@sorooshianh185 Heh, sorry for dredging up an old discussion. I found this thread while googling my own site, and wanted to address the out of scope thing. Are you located in Toronto? That's where I held the original course. Might do one again, it was fun last year.

@stepharizona288 Thanks! I appreciate that. My reply wasn't really personal, just wanted to amend this for anyone reading this thread. I figure some people come across this while googling LSAT Hacks, since I did.

Hey, found this thread in google and thought I'd comment on the out of scope issue. Briefly....I'm puzzled. I personally _hate_ that phrase, and have never used it. I actually did a search of my site to check. In the ~2600 explanations I posted to date, I wrote it exactly once, to warn against using it. I've _never_ used it in an answer choice.

(You can search this in google to check: site:lsathacks.com "out of scope"

It showed up three other times, when students asked if something was out of scope, in the comments)

So, I'm really confused why people thought I said out of scope all the time. I'm wondering if maybe they're mixing up my site with some other set of explanations? Obviously, it's fine to not like my site: some people like concise explanations, some don't. I just wouldn't want anyone reading this thread to think I rely on "out of scope". It's the exact opposite case!

That's all, just wanted to correct the record on this point. Good luck on the LSAT!

**p.s: why I hate "out of scope"**

Why do I hate that phrase? Because "out of scope" just means "doesn't affect anything". Determining that an answer has no effect is often the whole challenge of eliminating it! So saying something is "out of scope" isn't a reason for elimination. It's a _conclusion_ you make about an answer. And therefore, it's useless as an analytical tool to think about answers. Furthermore, I've seen people use "out of scope" thinking and incorrectly eliminate the correct answer, because it seems "out of left field". But something can be right, as long as it has an impact. It doesn't matter if it wasn't mentioned, or seems bizarre.

Also, thanks @alejoroarios925 :)

Hey, thanks for mentioning that. Just to let you know, the free version of LSAT Preptest 76 explanations are online now.

(p.s. for the mods. I'm not planning on making a habit of posting here, but figured I should post this since the thread is about me.)

Yes, they're all things that can be deduced from the facts in the passage.

Yes, it amounts to the same thing.

It's totally out of left field. We have no reason to believe this is a big issue for consumers. In real life, most credit cards are accepted at most places.

All we know is that factors other than interest rates will be the big issue. We don't know exactly which factors.

The scientific definition refers to *physical* maturity. That's not very relevant to voting. I only care about someone's *mental* maturity.

Science is definitely a relevant authority, if it's talking about the right thing.

The stimulus says that reduced left lobe activity causes clinical depression. So increasing left lobe activity should reduce ("combat") clinical depression.

Often, different words can refer to the same concept, and similar words can refer to different concepts. This is a common trick on the LSAT. focus on the concepts, not the words.

Here, the concept is a change in the level of depression being linked to frontal lobe activity.