To me the difference between B and C came down to the emphasis in the answer choices:

B states that future innovation would depend on "the outcome of various current research projects, including that conducted by B and H". And that is not the focus of the passage---the author goes at length about B and H's research and only tangentially mentions DNA stuff, so the answer choice should reflect that emphasis and C does that. There's also something about B's phrasing that is...inchoate? Honestly, can't pin point exactly what it is (I'm not a STEM person) but there's something rudimentary and sketchy about it. I realize that is not helpful.

I think recouping here refers to the time and resources it took for the comedian to produce a show (so like hours spent writing jokes instead of making money in other ways; practicing the deliveries; $ spent on notepads, etc etc). They are able to recoup it by actually giving stand up shows with people who still want to see it (i.e. the social norms protect them from having someone steal their material and give it somewhere else for a much cheaper price. in which position the comedian will no longer be able to recoup the costs associated with producing a show thus making it a terrible deal for them).

“Appear prudent” is defined as someone who is cautious and generally resented as a result. Imprudent is not defined, so you have connect the idea that to “appear prudent” which is cautious (etc) would be imprudent.

B is wrong because we don’t really know anything about people who act instantly or intuitively, just that people want to be instantly/intuitively liked.

Firstly, good catch on >.5 and .5 as they will often exploit that kind of language, however, here were told "for despite its ability to neutralize stomach acids"---suggests that this is continuous function of the chemical. Yes, it will continuously neutralize stomach acid (presumably yes, at quantities over .5 grams), which is what you want when you take an antacid, but it could also contribute to this other bad thing (impaired kidney function) at doses larger than .5. So it's not that doses of over .5 no longer work at neutralizing acid, but that it adds a possibly dangerous side effect on top of the benefit.

I think I view B as really irrelevant to the argument, or if I had to be generous I would say it weakens it. B is saying that per accident (the argument is talking about injuries sustained so this should be the first red flag--how do we compare these numbers?) the minivans are equally OR less safe than most other cars out there. Ok, so B is saying that minivan drivers somehow get into as many accidents or even more than the average vehicle.....so this would suggest that the low injury rate (because we know that despite the accident numbers, the injuries sustained are still low compared to other types of vehicles), if anything, is linked to the structural safety of the car itself and not the capabilities/risk aversness of the drivers.

I actually have the same problem---give me a tough science passage or a verbose humanities one and I'm all set. However, for me it comes down to preference of subject matter--science and basically anything in humanities is great; Econ is the worst for me for whatever reason. Do you find that it could be partly a problem of subject preference? Another issue for me is that sometimes with easier passages or subject matter I'm very familiar with I just fly through the passage but don't actually take the same care in really reading through them so when it comes to the questions I have blind spots. Basically, I'm trying to slow myself down even on passages that I think are easy/familiar because there's nothing worse than getting to the questions and realize you did not actually retain anything because you were on a joy ride with the passage.

As someone for whom RC is their worst section I feel ya. I think I agree with the commenter above. If you are getting -15 on a section, what is your distribution of wrong answers? Are you trying to do all four passages in allotted time? I think if the latter is the case, slowing down is the way to go--I think going for three (or even two) passages in a section and just guessing on the others could be the way to go for now. I think it's better to get 90%-100% of questions right on 3 passages than trying to go for all four and missing easy questions you could have gotten to if you took the time to read the easier passages. That way you can build up the skill needed to then tackle on the last passage, and in the meantime you can cover the "leftover" passage in blind review and really hone your technique.

I'm happy to help! I think English in this regard is a blessing and a curse--because of all the tenses it can get verryyy particular but that also means that it is possible to overlook something minor and completely misinterpret the overall meaning.

I would say that while Hiro does not use the adjective "severe" they do say "surely" underestimate, as in most definitely/likely/certainly which is not the same as extent of the underestimation (as in something can be certainly an underestimation but also be a slight underestimation) but I think it can be interpreted in that direction.

If I understand you correctly, for me to interpret the stim this way the first sentence would have to be written this way: "Six months ago, the fines for parking violations on the city's streets were raised to help pay for the parking garage that has just opened." I would also say that this reading of the first sentence would make the second sentence super confusing for me--"since then"---would that refer to six months ago when fines were raised? or since the very recent opening of the parking garage?

I recently saw this thread on the forum which I think might be something you will find useful:

https://classic.7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/29425

The first statement says that six months ago the new garage had just been opened and the fines were raised at about the same time in order to pay for the newly built garage. It is very much in the realm of possibility that the garage was not paid for "out of pocket" so to speak so in this case the money for the garage came after the building.

