It might be problematic - but no worries because with writing you can simply do it again if they tell you it was done wrong.
@sashas766 said:
I completely agree with @alexhgantt28, focus on reading the questions when doing LR but not on RC. What has helped me with RC is really taking the time to understand a passage as opposed to speeding through like I used to with a rough idea of what it's about. By slowing down and understanding the passage, you're less likely to miss key details.
Also another factor to consider: by reading the questions first, it may skew how you view the passage. You want to come in with a neutral mindset and really engage with it. Pretend it's incredibly interesting (some actually can be), ask questions, and convert it into your own words while you read. I hope that will help you as much as it did for me.
Great point by Johnny that I completely agree with! Even during BR, I'll look through a passage again and realize that I interpreted the intention or tone of the passage wrong, leading me to get some answers incorrect. We tend to be biased or under time pressure, read the passage in the wrong voice. I think reading the questions first might have the potential to exacerbate this problem. I think it's an important attitude to go into the passage with a neutral mindset.
Hi there, here's my thought process:
Eliminating (A) and (D) was pretty easy, but the rest required some thinking!
(E) is ultimately irrelevant because it doesn't matter whether they were unconscious or conscious, as long as we know that they are peculiarities. The conditions they give us in the stimulus is "if the peculiarities were used by several authors, then...", and "if the peculiarities were used by work of only one author, then...", so what matters is just how many authors used those peculiarities, not if they were conscious and unconscious. For (E) to be right, it would have to say something about how not being able to identify them as conscious or unconscious ultimately provides a hinderance in us determining whether certain usage of words by authors are peculiarities at all to begin with - and it doesn't.
(B) seems like a jumbled nonsense answer. It starts by saying that when an author uses an idiosyncratic peculiarity, they don't use the peculiarity in every single one of their works. Because of that, a work that is not known to be written by that author might not include that peculiarity. I think what this answer is trying to bait is for us to make the assumption that "work that is not known to be written by that poet" is actually written by that poet - so using that technique mentioned will not be able to correctly identify the correct poet.
But the technique is ultimately saying that IF the peculiarity exists, then it can be used to identify the author. If the peculiarity doesn't exist in a specific work as (B) tells us, then you simply don't use the technique, and therefore this situation becomes irrelevant.
Another reason why (B) might seem attractive is because we might make the bad assumption that this poem through the technique will falsely assign the authorship to someone else - but that is impossible given the conditionals. Ultimately this can never happen as if it is a common peculiarity, then the technique will not be used. If it were to be false assigned to someone else, then it must contain an idiosyncratic peculiarity by another author, but that would be impossible if it was actually written by someone else. So this situation is irrelevant for this reason as well.
I arrived at (C) through POE, mostly. Now looking at (C) again, I think it's actually a very clear answer saying that when we see a peculiarity, we actually don't know whether it is a common peculiarity or an idiosyncratic peculiarity. So the distinction we need to make clear in order to decide whether to apply the technique is unclear. This means that there are most likely going to be situations where we mistake a common peculiarity as an idiosyncratic one, and falsely ascribe a poem to a wrong author - this will be a reason supporting the argument that the technique can never provide conclusive proof.
Sorry for the long answer - after writing all that down, I think a very simple answer can be made in this way:
The stimulus says if A (common peculiarity), technique cannot be used. IF B (idiosyncratic peculiarity), then technique can be used to assign authorship.
What (C) tells us is that we actually can't accurately tell A from B for a work of unknown authorship. Then this would make the technique pretty much useless.
Hope that helps!
You can click the "Simulate Modern" button next to the PT number as you start the PT, and it'll take out one of the two LR sections. But you can't manually choose which one to take out.
What is 'service trade'? Service in the way used in the stimulus I think is implying that it's not something related to a physical good that can be traded.
I believe a different way of eliminating (D) is in the word 'otherwise' in the stimulus. If the students could otherwise fund their education, they wouldn't need the TA position. So them making a stipend over the cost of tuition doesn't actually matter at all, since it doesn't tell us anything about what they could pay for if they didn't have the job.
