1. Question Type: MSS

What is provable from the stimulus? Focus on this, eliminating 100% nonprovable

C- we just know that the box office success shows only a financial success, we don't know anything else about what it depends on. For all we know, they could also depend on finding it funny but they just don't show it.

This is also not a conclusion that the stimulus is moving towards.

Why I found C attractive:

Well, I thought that D was a little much. I jolted and thought "well, how do we know the film historys don't believe X?". well... the whole stimulus moves to support that as a conclusion. C's only support is one statement, and that idea is a conflict between what box office indicates vs what box office depend on - a discussion we have no support on.

Takeaway: Focus on what the stimulus pushes out for MSS. Push back each AC and ask myself: Is this most supported? Where is the support?

Conclusion:

In order for meeting at the company to achieve max product, need to have clear time and frame and be no more than 30 mins long

ACs:

1. NO. Suff and Necess confusion

2. Not the main point

3. Correct

4. Pass

5. pass

1. Strengthen

Make the conclusion more likely to follow from the premises. This can be down by adding support, or blocking alternative ideas

2. Conclusion:

Public heeded the campaign

2. Support:

During this 6th month plan (washing hands frequently and avoiding going out in public when experiencing influenza symptoms), influenza spread decreased

Gap: Could something else have been the cause of the decrease? I need to block this idea from happening.

Answer choices:

A- Implication: followed the plan to wash hands frequently

Yes. This ADDs support.

If we were to weaken:

Food borne illness that can be controlled by frequent hand washing did not drop during this time.

Implication: You werent frequently washing hands = less likely to have followed the campaign.

B- Irrelevant.

C- large public gatherings? Were they experiencing infleunza symptoms? What about regular public gatherings? Is because of avoidance or because it was already in place? Always push back to stimulus.

D- Okay, pass. This might actually weaken

E- Pass

1. Question Task: Explain the apparent paradox

What's the discrepency? Put it in the form of a question:

Painting deemed to have been produced after 1804 due to cobalt which was deemed only used 1804 or after, but 2009 analysis suggests that painting was produced before 1804

How is it that one analysis said that the painting was after 1804, but 2009 analysis of cobalt shows it was produced before 1804

Answer choice needs to be a proposed explanation

A- the painting was in fact originated before 1804. cobalt just added later

B- Okay, they both found cobalt tho. Doesn't explain the origination confusion

C- C is similar to b

D- deepens the paradox, doesn't answer the cobalt aspect

E- Okay but what about the painting's origination date and cobalt? doesn't explain,

Step 1. Question Type: Flaw

I want demonstrate how the premises do not support the conclusion, where the author went wrong

Step 2. What is the conclusion:

Lang should not receive a bonus.

Step 3: What is the primary support?

Bonus --> exceptionally productive

Though Liang is an excellent account executive, her division failled to meet its productivity goals.

Flaw: The argument concludes about Liang specifically because the group did not meet expectations for the bonus. What if she met expectations, though?

Answer choices:

A- So different divisions have different standards for productivity.

Is this the flaw? No. We don't know if the the argument cares about the different standarsd across divisions in relation to what is required of the bonus. That was not specified. We also don't have any info about other divisions in the stimulus, nor do we care about this.

B- Not the flaw. We care about the gap that we saw (individual vs division) and excellent productivity'

C- two different groups? pass.

D- Correct! This is the flaw.

E- Not assumed. Focus is on today's bonus

Takeaway: Read carefully and really look for the flaw in the argument.

When in doubt, ask if the answer choice has a bearing on the argument.

1. What is my task?

To make the argument stronger. That is, to make it more likely that Premises lead to Conclusion.

2. What is my conclusion?

We should not cancel the space telescope project.

3. What is the primary support?

We spent more than the addition cost required to complete the project, and if we stop, all the money will be wasted.

Plan: Somehow show that p --> c

Answer choices:

A- government agency?

Do we care about them? Are they paying for it? hm... Is this cause for elimination? I think so.

Second take: agency's overall budget? we don't know anything about the overall budget based on the premises. we only know the budget based on the project. The sufficient condition here does not match our premises. For PSA, we need it to.

