I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around some of these public interest essays (like Root-Tilden, Berk Public Interest Scholars, and general supplemental essays). I can't find a single example anywhere. Has anyone managed to find some?
Does anyone have suggestions on how to approach this? I am not sure if it needs to be a personal story or if I can just talk about my work experience. I'm running out of creative juice.
If you struggled with this and/or the library tax question, I highly recommend going back to the Core Curriculum's Introduction to Logic - particularly Group 3 and 4 translations. Really helped cement my understanding of why the answer is E over B.
You're trying to find the answer that most justifies the author's reasoning that, "all commitments should be seen as morally neutral."
C would be the right answer if the main thing you were trying to justify was something like, "some commitments should be seen as morally neutral." But the main point isn't that some commitments are neutral and some aren't, it's that they are all neutral because some aren't good.
I would agree that it's similar to C. Also, "telemarketers target people who have purchased from telemarketers in the past" is different from the stimulus. If the stimulus said, "If you use a tax service, you'll get a larger refund" it would be more similar.
It doesn't make an assumption about the causal story in the same way the stimulus does.
I can see that, but I would say that the word "ordinarily" in LSAT world is a pretty strong word. It doesn't say, "sometimes." "Ordinarily" means "usually."
I hear you, and I think that's why it makes for such a good trap answer.
A is better than C for a couple of reasons. The thing that led me to pick C was that A attacks the premise while C doesn't.
Premise 1: Sonora was sculpted by Barajas's assistants
Premise 2: They used 3 sketches Barajas drew
Conclusion: Sonora looks very much like it would have looked if she lived to complete it.
A. Barajas would use dozens of sketches and revised her ideas heavily through that process. This directly attacks premise 2.
C. The statue is made partly of materials she didn't use frequently. This doesn't attack the premise. And so? She did use those materials at least once. Also, what if the materials are different in creating the foundation of the statue but they look the same? Like the difference between marble and white concrete, etc. That would mean it does still look like Barajas intended.
Once I figured out that this was a necessary assumption question, I was stuck between and C and D and used the negation test.
C. There are other factors that are more important to successful business management other than speed of processing information or ability to integrate it. So? As long as coffee negatively impairs one of the factors important to successful business management, it does in fact impair the overall management ability.
D. In the experiment, drinking more coffee did have beneficial effects on overall management ability that outweighed the reduction in ability to integrate past information. The argument crumbles and more coffee doesn't impair overall management ability.
I identified that my first choice, B, was wrong in BR because the stimulus doesn't make a claim that innocuous everyday occurrences (IOC) increase from vagrancy laws. I'd like it better if it said, "mistakenly infers, from the claim that vagrancy laws are associated with an increase in IOC crimes, that vagrancy laws increase overall criminal activity."
What ultimately made me choose E was that the columnist doesn't distinguish between the kinds of crime. What if vagrancy laws do decrease violent crime but not IOC crime? Also vagrancy laws may increase reported crime rates (with more reports of IOC) but maybe they help decrease crime overall (with less violent crime). Therefore the reclassification of certain occurrences of crimes doesn't mean an increase in criminal activity.
I actually sort of like the class-version of this explanation because it slows JY down in his explanations.
For me upon first review of this question, I simply didn't understand the last sentence of the stimulus which did not help me assess this question accurately. I chose B and was tempted by C because if you just read the first two sentences, you might think the claim contradicts the first sentence.
During BR, I was able to more closely read the last sentence and identify it as the conclusion. I still didn't understand really what it meant. But from understanding the structure, it becomes easier to identify the ACs that aren't right.
This is a little different from what JY says but this is what helped me get to the right answer:
premise 1: advantage of sex repro = ^ genetic variation = advantage for species as a whole
premise 2: ^ genetic variation /= advantage for individual member of species
conclusion: sole reason that sex repro is best because natural selection favors entire species over others
role of premise 2: helps prove that natural selection doesn't have other reasons for it to be favored, like individually benefiting member of species
All A is saying is that there are some overlapping cat/dog households, but it doesn’t touch on the key flaw in the stimulus. It definitely may be true but it doesn't show a flaw in reasoning.
After getting this question wrong, I submitted this for the 7sage meme contest in its honor
https://imgur.com/a/6xoHJvw
Hmmm. I think you are on the right track! The question is comparing the types of exercise. But with an experiment, we need to make sure one group is doing more of the treatment than the other in order to prove the treatment works.
