#27

Without providing details

I'm a little bit puzzled by that + doesn't necessarily endorse how is the author showing that she's not endorsing the theory?

#help

Question type: SA

Premises:

1. Characters' personalities are hard to discern

2. Succeed→Audience Must Care

Conclusion:

B's plays aren't successful

The ideas that need to be linked are the hard to discern and caring aspect.

If we can prove that it's hard to care about characters when you can't discern their personalities, then the argument will be good! HD→/AMC or its contrapositive AMC→/HD

A. This is the link (between hard to discern and audience care) we had anticipated.

B. We don't really care about the intricacies that go behind a character's personality. We care about the link stated above

C. Interesting/tempting answer. But we don't need our answer to be set in a proportional dynamic. It's not sufficient.

D. /DAc→/DAu, but does this make it an unsuccessful play? does the audience care? Nothing is elucidated here

E. We care about B's plays here, and this answer completely disregards this aspect.

Question type: Strengthening

Premises: Sockeye salmon split into 2 populations—one living in deep and the other in shallow areas. The two populations now differ genetically.

Conclusion: The author hypothesizes that they respectively adapted to their habitat.

We have to strengthen this argument. Two ways we can do that is by reinforcing it with an additional premise or protecting it by dismissing another potential hypothesis.

A. Protects our argument and strengthens it. This hypothesis could've been a pretty compelling one.

B. So the native salmons who were disappearing also had the same situation. This doesn't help us with our argument.

C. Stating that more than 50% of salmons spend time (not inhabit) in similar conditions. Irrelevant!

D. Does this mean that one of the sockeye salmons was already genetically prepared to live in the deep of shallow areas? Not strengthening our argument.

E. The number of salmon is widely irrelevant in this argument.

Pretty tough question!

Question type: NA

Premises:

The emergence of chemical fertilizers pushed farmers to stop alfalfa

as the result of stoping alfalfa, the soil structure is poor

Conclusion:

To remedy this situation we need to stop using chemical fertilizers

Work:

The conclusion is very drastic and implies that not using chemical fertilizers is the ONLY solution. But what about alfalfa? can't we do both (namely, using chemical fertilizers + alfalfa). If this isn't possible then the argument makes more sense.

ACs:

A - Abandon use of chemical fertilizers → use alfalfa

But this isn't elucidating whether the use of BOTH is doable.

B - Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But this isn't helping discussing when the soil structure is poor.

C - A little bit like B. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But it doesn't speak on the poor soil structure. Negating this AC doesn't wreck our argument.

D - If added to the argument, it does strengthen our argument. But this isn't a strengthening question. The negation test helps us getting rid of D.

E - A → ACF

This is clear! To do the alfalfa we have to abandon chemical fertilizers

Super excited about this one! Count me in!

@ thanks so much, mate!!!!

Thanks so much @ !!!

MP

Conclusion: Without further details this teaching about WWI is bound to mislead

Premise: War wouldnt have happened w/o treaties and alliances, which are deeper causes of the war.

A-It did cause the war but there were deeper causes.

B-Purely speculative answer. Not the MP

C-Correct! Further details beyond the assassination ought to be stated

D-Purely speculative answer

E- Just like B and D

MP

Conclusion: We need to determine whether changes are warranted, taking into account price

Premise: some research would be abandoned + changes would be expensive

A-That's not the conclusion. It takes some part of the premise, though

B-Premise

C-It sure does but this isn't the conclusion. They emphasize on the reflection necessary prior to making this change!

D-Premise

E-Correct! Need to be aware=determine if changes are warranted! That's close enough

I'm going to have to ask y'all to explain this to me like I'm a 3 yo because there is an element that I just cannot get through my thick head.

Our role in flaw questions is to weaken the link between P and C. But in this question, the right answer attacks/contradicts the conclusion. Why? Aren't we supposed to not attack Goku or the car but instead focus on the beam?