So a better version of (D) to make it correct would be "Most TAs have other jobs which the salary is higher than the cost of tuition" - then maybe it's more reasonable to think that they could afford the education without the TA position, and hence weaken the administrator's point that they are really doing this just to pay off the education.
I believe it was 25% each, and you got the same score on both LRs so Im guessing it's equal to about 165 in modern anyways
You can't circle the answer choice, but you can cancel out the other choices - so when you look at the PT after BR by section, you can see which answers you didn't cancel out.
I don't think you have to question that entire strategy with this question - To me C requires a bigger assumption than D.
Most of the stimulus is pretty irrelevant to the question, and the part that really matters is the last sentence: "One of the reasons alternative medicine is free of such side effects is that it does not have any effects at all." Everything that was said before this sentence is pretty much context that we're not really in a position to refute, so we have to weaken this sentence. When I first read the stimulus, I saw 2 ways of doing so:
Show that alternative medicine is NOT free of such effects
Alternative medicine has an effect
But the point of the stimulus seems like they're saying alternative medicine is BS and it's not better than orthodox medicine in any way - so although 1) will technically attack that sentence if it were to stand alone, it feels like an odd way of weakening this argument. I went into to AC expecting evidence showing 2)
(C) says that alternative medicine offers hope to those to those for whom orthodox provides no cure. I passed with this AC because having hope is different than having an effect. (C) requires the assumption "if someone has hope that a medicine will help them, then it has an effect on them". If this isn't true, then it doesn't weaken that argument at all.
(D) says a patient's belief in the medical treatment they are receiving can trigger a hormonal effect, which ultimately has a healing effect. In other words, the belief can lead to an effect. This answer choice explicitly says that a belief leads to healing, which is an assumption we needed for (C). So this AC covers the weak point of (C). The assumption that this AC needs is "people who choose a medicine has a belief in that method". This seems like a much better assumption than the one required for (C), which (D) covers.
You rejected (D) because you weren't sure whether the medicine referred to in (D) referred to an alternative one or the orthodox one. The answer is that it can apply to both. It doesn't matter if this refers to orthodox as well as alternative medicine, because even if that is so, it has no bearing on the argument that we're trying to weaken because the argument doesn't concern orthodox medicine. All we're concerned about is whether alternative medicine has any effect whatsoever. So the question of "does this apply to orthodox medicine?" is irrelevant. The relevant question is "does this apply to alternative medicine?" and the answer is yes! Because the AC only says "the medical treatment the patient is receiving", and alternative medicine is definitely a type of medicine that a patient can receive (and chooses to receive according to the stimulus).
Sorry for the long answer, but I hope it was clear, if not please comment and ill try to clarify.
How do we access PTs that's beyond 93?
I don't think the last sentence is true. The stimulus explicitly states that it is the amount of spraying that is causing the harm. Wider usage of the genetically modified crops would therefore need to provide at least a tiny bit of reduction in the amount of spraying in order for the conclusion to be true.
I disregarded E for the same reason, I think it is poorly worded for a correct answer choice
Let me try to help, hope I can make some sense! I'm guessing you meant to say answer choice C, instead of D.
I think what you have tried to do by picking C was to weaken the argument. You want to say that there is a possibility that there were actually more than 9 injuries per 1,000 skiers in 1950, let's say 20, but only 9 were reported. But this is a problematic approach to this question for a few reasons.
This is not a weakening question. In a question like this, we take the information given in the stimulus as a given. There was no reason to suspect that the data given by the stimulus was wrong.
The accuracy of the report may give an alternate reason for why the incidence of injuries changed between 1950 - 1980. But we're not looking for an alternate reason for a phenomenon given in the stimulus, only whether it must be impossible.
