The parallel comes from the reasoning. The structure of arguments comes from the way the ideas interact rather than the order in which they are presented. Therefore, arguments can have the same reasoning structure even if the argument parts are presented in different orders. In the case of a parallel flaw question (or other parallel reasoning questions) often times they will present the argument parts in one order in the stimulus, and then a different order in the answer choice in order to artificially inflate the difficulty. It is up to the scrupulous LSAT taker to be able to discern the reasoning structure regardless of the order of presentation of argument parts.

The use of "inevitably" in E actually strengthens it as an answer choice. I believe you may have lost sight of what the question is asking. We are trying to find something that absolutely could not be true based on the stimulus. The stimulus says basically that despite relatively rapid economic growth the UK did not have a per capita increase in co2 emissions. AC E says that per capita increases must always accompany economic growth (a direct contradiction to the stimulus). AC C is definitely possible. If initially co2 emissions increased, but later technology allowed for a reduction in emissions, it would make sense that over time the UK did not have a significant per capita emissions increase. The question stem is asking for something that COULD NOT BE TRUE/MUST BE FALSE. AC E is the only one that directly conflicts with the stimulus. almost like the opposite of an RRE question.

I think that B is ultimately a trap answer choice. I initially chose it but then switched to C. Ultimately the reason B is incorrect boils down to how vague and indirect it is. The word "many" doesn't tell us much. There could be 5 total pieces of technology requiring high school diplomas to operate and that could still be considered "many." Furthermore, there's no indication that these new recruits would have any interaction with the advanced pieces of technology. Maybe only highly skilled engineers use them?

Unfortunately, it appears you were slightly incorrect of your analysis of C, specifically when you say that the graduates and drop outs are not mutually exclusive. You have to nit pick the stimulus in order to grasp this but keep in mind that the conclusion is specifically about 18 year olds. The stimulus says that 18 year olds are generally either drop outs or graduates. With only 2 options (graduates/drop outs) if one percentage goes up the other must go down. Therefore if the percentage of graduates goes up, the percentage of drop outs must go down. I believe you may have been weary there could be a third group sufficiently large to act as a wildcard and throw off the relative percentages. I believe the stimulus rules this out as a possibility by saying that 18 year olds generally only fall into the two groups.

"depends on" is a necessary condition indicator. It is saying "increase in the number of birds ---> most of the eggs hatching"

I think that the graph JY makes is purely for explanatory purposes. It likely would be too time-consuming to do that on test day.

I generally consider this question type to be one of the more difficult ones. It is also important to understand the difference between MSS questions and MBT questions. MSS answers ostensibly could be false but are heavily implied/supported by the stimulus while MBT answers MUST BE TRUE. In MSS questions, it is incredibly important to keep in mind the scope of the argument. It is very easy for the test makers to pray upon assumptions you might be making while reading the stimulus. This is why it is important to take the stimulus at face value. For example: generally answer choices that say "X is the most important factor for Y" are going to be WRONG. However, it is easy to make that mistake because you might be thinking "well the stimulus talked about X being a factor in Y, and X is the only factor they mentioned, so X must be the most important factor for Y. This is an error!

Hi! I would like to join!

Which logic game?

In strengthen questions you're bringing new information from the answer choices in order to impact the reasoning in the stimulus. In MSS the answer choices must cohere with what is already in the stimulus.

I understand why that is confusing. I'm going to attempt to make more sense of this in relation to the credited answer choice. As I said earlier, the stimulus leaves open the possibility that ants have an alternate method of finding their food, but it's not necessarily true. C gives us a conditional relationship. If the sufficiency condition is triggered, then ants must have an alternative method. If the sufficiency condition is not triggered, well then maybe they don't and that works too. We essentially don't need to commit to assuming that ants either do or don't have an alternate method because in both scenarios C still works. E on the other hand requires the assumption that ants don't have an alternate way of finding their food. If ants relied only on sight above those temperatures, and sight was more efficient than pheromones, E could not be true.

The stimulus says that the ants use pheromones to guide themselves but it NEVER says that pheromones are the only means they have of getting around. Ants presumably could use some other method of navigating between food and their nests. We really have no basis for concluding that the ants become less efficient when the pheromones evaporate. Maybe after the pheromones evaporate, the ants use a different method to navigate that is just as efficient.