We "overlook the possibility that whose tendency to laugh was greater to begin with laughed more at the comic videos than did other patients," because the conclusion of the argument clearly states that patients with a greater tendency to laugh are helped MORE EVEN IF they laughed a little!

This is a NA question. We have to find the answer that has to be true/necessary.

This is a complex argument with an intermediate conclusion and a major conclusion.

Premise + Intermediate conclusion: Because people lose motivation to work for goals they think are unrealizable → this pessimism is harmful

Main conclusion + premise: Therefore, we must unable children to think that a good future is possible because we have to do what we can to prevent this loss of motivation

A. Attractive answer choice. But I don't like the mix of intermediate conclusion and main conclusion. It's the prevention of loss of motivation that leads to the main conclusion

B. Correct! Tricky to see if because it does look like it reverses what we see in the stimulus, but it links the main ideas and uncovers the author's assumption. If you negate this, the argument no longer stands.

C. Unnecessary comparative statement. Negating it doesn't hurt our argument.

D. Eliminated? Very strong and hard to support when all the argument attempts to do is enable children to think a better future is within reach.

E. Not necessary. Negating it doesn't hurt the argument. The origins of the issue aren't relevant.

Hold on-where in the stimulus does it say that the music has to be intelligible? #help

interested

Sufficient Assumption question. We have to make this argument airtight.

Premise:

It's hard for players to identify with video game characters because they represent other people.

Conclusion:

Therefore, technical sophistication makes video games less compelling.

We just need to bridge the gap between our P→C

A. We don't know that, and it is not sufficient.

B. Just like A, we don't know that, and it is not sufficient.

C. Maybe it can, but it hasn't been used properly. This sentence stuffed into our argument isn't helping to make our argument airtight.

D. Correct! It simply links our P-IC with our C.

E. Reverse. Our P-IC is in the sufficient spot, and our C is in the necessary spot. Not correct.

I think you should take a diagnostic test just to see where you stand, what are your weaknesses, strength etc.. You might be pleasantly surprised!

Eval question

Premise: 1K readers were surveyed and the 1984 book ranked 2nd as the book that influenced their lives the most.

Conclusion: 1984 influenced a great number of this newspaper's reader

A - Irrelevant! Even if they haven't read many, they can still say which one influenced them the most

B - Tricky to see but knowing that allows us to know how many people chose 1984 and to deduct whether this C is warranted!

C - We have a survey of 1k people that appears to be representative.

D - Irrelevant! Could've written 10 or 1 book it doesn't matter

E - No need to read a book cover to cover to be influenced by it!

RR except

The distribution of lamps is skewed during the UP with the greatest number of them present during the latest part of the UP when M culture was dominant.

A - Good! It provides a good reason why it's skewed.

B - Very similar to B, it provides a good reason. Good

C - More efficient techniques can explain a larger number. Good

D - Didn't need lamps if they had fire pits. Good

E - "Kinds" don't mean more of it. This is the right answer!

SA question.

Premise: Any writer whose purpose is personal expression uses ambiguous words.

Every poet's purpose is personal expression

Conclusion: Therefore, no poetry's readers enjoyment depends on getting a precise understanding

I relied on my intuition to get this one right knowing I had to find an answer that more or bless bridges the premises and the C to make it airtight (def of a SA)

A - Didn't eliminate this one right away. But looking at C, it highlighted the missing piece and flaw—enjoyment aspect & try

B - This isn't what we need. Irrelevant to make the argument airtight

C - That's perfect! Uses the right component of the argument to add the appropriate amount of support.

D - How do we know that? Not accurate or verifiable based on what we have + irrelevant!

E - We have no idea what those other readers like or don't. Pure speculation that doesn't add anything to the argument but confusion

Parallel flaw question

Premise: K's portrait of R was not accurate.

Conclusion: Therefore, your reproduction of K's painting will not be accurate.