B- This is looking good. We know that we spent more than the additional cost to complete the project, so this implies more than half of the cost required.

C- This goes the wrong way. Also, do we know if the total cost will be more than twice the amount originally budgeted?

D- Pass. Weakens and borderline does not address our argument specificially

E- Pass. Should we complete the project or not?

Takeaway: #1 carefully pay attention to qualifier words (ex. A's government agency)

B's difficulty:

Parsing out what the implication of this is.

> than half of the total cost of a project. We already know we went completely beyond the additional cost to complete the project. Completely beyond implies more than half.

Trippy for me: additional cost required to complete = total cost of a project

Question Step Process:

1. What is my task?

I want to weaken the mayor's defense. I want to say that P does not necessarily lead to conclusion.

2. What is the conclusion?

Conclusion/defense: He did not take a bribe, because he paid every bill that was presented to him.

Premises: Consultant that paid for the improvements to the mayor's house does business with the city, aka, bribed that he'd pay for mayor's vacation home

3. What is the gap?

What if the mayor still allowed for the consultant to pay for some things. Then, even if the mayor paid for some bills, he still accepted a bribe.

Takeaway #1: Carefully pay attention to qualified words (ex: paid for the bills that were presented to him vs paid for the bills.)

Answer choices:

A- Okay. They are investigating, who cares? We care about the mayor being involved in bribe.

B- So many of the bills were being presented to the consultant rather than to the mayor, and the mayor knew this.

What are the implications/inferences of this answer choice: It makes it more likely that he was involved in the bribe scheme, willingly aware and accepting the idea that the consultant received the bills for the vacation home.

Takeaway #2: Pause after reading each AC and ask myself "What can I infer from this?"

C- Why I initially chose C: I thought this showed the mayor having a history of being involved in bribes

However, did he pay for the building? He just did the building work. We have to make assumptions for C to work, and that shouldn't be allowed.

D- Irrelevant. This does not make it more likely at face value that the mayor was involved in bribe with the consultant, specifically.

Takeaway #3: Know your task specifically. That is, I needed to know that I had to show that the mayor was more likely to have been involved in the bribe with the consultant. Have this in mind for each answer choice and ask myself, do the ACs meet the task?

E- Implications: The city paid him more than he paid to fix the house up.

Okay? We cannot infer that it is more likely that the mayoy was involved in the bribe.

B establishes awareness of the mayor regarding the consultant being presented bills and make it more likely that he was involved in the bribe.

1. What is my task?

if the conclusion is true, what absolutely must be true.

or

What must be true for this argument to stand?

2. What is my conclusion?

Those who regularly inhale the scent of lavendar will reduce their incidence of illness.

3. What is my main support?

Because inhaling lavendar reduces the physical effects of stress, and stress can cause deep impairment to immune system, which causes susceptibility to illness

4. What is the gap?

Are these people who regularly inhale lavendar experiencing stress that causes impairment to the immune system? That is the assumtion the argument makes.

Answer choices:

Work from wrong to right. Think, "must this be true"?

A- Why do we need many? This is not necessary.

B- Otherwise = outside of regularly inhaling the scent.

So some people would otherwise be under enough stress to impair the immune systems.

Yes.

C- Why can't they be more susceptible than average? This does not have to be true.

D- Why does this need to be the case for anyone? Maybe for some people, its not by reducing stress primarily

E- Why can't this work for other people as well? This does not have to be true.

It has to be the case that for these people in the conclusion, stress was imparing their immune systems, which caused them to have incidence of illness in the first place

Start at the beginning of the Core Curriculum!

@ Aw thank you so much!!! So sweet.

@-1 I retook the LSAT in between!

@ you always know what to say!! any tips?

@-1-1 @ thank you both so much I legit almost cried lol. I know its just a test but it had me fudged up! do you have any advice for how to approach reviewing this and making improvements for the next one? would really appreciate it!

Q20) MSS.

Focus on what is 100% not provable and eliminate. push back AC to facts in stimulus. Demand support.

A- Comparative we cannot support. We only know about cranberrie species.

