then I'm sure Mike Kim and 7Sage would both tell you to read for detail rather than structure, and they would give you advice on how to do that. In general, comprehension includes understanding detail and understanding structure, but, as with LR, the nature of the LSAT (and arguments in general) means that the structure is much more important than the details.
Many improve in two months. It's impossible to know if you will be at your goal in two months. However, you will almost definitely not reach your maximum potential score in two months, and a few extra points on the LSAT is worth more than applying early in the application window. Definitely start now. Reevaluate in a month. If you need more time come August, or you feel you still have room for improvement, I would probably advise you to take it in October. Hitting your mark is more important than timing, but ideally you hit your mark and apply early.
Weakening/strengthening questions aren't necessarily assumption focused. Usually you need to figure out the premise, the conclusion, and why the speaker thinks the conclusion follows from the premises. Typically, the strengthen or weaken will target something in the "why" space, either fortifying it or undermining it, so the premise still stands, but has a stronger/weaker relationship with the conclusion. It wouldn't usually matter if there was a specific assumption required by the argument. If by assumption you mean the "why," it might help you to ask yourself, "what do you have to tell me about to change how I evaluate this argument?" Not a specific fact or something, just generally is there some category of information that could influence your evaluation. Often, that's going to be where strengthen/weaken Q's focus.
For ex.
Most kids eat more sugar than most adults.
Most kids have cavities more frequently than most adults.
Therefore, eating more sugar causes kids to have cavities more frequently than most adults.
Ask yourself what you'd like to know about to change your evaluation of the argument. It should be something like "is there anything else that could cause cavities?" Or even "does sugar cause cavities?"
Strengthen answer: there is nothing other than sugar that causes cavities.
Weaken answer: Children brush their teeth much less often than adults.
Reading - comprehension = looking at words. If you "read" fast and don't retain very much/anything, you're just looking at words. The speed at which you can comfortably comprehend the passage is very important, but, as others have said, focusing on looking at all the words as quickly as possible is not the way to go. Practice comprehending, and you will gradually (very gradually) improve your ability to comprehend quickly. Speed of comprehension does matter a lot, but achieving comprehension is step one. Many people struggle with RC because they fail to commit to comprehension. (aka. they don't actually read the passage, they just look at the words) If you do not commit to comprehension, many questions are confusing, others take significant amounts of time, other bad things. If you commit to comprehension, the questions are easier, but the passage takes a little longer. With practice, you can read at the pace that you can look at words.
I found them hard. Only did a bit worse than normal, but there was definitely a bit of luck involved. I think it gave me the most trouble out of all the game sections in the 80's.
I find it really surprising how supportive this thread has been for this approach.
This is definitely one of those things where the person you were talking to gave an example of one study approach they actually did use, but it wasn't their primary or first approach, it was just an interesting approach, so they told you about it. I'm guessing this person completely exhausted many other much more efficient approaches to learning RC before moving onto this one. At the very least, this person had already done every single RC section from every LSAT prep test, maybe more than once, which is a lot more than most can say. I would get there before I would ever consider copying down RC by hand. (I say this because I can't imagine this person is copying down RC sections as they read them for the first time. That seems like a waste of LSAT sections and someone shooting for a 180 is probably not wasting study material.)
Just think about how JY and others say you should think about RC... Focus on the big picture, come back for details if you have to, but don't get bogged down. Think about what copying passages word for word encourages... extreme detail orientation and completely losing track of big picture as you literally hand write individual details.
I just don't see this strategy as promising, and I think it's an example of misreading a fun fact as valid advice. Maybe... if you've done and reviewed every RC passage at least once, you could consider this strategy.
Something similar that might actually help: read passages fully, and then try to write out structure and flesh it out as much as you can from memory. This encourages you to develop retention skills and greases up those neural connections that actually apply to the LSAT.
Thanks! When I lose points now it's pretty much just if I misread something, but only if the misreading still provides a listed answer. I can definitely relate to "read better idiot." I misread stuff relatively often, maybe like every other set, but it usually catches itself by not giving a listed answer. I would estimate that in 1/3 sets I lose a point by misreading. Approx. 1/8 sets I've done recently I'll struggle on a whole game only to realize that I was misreading/skipping a rule, but I can often recover. So yeah my main problem is that I can't read. I guess the next step is to make sure I'm fast/confident enough in my speed that I can comfortably read every rule and question multiple times?
It's also funny to think about the lost feeling of not understanding a game due to skipping/misreading a rule... It's sort of familiar because it's a feeling I always had when first studying, so I don't always put together that I should double check the rules, I just think "Wow, this is a hard one!" I think I just have to remind myself that I have the fundamental skills to never get lost if I've done everything correctly.
Wondering what others feel is the right time to call it a day grinding LG sections. If I manage to get -0 on almost every section I try, did I "do it"? Like am I done studying? What if I get -0 on the majority I attempt, but there are still many sections that I haven't attempted?
As far as I can tell, the predictor has the new medians for the 2021 incoming class loaded in. It had the 2020 in until pretty recently, not sure when they updated.
The argument you give as a parallel example isn't really the same but there is definitely a weird assumption that the General Assembly can't begin twice, once at 6 and again at 7. I remember getting this right and not overthinking that detail at the time, but I don't see any reason for that being guaranteed by the prompt now.
However, E is the only answer choice that makes any sense at all. The rest don't follow logically from anything the prompt says at all.
Maybe the word "begin" implies a single occurrence. Maybe things don't begin twice? They "begin" and later they "resume." If that's true, then 6 implies (not7) and 7 implies (not6), (not6) implies (notStandardsQuorum) and (not7) implies (notAwardsQuorum), so E is logically valid.
I always just come back to the actual definitions of the terms... "necessary" aka "needed"--ask yourself if the thing you're reading NEEDS to be true in order to reach the conclusion given. "Sufficient" aka "enough." Is the thing you're reading ENOUGH on its own to reach the conclusion given? (while staying in the form of the argument you're give)
ex. Cat -> meow. (if something is a cat, it can meow)
Status "cat" is ENOUGH (suff) to know that it can meow, but "can meow" is NOT ENOUGH to know it's a cat.
Status "cat" cannot possibly be true if "meow" is not true, per form above, therefore "meow" is NEEDED (nec) in order to be a cat.