http://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-68-section-2-question-24/

i'm having difficulty with the following question:

ID THE FLAW: "studies have found that human tears...[redacted]"

CORRECT answer: argument "takes for granted that because certain substances are present...[redacted]"

i can understand why the correct answer is correct by breaking down the argument:

P1: tears have hormones

P2: stress has hormones

conc: so shedding tears must reduce stress.

assumption: hormones CAUSE stress. this is why the author is saying that ~Hormone --> ~Stress

my WRONG answer: argument "overlooks the possibility that if crying has...[redacted]"

but even though i can understand why the correct answer is right i'm having a hard time articulating why my answer (above) is wrong. i thought that the answer was touching upon the idea that there is a correlation, not causation (i.e., if stress is reduced when we cry, this may be because something other than crying causes stress levels to decrease -- so the effect is just a coincidence, not a true causation). could you please help?

thanks, as always! :)

hi there,

i have a question on diagramming multiple conditionals: e.g., Q#15, section 1 of PT #63 (june 2011), choice B states, "if someone tells the same lie to two different people, then neither of those lied to is owed an apology unless both are." i know this is not the correct answer choice but i had a question as to how we'd diagram a multi-part conditional statement like this. would the correct way be:

someone tells the same lie to two different people --> (at least one owed apology --> both owed apology)? if so, what would be the contrapositive of the entire sentence? i never dealt with a conditional within a conditional so any advice you have would be greatly appreciated!

thanks in advance!

hi there,

i have a question about diagramming the following stimulus: "all too many weaklings are also cowards, and few cowards fail to be fools. thus there must be at least one person who is both a weakling and a fool." the question asks us to match the flaw and the correct answer is "some painters are dancers, since some painters are musicians, and some musicians are dancers."

i got this correct simply by process of elimination, but i wasn't 100% confident in my answer choice. i understand the first part: "all too many weaklings are also cowards" = "weaklings (--(some)--) cowards" since "all too many" = "many" = "some" on the LSAT.

the second part ("few cowards fail to be fools") is what confuses me, for two reasons:

(1) i took this to mean that "cowards (--(some)--) NOT fools," but the answer choice seems to suggest that this means "cowards (--(some)--) fools." i'm not sure if i'm overthinking it, but i just thought it was incorrect to assume "cowards (--(some)--) fools" since there is no contrapositive for "some"

(2) can we assume that "few cowards fail to be fools" to mean MOST cowards are fools (or is that too strong)?

thank you in advance!

http://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-54-section-2-question-24/

i'm having a hard time understanding the answer for PT 54.2.24 ("there are 1.3 billion cows worldwide, and this population is growing....")

the answer is A (that cows given good quality diets would produce more meat/milk than they would otherwise), but i got this wrong because i thought it had nothing to do with the conclusion (i.e., methane production would be kept in check if cows were given better quality diets). i kept looking for a connection between diets and methane production, which led me to B (although i still had qualms about it since it didn't address the differential quality of diets). i can understand that A would potentially eliminate a counterargument to the conclusion, but why exactly is this the best answer when it doesn't address the methane issue (i.e., it doesn't directly address whether methane production would be "kept in check")? could you go over what exactly we should look for when strengthening the conclusion?

this question just threw me off -- the stimulus itself doesn't seem difficult but the answer choices just sucked! ;)

thanks as always for all your help!

jane