I’m interested! Any platform works.

@ Hah! I was waiting for that.

Thank you so much for your advice! Also glad to know what I was thinking somewhat matches your thoughts as well...

I’m going to drill LR and RC this week and see how my PT this weekend goes then. I don’t know why I’m so nervous about everything!

If you guys wouldn't mind a third person joining, I'd love to BR with you guys. I'm taking October and aiming for a170+. Let's DO THIS!

Not sure where you're seeing that it is D, but it is indeed C.

This happened to me last November so I understand you may be devastated.

But I think the last thing you want to do is let a potential "confidence thing" become an actual confidence thing.

If you're properly PT-ing in that range (meaning 35 minutes only, blind review, no breaks between sections, etc), you know this test.

You already have the ability to deal with the typical things the LSAT throws at you.

The issue may be just translating that capability within the test by actually doing the thing you know to do. That means remembering to calm down and read every word on this test, skipping when you're uncertain or confused, and not losing momentum, etc...

So that's more of a section strategy rather than fundamentals. So keep at that until October.

Not sure how many PT's you did before August, but do more.

You deserve the weekend off.

Remember the 161 isn't your limit. It's your bad day. Don't let that define you as a person.

Interested in joining fellow retakers! I'm in PST.

I’d be interested! I’m located in San Bernardino County. Willing to meet at a half way point or whatever is good.

If there's an argument, you're always searching for an assumption or a weakness.

The argument concludes: the trend of decreasing national savings will continue.

based on premise: older people have fewer REASONS to save.

Well.. NUMBER of reasons doesn't show whether old people will actually save or not.

An old person may have only one reason but a very strong one and they will save.

And a young person may have multiple reasons to save but doesn't actually save.

Reasons to do X =/= does X

Answer choices (D) matches this anticipation.

(A) we don't need to know EXACTLY what the reasons are or what the strongest reasons are.

(B) argument isn't as extreme as to assume "CANNOT EVER"

(C) argument doesn't have to do this since it says "IF the average age... continues to rise"

(E) argument doesn't have to do this. it's just how the argument happened to calculate, but the author doesn't assume it's the best way or even better way than anything else.

I think it would help to spend a lot more time on Blind Review.

In your case, you should (as always) break down not only why the right answer is right and all the others wrong, but what the DIFFERENCE between the correct and your chosen incorrect answer is.

You want to be able to zero in on your thinking process in actively straying away from the correct answer and actively choosing the incorrect answer.

Sometimes that answer might be "I didn't actually read the answer choices thoroughly"

or it may be that you assumed something where you shouldn't have.

I suggest dig deeper into your thought process even if you're doing answering less questions per study session.

This question actually confused me too so I arrived at the answer by POE on timed practice.

I hope I can think this through with you.

So the argument is saying:

Scientists assumed characteristics were to accommodate SIZE and WEIGHT

Another specimen found with SAME characteristics but different size and weight

..... Concludes from those facts that the belief must be abandoned.

This would be an argument based on counterexample. (It's not true that size/weight --> characteristic because here is an example of something with NOT that size --> but same characteristic)

Any time you compare two things, they have to be similar in relevant and significant ways.

This argument seems to be assuming that they are indeed similar, and that SIZE is a significant DIFFERENCE between the two dinosaurs.

For Evaluate questions, I personally tend to treat it like Weaken questions ... so I thought well what if the size isn't a significant difference after all?

That's where answer choice (B) brings in an explanation to this size difference.

You said: "if the dinosaur is a baby, it still seems to strengthen the argument by giving an example of a dinosaur that has T-rex features but is small"

But if it died early in its life, we actually are given an example of a dinosaur is small BUT COULD HAVE GROWN LARGER. We have room to think it may have grown to T.Rex size if it didn't die so early.

This would WEAKEN the argument.

If it died late in its life, it would strengthen the argument because we have reason to believe this argument that size difference is legitimate and to abandon scientists' belief.