A - Overlooked this AC in PT and BR. What's tricky is the jump between half-truths/misquotes to sound quality. But we have to look at these as subsets of something bad. Hence, it's because the speech was bad, the recording will be bad, which matches our stimulus.

B - Doesn't recreate what we need. No unless statement; no reproduction of something.

C - No reproduction of something that will be bad because the first one was bad.

D - Far off. The structure of the argument doesn't match.

E - We don't even know if the first one is enthralling. It pushes us to make an assumption that doesn't exist in the stimulus. It's not because something won an award that it's necessarily enthralling.

Flaw question

Premises:

CPI measures retail prices; the government uses CPI for retirement money; CPI doesn't take into account production cost.

Conclusion: Therefore, the value of retirement payment is sometimes too high.

The issue here is that we clearly went from retail prices to production costs. The LSAT writers push us to make an assumption and conflate these two very different notions.

A - It does fail to do this, but this isn't the flaw in the argument, though!

B- Not the flaw. This is irrelevant. We don't need further details about the nature of the goods at play to have a decent argument.

C - Similarly to B, this is irrelevant. The nature of the goods here is not what we care about or where the argument fails.

D - Descriptively inaccurate. This happens in many other questions but not here.

E - Yes! This is the problem we had identified in the pre-phrase!

Resolve/Reconcile question

Premise: The only differences between grapes and raisins are the caramelized sugar and the evaporation of water in raisins.

Conclusion: Therefore, the fact that raisins contain more iron per calorie (compared to grapes) is abnormal.

This is a tricky question. I tried to zero in on the differences: caramelized sugar could've been a decent reason since water contains no calories.

A - It doesn't explain the discrepancy per calorie. We want to understand why there is a difference in iron per calorie. Knowing what this answer says—which we can imply since they are drying in the sun—doesn't help us.

B - Tricky answer but correct. If caramelized calories don't count, it increases the ratio of iron per calorie, which explains why raisins contain more iron, not overall, but per calorie.

C - Body absorption of iron is utterly irrelevant here.

D - Irrelevant. Doesn't elucidate the difference in iron per calorie.

E - Just like C and D, this is irrelevant. We don't care about other food eaten alongside raisins.

Main Point/Conclusion question

Premise: Several studies show that stress can cause eating chocolate and acne.

Conclusion: It's probable that common wisdom is seeing an effect for a cause.

Cause: acne - Effect: eating chocolate

So, we're looking for an answer that says that common wisdom (some folks) are wrong confused about the correlation between acne and eating chocolate.

A - People are mistaken about the correlation aspect, not about the fact of insisting that something happened.

B - This isn't the conclusion at all. This is the false perception right before the conclusion.

C - Misrepresents the premise. It is the other way around.

D - Correct! It goes even a bit further than we needed to, but it is accurate.

E - False. This doesn't capture our conclusion.

This is a parallel reasoning question

Premise/Conclusion Map:

B or PR‑m→3Max

------------------------------

/B likely 3Max (future tense)

ACs:

A. F and P ‑m→ VN

-----------------------

P probably VN

The conclusion should've been /F

B.

F and P → VN

--------------------

NP → P

The conclusion is way off!

C.

F and P → VN

-------------------

/F→VN

Close but the conclusion doesn't reflect the right tense.

D.

F or P‑m→VN

--------------------

/P →VN

The conclusion is matching what we'd need. We want /F not /P

E.

F and P → VN

--------------------

/F → VN

Correct! Right conclusion and tense!

Flaw question. We have to ID the issue in the argument.

Premise:

Most people who will be using the trail won't litter because they care about the environment. So your argument is false.

Conclusion:

Therefore, the trail should be built.

The author successfully weakens the argument but reaches a conclusion that's not possible to support.

A - Correct! The key in this question is to accurately ID each part of the argument.

B - Not doing that. She says most.

C - Not a circular argument. There is a clear distinct premise and conclusion.

D - He says most ( at least 50+1), though not a few.

E - No ad hominem attack here!

Thanks so much!!!