Also in this case, the direction of the change in the number is in the wrong direction. If reporting became more accurate, when the actual number of incidences did not change, then we would expect the number of incidences to increase. I am making an assumption here, that when accident reports are more accurate, it means that accidents that have been ignored in the past are being recognized, hence increasing the numbers (instead of decrease in the number of false accidents, where reports of accidents in the past when there actually hasn't been an accident are now being discovered to be false, does seem much less realistic than the other way around). So the incidence number going from 9 to 3 per 1,000 skiers does not seem to be due to more accurate reports of incidences. Perhaps with less accurate reports, it could be possible (even then this wouldn't be the right answer because we are not trying to weaken the argument)
Ultimately, the reports could have gotten more accurate over time, or less accurate over time. Either way, they both are not contradictory with the information given in the stimulus. So C is incorrect!
Hope this helps.
These older tests in the single digit #s compared to more modern PTs are so much harder in my opinion! I'll try to explain:
The reason why A is wrong is because of the phrase only if. if it was replaced with if, then it would be the correct answer.
only if is a necessary condition indicator. But what we can take from our stimulus is that military deterrence is one way of achieving deterrence from a would-be aggressor from attacking (a sufficient condition!). We can easily imagine a situation where a country will go seriously bankrupt if it started a war, and therefore decided not to. Or too much loss in their population. Or a fear of a civil resistance. Or not enough soldiers to fight. The point being, there can be many other reasons why a country would not start a war, and all of that would be compatible with the information given in the stimulus. (this is also why C is wrong - just because a country didn't attack doesn't mean it was due to military deterrence). Therefore, military deterrence is NOT a necessary condition for deterrence from international conflict. That's why A is wrong. (In this respect, the answer choice would also be correct if it started with "military deterrence can effectively deter a would -be aggressor nation from attacking only if...", because then the answer choice qualifies HOW the country is being deterred; if it doesn't have this qualification as the real answer choice A does not, then many other possible reasons can independently deter a country from attacking even without military deterrence.)
The word 'unsurpassed' is put in answer D to make sure that the country under question is absolutely #1 when it comes to military power. Because if, let's say, it was #10, then it actually might not be in the country's best interest to let their military power known to countries with military power stronger than itself. For example, If country that's #3 in military power is a potential aggressor nation to the country in question, which is #10 in military power, and #3 country finds out that the other country has a weaker military power than them, then #3 country could actually be even more inclined to start a war now. The usage of the word 'unsurpassed' gets rid of this possibility.
So if a country wants to deter war, and it has the strongest military power on the planet, then we could infer that it would want other countries to know about its military capabilities - because the stimulus tells us (and therefore we take it as absolute truth) that military deterrence works.
Maybe it's just me, but I really find these older questions to be challenging because of how they're worded. And many of them contain flaws which I think will definitely make them unsuitable for modern LSATs. Even with this question, I don't think that D is really absolutely able to be inferred. Because there could possibly be another way of deterring war, that is much more efficient than military deterrence, that could work only when the other countries are unaware of its military power. So we must make the assumption that military deterrence do not have disadvantages.
I hope that this answers your question, and to you and maybe others that read my comment, please let me know if there are any errors present in my explanations!
I would also love to have a talk about any tips for RC!
Hi everyone, just a question for people who might have used the Ctrl + F function on the real LSAT with a proctor.
I was wondering if there were any cases where the proctor did not know if it was allowed for us to use that function, and if so what happened!
E tells us that some temporary jobs were made in building the mall, and that the permanent jobs created by the mall are low paying. This information is irrelevant to the issue at hand. The issue is that the economy of the community did not increase the same amount as how much money the mall is making. The information in E does nothing to resolve this discrepancy.
Just like how you can cross out an answer that you believe is incorrect with the "x" button to the right of the answer choice on the questions on 7sage, there is also the same button on the online format given by LSAC. You can use that to cross the answer out right away, just as you would with circling a wrong answer on a real paper.