Ok I kind of see where you are going with this but I think in your scenario if a "better suited job" opens up (as you say) the current job of arts commissioner would no longer be "suited" to this other individual because they actually have a preference for this other job.

And even if you grant yourself that there is a small logical inconsistency within the answer choice, the other question you should ask yourself is: what other answer choice comes even close to A?

All can mean some, yes, however, it is important to note which "way" you are inferring that. For example, if we're having a conversation and I say "all of the cats are mammals" and you respond, "ah, so some of the cats are mammals", that is technically correct because some can mean all. But if we're having a convo and I tell you "some of the chairs I own are made out of wood", you can't infer "all of the chairs you own are wood" because I did not say that, I said some, which could mean just one (or all but either way you don't know, all you know is I have "some"). So here, you've inferred that it must be true that some people are professors, but you can't then also infer it must mean all.

The below is correct:

all-->some

This is the mistake you made:

some-->all

You can't infer that just because there is "some" of something that it must be that there is "all" of something.

I just looked over my notes from when I first did this question and gave it a quick look again and honestly, I had the same issue with it as you. The stimulus is talking about one type of sophisticated European music; D is talking about a trend in all music that "tends" to point in one direction. So yes, I agree with you in that it is not a MBF answer here, which is frustrating BUT I think this happens quite a bit on the harder LSAT questions--they really test our ability to sift though the completely irrelevant answer choices from the ones that could be manipulated slightly into the right answer and I think this is what we have here. Luckily, the other four options are so easily compatible that the only answer choice that even comes close to being incompatible is D.

We are told that the report's authors concede that yes, the critique is valid and that ultimately they should focus on creating a coherent vision. But we're also told that for them to be functional they need government funding and in order to procure it they need to regain their reputation first. B is correct because it points out a weakness in the program organization---how could the program regain the reputation for competence through pragmatic solutions when the reason their problems exist in the first place is due to a lack of a coherent vision? What B is saying is that there is another route to gaining the reputation of competence which is through a coherent vision and not pragmatic solutions.

I think this is a classic case of absence of evidence is not evidence of absence--Smith's argument challenges precisely that (E). C is not correct because Smith does not say that the evidence is not accurate (they concede that yes tools were found 13000 years ago as Jones claimed), but they rather point out that the evidence is not interpreted to its fullest potential. Smith points out a weakness that there could have been tools dated to an earlier period on the migration route but the environmental factors could have played a role in the current lack of evidence.

Congratulations! That is quite a feat!

No, because in the stim we are only told about "many" of the flints (which are so exquisite that they clearly have an aesthetic value), but how many is many? Like 5? 500? A tells us that most were not polished, but since we don't know how many is "many", and what proportion of the total that is, A does not contradict the stim. Also, just because most were not highly polished (lets say there were used for actual practical purposes so didn't need to be too nice), doesn't mean that some others (or even many others) weren't used for aesthetic, or ceremonial purposes.

When I did this on my first round of doing I just got a "sense" of the structure and was able to confidently rule out by POE, which honestly works great on questions like this where the wrong answers are very very off. However, if I were to graph it, it would look something like this:

EPL—some—>SJ

—

SJ—some—>/EPA

I didn't diagram "only" as a necessary marker but as a concession (oh man too bad only a minority of those who....kind of vibe) and minority as some, so that's what we get above. That being said you can also diagram this as EPL--most-->/SJ since the SJ idea here is a binary and we are told "few" are SJ so that means that over half/majority must be /SJ

A

Scholars—some—>MD

—

MD—>/scholars

I know the question is playing around with most/not most here and JY explains it in the video pretty well, but like I said earlier the wrong answers are really wrong so I would never diagram this in real time as it would just waste time for me. But here I simplified the relationship by only representing the "some" relationship (because most can be represented as some) and it worked just fine for showing the basic argument structure and the flaw. Obviously, on a more difficult question those details could prove to be important.

@buckleybrendan13525 said:

Woah, I was in the late 40s for PTs averaging and was pretty consistently in the 163-168 range and just took PT 83 as a more recent one and got a 157. Granted I made a few silly mistakes, especially in the Logic Game section, but this has me thinking I should have started hitting recent tests a lot sooner. Are the more recent tests really that much more difficult?

I just started hitting the early 80s and I had a ten point drop between the stuff in the 60s and early 70s. I know there were a few silly mistakes made too, and I know I was going into the 80s with some anxiety about the "expected" score drop but oh man this is discouraging and I hope it's all in my head. Words of encouragement appreciated!

