Discussions

jbantony58

Joined: Apr 2025
Subscription: Free

LSAT · Inferences - How to get better at realizing them!!

jbantony58

Monday, May 27 2024

A couple things that help me when looking for inferences, get really good at representing rules in conditional logic, and chain as many rules up as you can. After every represented rule at least think about the contrapositive and see how it interacts with the rest of the game rules. Also when they restrict game pieces in terms of where they can be placed think about what can go in the slots upon understanding what cannot. After your done representing each rule just think about the relationships between the rules. I find this test has a lot to do with relationships, how premises relate to conclusions in LR, how paragraphs relate to each previous and subsequent paragraph in RC and how rules relates with other rules in LR, everything is connected.

I also recommend doing a lot of games untimed so you get better at identifying certain relationships and inferences that reoccur in certain game types. For example like distribution inferences.

I personally also like to map out a potential completed gameboard after all the rules are done being written, this way I get a much better idea of how the game rules interact with each other and it gives me a better idea of other restrictions/potential inferences. Also I like to quickly skim through the actual questions themselves after having my set up done. If there are a lot of questions that give you additional premises then you know that this is a rule driven game which means that there are not too many upfront inferences you can make so this saves you time from trying to figure out too many inferences upfront.

LSAT

•

Monday, May 27 2024

jbantony58

PT94.S4.Q14 - Science writer: Scientists often accept

I figured since there is no explanation video on this one, I'd offer my two cents. Please feel free to respond if my explanation is lacking anything or if you have a better one.

So the correct AC is B and here is why. The stimulus tells us that essentially that scientists relying on social reasons like prestige is not actually a bad thing when they are accepting arguments because social reasons are used to influence every human endeavor. The reason why this is the flaw is because it essentially relies on the fact that this justification is used so often as a valid reason to justify this claim. We know this because social reasons are stated to influence every human behavior, highlighting the frequency of use. The principle behind this argument is "if a justification is used frequently then the justification is valid. But obviously this is not true, just because a justification is used frequently it doesn't mean it is at all a valid way of supporting the argument. I mean we can even use real life examples to really highlight how wrong this claim is. Human emotions also influence every human endeavor, does that mean scientists are justified in accepting scientific arguments based on human emotions and is it right that doing so isn't detrimental? Of course not, doing so would lead to so many biases and flawed groundless conclusions.

I'll also disprove C because it seems to be a popular AC. The reason why this is not the correct AC is because it is not the flaw. This AC is saying that the argument does not consider the fact that these scientists in addition to relying on social reasons also consider relevant evidence when accepting these claims. This actually sounds like it is strengthening the argument. Now we have evidence that these scientists are not just blindly accepting arguments based on social reasons and that there is actually some actual definitive evidence behind these justifications.

This is how I explained this question to myself, I'm curious to know your thoughts.

LSAT · Desperate-Conditional Logic Translations/Mapping

jbantony58

Saturday, May 25 2024

What specifically about conditional mapping are you having trouble with? For really long sentences that have conditional indicators, I try to first really understand what it is saying and parse it out then dumb it down so that it can be represent in a simple conditional format.

LSAT · PT94 S2 Q21 Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

jbantony58

Saturday, May 25 2024

Hello, the reason that E is wrong is because this AC is largely irrelevant to exposing any flaw in the argument. Assuming both disagrees were experts, why is that relevant? if anything it kind of strengthens the conclusion of the argument. The fact that even experts are disagreeing sort of shows how there is no objective standard.

AC D on the hand does expose a potential flaw. If it is true that both parties are have applied the criteria wrong, that essentially proves the disagreement is due to a user error not because of the lack of an objective criteria or the objectiveness of the used criteria. Since AC D highlights that there is another reason that the disagreement happens for reasons not involving the criteria, the stated conclusion becomes a lot more unfounded.

LSAT · Three Ways to Weaken?

jbantony58

Saturday, May 25 2024

For weakening questions that do not involve causation the way to approach weakening questions is choose the AC that attacks the assumed support between premise and conclusion (which are the assumptions that the premise offers).

If we were to go more in depth, every argument, as you already know have premises and they lead to the conclusion. The implicit assumption is that these premises support the concluded conclusion, this applies to every question. So an argument such as the sky is clear this morning therefore there is no way it's going to rain today has the assumption that the premise "the sky is clear in the morning" supports my conclusion in some way. One of the assumptions of this premise is that if the sky is clear in the morning it will not change for the entire day So to weaken this argument you can say "Due to climate change rain patterns have increasingly become more unpredictable and spontaneous" This AC attacks the as before mentioned assumption.

As you do more of these questions you will start to get good at identifying if the AC actually attacks these assumptions or not. What you do not want to do is attack the premise itself, never do this. If you attack the premise you are not actually weakening the argument, you are rendering it invalid. Remember, the question stem asks us to weaken the argument not render it invalid. In other words you can think of weakening questions as questions that ask you to weaken the relationship between the premise and conclusion.

If in my previous example you pick an AC that says "the skies were not actually clear this morning" then I essentially cannot conclude that it will not rain today, this renders my argument invalid, this AC is not correct as it does not actually weaken anything, you're just denying my claim to the argued conclusion.