When it comes to 'except' questions, it's really just not forgetting the goal of finding an 'except' answer as you go through the answers. I don't think there's anything too special of a tactic to remember it, you just have to stay mentally focused and not let that goal slip as you go through the choices!
makes sense to me! if we come to the conclusion that she is lying when she says she is unaware, we end up attaking the premise itself (that she is unaware of the humming) rather than the argument she makes between the premise and the conclision. So this is not a great choice for a weakening question.
C does not strengthen the argument, but the conclusion separately. I have written down below in Star Platinum's comment why this seems to be categorized under "Weakening" question type - hope it helps!
C might strengthen the conclusion, because the conclusion is that the hard surface makes for a better record, but it does not strengthen the argument, because the argument of the stimulus is that the conclusion occurs because the time of foot contact is less on hard surfaces.
You must remember that the point of weakening questions is to weaken the argument as a whole, not just the conclusion separately. Answer choice C strengthen the idea that hard surfaces make for a better record than soft surfaces, but through a different reasoning. This is important!
This is the reason why 7sage has categorized this question in the Weakening question type. What we're doing in this question is very similar to some of the weakening questions, in that we are looking for an alternative source of the phenomenon mentioned in the stimulus. Many weakening questions have a stimulus which has the structure of "A happens because of B", and the correct weakening answer has the structure of "actually, C is an alternative viable cause to A". Finding an alternative reason for the phenomenon weakens the initial argument given. This is exactly what C does for this question - it is possible that the better record on hard surfaces is due to posture, not foot-contact time.
A short and easy analogy is to imagine watching a play that mentions both the steam locomotive and hydrogen powered cars. Let's say the steam locomotive was invented in the early 1800s, while the hydrogen powered car was invented in the 2010s. Just because the play mentions the steam locomotive, does this mean that the play could have been written in the 1800s? No, because it also mentions the hydrogen powered car, which was invented in the 2010s - this new technology would not have been mentioned in the play if it was written before the 2010s.
I hope this makes the question clear - If the Mankind mentions 2 types of coins, then the one to determine its earliest date should be the one that was created most recently. So it doesn't matter if the play mentions a coin that was first minted in 1422, 1322, or 400 BC, as long as it mentions the rose noble coin which was in circulation in 1431.
If the answer choice B was modified to say that it mentions another coin that was minted in a year that comes after 1431, that it could be the right answer.
Independently, E is correct because it tells us that people were aware of the coin before 1431, so it is not a strong argument to say that it could not have been mentioned in the play if it was not in the circulation. People were aware of it, and possibly the playwright - so it weakens the argument.
I find that there are a few reasons to see how C is not supported.
The first one is that we're talking about back pain caused by the disks, and we know that 20% of people above 30 have damaged disks who do not feel pain until a while after the damaged is caused. But we don't know anything about the rest of the 80% - maybe 40% of us have damaged spines, and this 40% all feel the pain right away. This can be true, as the # of people existing that feel pain right after damage of the spine is not contradictory to the population under question for the stimulus, which are people who do not feel pain after the disc damage - I hope that makes sense.
The second one, which is one I found more intuitive and what I used during the timed run to eliminate C, is because of the wording "rarely". The stimulus says that in MOST cases of the people who feel chronic back pain, their discs have been damaged for years. This does not tell us that people rarely feel non-chronic pain at the time of the damage - we really don't know anything about people's pain during the back damage.
How I decided that E was an incorrect answer was due to the anwer choice using the word "If ANY saharan desert ants...".
We know from the stimulus that most ants use pheromones, so there is a big chance that not all of them do. Maybe some ants have a technique to find direction that is 100 times more efficient than pheromones, and they all happen to live in the Saharan desert. If this is the case, and the these other techniques are not influenced by the temperature, then the efficiency of the technique for these ants will not be changed due to temperature.
C is a much more viable answer compared to E, because we can assume that if pheromones evaporate under 45 degree temperature, then pheromones will not be of any help to the ants at this temperature. So it is likely that these ants that do forage under these conditions where pheromones will be useless, to use a technique that do not involve pheromones.
Hope that can help if the video still left someone confused!
What a surprise to find my name mentioned in this post! Thank you for reading my comment!