Does this make sense? Let me know if I can clarify anything!

Be careful reading answer choice (A) as it says citing an example to cast doubt on a COMPETING argument, not citing an example to support THE argument.

I think that's where your confusion is. While this stimulus given IS an argument (where the example supports the conclusion), that is not what (A) is saying.

The conclusion is essentially saying the general claim "evolution always optimizes survival of an organism" IS NOT NECESSARILY TRUE.

So the stimulus is providing an example to support the author's claim

OR it can be thought of as a COUNTERexample to weaken the GENERAL claim (which is what answer choice (C) says).

(A) can be amended to make into a correct answer if you say "citing an example to cast doubt on a competing CLAIM"

--> but as JY has explained, we're not given an argument. We're just given a negation of a general claim as the first sentence. That is why (A) is incorrect.

To chime in, your double negative translation for "dogs cannot fly if they do not have wings" should look like /W --> /F

Think if NOT wing, NOT fly.

CONCLUSION: Floors made out of narrow floorboards were probably once a STATUS symbol...

P: People w/ bigger houses (hence narrower floors) tended to be richer.

The argument gives you a phenomenon/hypothesis stimulus

& here, they're speculating that the narrow floorboards were for STATUS/ show off wealth.

I spotted a couple things going on here

it seems the argument is assuming using narrower boards were more expensive than using wider floorboards.

there are other ways narrower floors may have been more appealing to the rich than for STATUS (i.e. price (maybe they actually like cheap things), visual appearance, just personal preference, etc).

Here's where you want to be careful. This is a STRENGTHEN question, not sufficient assumption.

From the way you asked your question, it seems you're hunting for a SA type answer and are perhaps caught off guard by answer choice (B) which reads more like a Necessary Assumption.

The AC just serves to rule out the possibility that CHEAP PRICE was the reason the rich used the narrower boards and not status. The boards were at the very LEAST similarly priced which still means narrower boards can be cheaper but not by much.

So although this doesn't guarantee the conclusion as a sufficient assumption would, (B) still strengthens by reducing the possibility the PRICE was the reason for the use of narrower floorboards.

I hope this helps!

Premise 1: Any student (WHO WANTS TO PARTICIPATE) is elligible --> at least one arch course + interest in field

Premise 2: Many students = interest but NOT arch course.

Conclusion: Many students (WHO WANT TO PARTICIPATE) = inelligible.

Pay attention to the part I capitalized. The stimulus starts by talking about a specific group of students, but the second premise talks broadly of STUDENTS in general. But we don't know whether many students in general is the same as many students who want to participate. It can still be true that many students in general are inelligible but many students WHO WANT TO PARTICIPATE actually all meet the requirement and are elligible.

I hope this makes sense. This one is tricky to put into words.

For PT1.S3.Q23, the argument says BECAUSE 62% of those who returned the survey said yes, we should switch to the new format.

At this point, we don't really know how representative those 62% of responses may be. You want to be clear of WHAT you want to be representative of. The survey was used to increase readership, so you want the answer to represent the potential reader population. In addition,

How many people were surveyed to begin with? and how many returned it? These are important factors for us to consider when deciding how useful this survey answer is.

(C) is just an extra way of saying the survey was representative, which is exactly what you want.

Personally I was tripped up by (A) but it still fails to consider that those who were surveyed were representative to begin with. What if only 10 people were surveyed? and there are a million potential readers? that's not very representative.

(E) I'm not even entirely sure what this answer choice is saying, but it's like fancily describing the kind of people who returned the survey. But we don't care about that.

For PT1.S4.Q8, it hinges on your ability to pick up on the nuances in the stimulus.

If someone has misinterpreted something the other side has said, they will use that word in a different meaning so you want to be sensitive to what word/phrase changes meaning in the stimulus as you're reading.

Having done that, it should be clear that only (C) would make sense. The "OUR" that Mary Simms refers to is her advertising company where as Jack Jordan uses "OUR" to refer to the Baysville community in general.