I would say this with regards to A and B:

A is the NA in this argument, and it's actually once that pops up pretty often on the LSAT, so once you get used to it, it becomes pretty obvious to note elsewhere. You say yourself that it is "restating" the information. That's good! It's a NA so sometimes it will feel like it's restating the information because it is making explicit an stated assumption in the argument--that is what's happening here. If you negate A it would say: even without screening (the same screening you are arguing for due to cost saving effects!) if would be cheaper to simply treat the patients....so the screening is so prohibitively expensive it would make more sense just to treat the patient once they got sick. Yeah, this would go completely against the argument so it clearly is the right answer.

B on the other hand just does not do anything for me. Ok so this is kind of like the first sentence but it kicks it up a notch to say it's most diseases not just some/certain diseases. Ok, so that goes way beyond what the argument assumes. We also need way more info here--which diseases are preventable? What's if some of these genetic flaws are preventable but do not require any treatment once the person gets a disease (say something like eczema is preventable and genetic, but once you get it a mild version where it's just itchy and it doesn't really affect your life...speaking from experience here)? Again just because a bunch of these are preventable or not preventable tells you nothing about which diseases can be cost effective if you prevent them. What if the argument simply needs one disease that is so expensive to treat that if we prevented it we could save money on it (look again at how mild the first sentence is), in that case the number of these diseases would not affect the argument because the argument does not tell us anything about the types of preventable diseases or the variety in costs of treatment as relative to prevention or anything else that would make B something that is assumed by the argument.

The conclusion tells us that because businesses care about profits they will do this other thing--install safeguards. But does this conclusion need to follow? What if I told you that businesses were 100% confident they would not be responsible for any accidents and they care about profits, would they still feel that it makes sense for them to spend money on preventing accidents that they know won't happen? Yeah, no. Option A is a milder critique along the same vein--it tells us that while they are not 100% confident accidents won't happen, they still wayyy underestimate the risk which suggests that they might not find the financial incentive to safeguard themselves against something unlikely to happen.

B on the other hand basically reiterates the premise---businesses are obsessed with profits. Cool. But does that tell us how likely or not they are to deem these preventative tactics useful for them? You could infer for example that because they have a long term strategy then they must be aware that say over a 20 period year they're more likely to have an accident, but you need to make a leap there for B to weaken whereas A is solid as is and does not require more work on your behalf. And as such, it is the answer that MOST weakens.

I see what you mean about B in the context of this argument, and I get that this question stem is tagged as PSA but I think it is still important to still think through what the question is actually asking you (as opposed to just going into SA mode): we are told to find a principle that MOST CLOSELY fits the argument and that is undeniably A as it connects both logical leaps between the premises and the conclusion (ineffective for colds and side effects), whereas B rules out all these "worlds" where a drug could have effective use but because of side effects should not be prescribed (which is a massive number of life saving drugs which we use) and I think that is too broad and is not a better fit than A.

I remember someone giving the following example (forgot where or who but it was a while ago):

Imagine John is going to the store to buy bread and in this world the store would only ever sell if you had cash.

SA would look something like this:

John went to the store looking for bread for sandwiches.

The cheapest bread at the store is $2.

Therefore John got one loaf of bread.

What is the SA? Well, it has to be "enough" (as you say) to make the argument valid OR more. So, the SA could be but not limited to:

-John had five dollars when he was at the store and he did not spend it on anything else, nor did he need those two dollars for anything else.

-Or maybe it's simply John had two dollars that he brought to the store; or John is so loaded he carries thousands in cash anywhere he goes.

-basically, there are many many many ways a SA can be formulated to make the argument work. On most (?) of these the logic will have a clear gap that you will need to close.

NA on the other hand, using the same argument:

-the store had bread in stock

-this has to be true because if it wasn't how was John able to buy it?

-or by the time John actually got to the store he did not change his mind about getting the bread.

-or John had at least two dollars when he bought the bread.

I know it's kind of obvious in these hypothetical situations and it's much more convoluted on the actual questions but I would say if you just started with SA and NA don't rush yourself when you're doing these questions as the timing will come later, you just want to make sure you actually understand the argument and the logical flaws in it because SA and NA will "test" you on it. So don't beat yourself up if you get stuff wrong, especially if you're timing yourself. I have to say for myself it literally just clicked one day, I don't know why but after that I became much better at answering these. But I also know I searched for MANY explanations for SA vs NA from different people, so maybe that helped?