The negation of "some people did not ingest mercury" is "nobody did not" which is equivalent to "everybody did." If everybody back then ingested Mercury and Beethoven tested positive for Mercury, then absolutely nothing is proven.

The negation of "some" is "none" and vice versa. The negation of "all" is "not all"

Hard question for sure. I think C ultimately leaves open the possibility that since people are unsure of their majors, more could become chemistry majors over time. E is subtle, but it is the only one that gives a reason why chemistry could become more unattractive to students after they have enrolled.

One of those questions that upon review seems so obvious but in the heat of the moment seemed so hard. More kinds of lamps is meaningless! So what if they had more kinds, that say absolutely nothing about raw numbers.

The phrase "too often" really tips you off to the answer. If something is done "too often" then it is overused. Wish I had noticed that the first time around! It pays to read close.

Hi friend. Don't worry! I promise there is nothing wrong with you. I believe the error you are making is that you are making too many assumptions about what you're reading and not making a literal enough interpretation of the stimulus. Everything you say in your interpretation of the stimulus may be true in the real world, but the fact is that the stimulus simply does not say any of that. Often times, the LSAT writers will trick you by designing answer choices that exploit extraneous assumptions test takers might have made. Taking the stimulus at face value and refraining from making assumptions is the best way to avoid falling into those traps.

Sufficient and Necessary assumption stimuli both contain arguments, so the existence of "argument" in the question stem can't differentiate them. SA question stems always have some phrase like "properly inferred" "follows logically" "properly drawn" etc. NA question stems always say something like "required for the argument" or "necessary for the argument" or "argument depends on." The implication being that SA answer choice make an argument valid and NA answer choices keep the argument from completely falling apart.

"Properly inferred" means that the AC makes the argument valid, or in other words, the AC is sufficient to make the argument true. Necessary assumptions don't allow the argument to be properly inferred. Imagine it like this: SAs are kind of like gluing the premises legos to the conclusion lego. There's no way those are coming apart. NAs are like just snapping them together. Your lego argument won't immediately fall apart, but there's nothing stopping somebody from coming at it from somewhere else and knocking it down.

I read "wider" as "audio books are more available than they used to be" instead of "audio books are more available than books"

Yes! You have nowhere to go but up. With the right work ethic and mind set you could easily improve much more than 10 points.

The difference is between saying "which answer choice most strongly supports the reasoning" and saying "which answer choice is most strongly supported by the reasoning." Wording is always key on the LSAT and it definitely seems like they could use this trick to trip people up. Always be vigilant.

Answer choice B discusses a particular strain of this virus that is worse for Scottish seals. So? The argument makes a causal conclusion about why the situation is worse for Baltic Seals. Since this is a strengthen question, we need an answer choice that reinforces causal connection between pollutants and Baltic Seal death. Answer choice B does the opposite of what we want and asserts a reason why the situation could actually be worse for Scottish seals and ultimately does nothing to reinforce the connection between pollution and higher Baltic Seal death.

It would be impossible for the LSAC to ensure the integrity of the test if there were wrong answer choices that were kinda right, but not as right as the credited choice. Look at the stimulus again. It says television "helps explain" the increase in homicide rates. Answer choice A merely reaffirms the correlation between the two phenomena yet says nothing about causation. Saying two things both appear and don't appear together has no bearing on what causes the other. A leaves open the possibility that the homicide rates in fact cause the advent of television, which is obviously not correct. B actually has "is a cause" in the wording which matches well with "explains" in the stimulus.

The stimulus only discusses disciplines with blemished origins, and says the blemished origins should impact how the discipline is evaluated. It says absolutely nothing about disciplines which are unblemished. The argument thereby leaves open the possibility that unblemished disciplines could still be valuable or unvaluable or somewhere in between. This is why A is incorrect: because the argument NEVER mentions unblemished disciplines so we know nothing about the author's opinion regarding them. It is important to take Logical Reasoning stimuli very literally. Flaw questions ask you to describe the argument, and if you bring in new information with an answer choice it is guaranteed to be incorrect.