LSAT · PT62.S2.Q21 - Most large nurseries sell raspberry plants

jbantony58

Sunday, May 12 2024

The way you can knock out C is by mapping it out conditionally. The logic is as follows: Large Nurseries ( Most) Commercial Dealers and Large Nurseries (most) Raspberries Don't have diseases AC C starts with the sufficient condition if Johnson is NOT a Commercial Dealer. That's the error, because we cannot conclude anything based off the information of what happens to non commercial dealers. Their is no contrapositive for a most statement, so if we have no information on what happens to most non commercial dealers how can anything be supported.

Meanwhile as you stated we know that Wally is a Large Nursery and we know that most of them guarantee no diseases so since a disease was present their is a probable likelihood that Wally is apart of the subset of nurseries that guaranties no diseases (because most do) if there are diseases present their is a probable chance it missed the mark.

LSAT · any good examples in syllabus helping understand ‘NEGATE' strategy in NA questions?

jbantony58

Sunday, May 12 2024

A really helpful way I approach the negated method is that the correct answer choice leads me to ask the question "if this negated answer choice is true how can you possibly conclude what the stimulus is claiming.". If you can ask claim this it more often than not is the correct AC. Often times the correct answer choice renders the premises irrelevant and quite literally make the conclusion seem like its not supported at all.

LSAT · PTB.S1.Q19 - It is widely, but falsely, held that life

jbantony58

Sunday, May 12 2024

In this argument the author is claiming that that the notion that was widely believed that life on land could not have started only half a billion years ago as well as it starting from the ocean is false. The support has to do with these rocks that have Carbon 14 on them, which is the byproduct of life from plants and microbes absorbing and releasing it in the atmosphere. Carbon 14 is sighted as evidence because one of the ways it is found is through plants and microbes absorbing it through the atmosphere and releasing it when they die, and obviously plants and microbes indicate life. But in AC D we are presented an alternative hypothesis. It states that the Carbon 14 found was not as a byproduct of life rather it is the result from the soil that directly absorbed the Carbon 14. If Carbon 14 could be found in absence of life then it it weakens the amount of support the premise claims it has to come up with the conclusion. This is how I came to AC D.

I think there is this implicit assumption states in the stimulus, it is trying to lead us to believe that the rocks contain carbon 14 through the process of plants and microbes dying and releasing carbon 14 which is then absorbed by the rocks. But what AC D does is address that assumption, it provides with another reason for why this occurs without the need for life. Notice the term "directly" in AC D it implies that there are no intermediary steps between the soil absorbing carbon 14, it simply does so by the atmosphere.

LSAT · PTC.S3.Q08 - A metaphor is the application of a word

jbantony58

Sunday, May 12 2024

The conclusion for this argument is the "But this cannot be so" the term "this" referring to the context above. So think of the conclusion is the denial or negation of the other people's opinion that all language is a metaphor. Answer choice C just describes the premise used to support the argument.

A good way of parsing out conclusion and premise is just by asking "why ?" so in this case when the author states " But this cannot be so" ask "why is that the case and where is this support" which will lead to to the "unless some uses of words are literal, there can be no nonliteral uses of any words." this is the reasoning claimed that supports the actual conclusion.

If you were to do so with the statement "unless some uses of words are literal, there can be no nonliteral uses of any words." you will find that there is no support offered to this statement hence not making it the conclusion.

LSAT · PT77.S2.Q18 - Historian: Those who claim that Shakespeare

jbantony58

Sunday, May 12 2024

The way I interpreted the "fails to exclude" as the argument makes it conclusion but does so without addressing the legitimate possibility that the proponents of the argument has actual evidence behind the claims.

LSAT · what is the difference between assumption questions and strengthen questions?

jbantony58

Sunday, May 12 2024

The way I approach an assumption question is by "looking for the puzzle piece that completes the puzzle" For example if we have a premise and a conclusion then we have to assume that said premise leads to said conclusion, after that you just find the AC that makes that connection. For a NA question the negated NA always leads me to ask the question "if this is true how can you possibly come to conclusion stated in the stimulus". For example "my cat is the greatest cat in the world because he cuter than your pet". A NA is that your pet is a cat. If you negate this which would mean your pet is not a cat, if this is true how can I possibly claim that my cat is the greatest cat in the world?

Meanwhile for a strengthening question every premise is assumed to support the conclusion already, this is the implicit assumption. So my job now is to provide some sort of support for why this in fact does lead to the conclusion stated. So going back to the cat example, a sufficient strengthening AC could be "cuteness is a proxy for an animals greatness within their species" . This is at least how I approach them, hopefully my examples help, I came up with them on the fly so I am sorry if they don't make too much sense.

LSAT · PT62.S2.Q20 - The likelier x is, the likelier y is.

jbantony58

Sunday, May 12 2024

I don't think the stimulus is claiming that the universe is younger per say. Rather I believe it is claiming that the previously mentioned star's age was inaccurate. The author of the argument uses brightness to as their reasoning to prove his fact by claiming that these stars are actually farther away than previously thought. Therefore if his reasoning is correct the brighter the star the younger it is. The way I approached this question was by questioning the conclusion almost like a necessary assumption question. by asking "why is is that this newly calculated distance resolves the earlier conflict?" Since brightness was used to justify it, it must mean that the brighter the star the younger it is.