Let's say...
Group 1: Aerobics group
Group 2: Weight-lifting group
but in their spare time...Group 2 is doing just as much aerobic exercise as Group 1, outside of the classes.
Well that certainly doesn't help prove that aerobic exercise is the reason their stress levels were lower.
Going to use this space to review the negation test in case it's helpful for anyone else..
The MBT test and Negation tests can be used for Necessary Assumption questions. (Lesson 3/45 in NA Section of Syllabus for more)
If you negate the correct answer choice, your argument completely falls apart. If it doesn't do much to your argument, it's not the right answer.
A and B are appealing answers so let's put them to the test.
A) Three months is not enough time for the body to fully benefit from aerobic exercise. The argument doesn't fully fall apart because maybe they benefit 80%., which is enough to help their stress. We don't know. This is a SA, not NA.
B) The volunteers who were assigned to the aerobics class also lift weights outside the classes. The argument doesn't fully fall apart because now both groups lift weights, making it a better-controlled experiment. It certainly doesn't weaken the argument.
Now E...
E) On average, the volunteers assigned to the aerobics classes didn't get a greater amount of aerobic exercise overall during the experiment, including any exercise outside the classes, than did the volunteers assigned to the weight-training classes. umm, if they didn't get more aerobics exercise, than what are we even talking about? The argument crumbles.
I think the confusion here is that if someone has a heart attack, they have heart disease. So if someone is 2x more prone to a heart attack, they have heart disease. I think they're using both to trip us up, but if someone has a better explanation LMK.
Stimulus:
TR → Heart Disease
AC D:
Heart Disease → TR (which is not the accurate contrapositive AND weakens the link between TR and proving Heart Disease)
During my PT and when reviewing, I skipped over E because it seemed too obvious (eye roll at myself). When quickly reading, I just assumed in the stimulus that most wheels were made of wood and thought it outright said that. In watching this video, it clicked.
First Sentence: Wood doesn't stay preserved well.
Second Sentence: For this reason, we don't have many remains of wheels.
Inference: Most wheels were made of wood (aka AC E).
Trout fishing is fishing a native species, though. I found the best way to answer this question more through elimination. Every other answer is just bad. A is easy to dismiss because Lopez doesn't make a values judgement about native species. But A does make sense when you compare it to the rest of the ACs.
I don't think it is wrong. It's that there are TWO flaws and that is one of them. There is just no AC that has a parallel reasoning for that flaw.
What helped me understand why B fails is that the AC doesn't compare the same elements.
So...
Sugar = Books
Aspertame = Television
But then...the AC says it takes longer to read a book than watch an episode? Episodes don't equal Television.
I originally chose B but after taking a break for a few days and coming back to the question, I immediately saw that any assumption about small and medium-sized companies was just completely unnecessary. We already know lending is less for those companies. Also, what if it's not that small and medium-sized companies were more financially strong - and rather there was just less market demand for lending to those sized businesses? B doesn't make sense even if needed. So when looking for an assumption for large companies, I looked for what resolves the confusion of the first sentence.
A highlights the other necessary condition besides a company being financially strong. Even if a company is financially strong, banks will not lend money at interest rates that are lower than the interest rates they pay to borrow.
I was really stuck between A and B but ultimately chose B in BR because A provided this hypothetical about bee efficiency, whereas the stimulus straight up told us how this will impact cranberries.
Why would it be or? It says and.
Constantly battling my inner desire to fight with the test makers...
Here's why B is wrong and C is right.
C:
Conclusion: The recent ads for Ebsen's campaign were sent out to test their potential to influence popular opinion
Premises/Evidence:
- Normally political candidates send out campaign material to influence popular opinion.
- They covered a wide variety of topics and the campaign has been spending heavily on follow up to gauge the effect on recepients.
B:
Conclusion: The recent ads for Ebsen's campaign were sent to too few households to influence popular opinion effectively.
Premises/Evidence:
- ????
If a school encourages submitting SAT scores for an LSAT addendum (ie Michigan, Berkeley, etc), how low should the score be to show you’ll outperform your LSAT score? I honestly can’t tell if my SAT score was low enough to prove that on an addendum because it's been so long since high school