B- yes. the support is in the first and second sentence.

C- No. They probably will visit a lot per the last sentence. Contradictory

D- False. We don't know where the concentration are located.

E- I selected this. However, could the error be because we should say the greater the likelihood of being efficient in pollinating that crop, rather than that they will be efficient? (?)

Question Type: MSS

Task: focus on what is provable, eliminate 100% not provable.

I found this stimulus very difficult to parse through.

A - Idk anything about electrical utility companies. Pass

B - We can't support this. What we can support is that if the lines were across with the winds, it could potentially carry a greater electrical load. NOT parallel to it though.

C - Okay, this makes sense. The more wind blown, the greater opportunity for there to be electrical load since the wind is blowing the heat away.

D Air temp vs wind? We don't know. If anything, probably both are equally powerful?

E max operating temperature greater?? What if this max operating temperature stays the same?

Takeaways:

Try and make sense of the stimulus upfront.

Push back each AC to the stimulus and make sure it factually goes in the correct direction. If I read and pushed back carefully, I would have been able to see the missmatch of parallel vs cross.

Question Type: Weaken

show how the P does not necessarily lead to the conclusion.

Step 1. Conclusion

We should not conclude that volcanoes cause the rise in sulfur dioxide on venus.

Step 2. Support

There are no volcanoes identified on venus

Planetary atmospheres are known to undergo some cyclical variations in chemical composition

Assumption: Even if these are true, maybe volcanoes could have led to the rise in sulfur dioxide another way?

ACs:

A- Okay, this looks good. The conditions make it unlikely that directly we would find the volcanic eruption. This makes it less likely that volcanoes were not involved. How? because it is just difficult to determine if volcanic activity happened, NOT absolutely certain it didnt. Keep around.

B-Pass. has no bearing on the conclusion if volcanos were involved.

C- Pass. Has no bearing on the conclusion if volcanoes were involved.

D- Earths atmosphere? If so, we don't care.

E- who cares the cause about earth's atmosphere?

Takeway:

I chose to leave this blank because I didn't want to deal with the science question. I should have just tried to attempt to understand the whole argument instead of quitting halfway.

Apart on 20th ---> OH

OH x 2 = Apartments

(ex: 3 OH x 2 = 6 Apartments)

Therefore, OH --m--> there is >1 apartment.

Assumption: The assumption is that most of the OHs on 20th avenue have apartments in the first place. What if a certain number of OHs have many apartments, but that it's NOT most of the old houses on the 20th avenue? Just a few with many apartments?

I did not see the flaw. I should have focused in on the conclusion and POE'd my way through. I also should have asked myself the following: okay, why do most of the old houses on the street need to have more than one? Why can't some have many apartments, leaving most of the OHs empty?

We can eliminate A) because we care about apartments not other buildings.

Takeaway:

If you can't see the flaw, POE and read every word very carefully.

Question the conclusion? Can it be any other outcome? especially for words like "most". Question what another alternative could be.

Pause and evaluate what each AC means for the argument. POE through too.

Question Type: RRE

Need to explain this in the form of a question:

Why is it that the goal of reforesting degraded land is to createan area with a multitude of thriving tree species, but some experienced land managers use a strategy that involves planting a single fast growing tree species?

My plan of attack:

I need one AC that is an explanation. Maybe this single tree species will develop into the multitude, and we need to start off with a single tree species for a purpose?

ACs:

A- K. This does not explain the paradox.

B- Okay, then why are we starting off with a single tree species?

C- I chose C. Why?

I read it like this: If the reforestation of degraded land is generally successful --> the land is planted with tree species taht are native to the area designed for reforestation.

I took this to be 100% true. I thought okay, beiing successful means having a multiude of species, right (assumed)? and this single tree species is native then (assumption)? however, that just satisfys the necessary. We really can't do anything with this. Too many assumptions. Nothing in the argument suggests that they are.

D- Hmm..okay. So this is how they get the multitude of tree species.

I didn't love this answer choice bceause it did not specify if the growth of trees included the single species. I guess this is implied?

D addresses the goal and the reason why we start with the single tree species- we will get the multitude anyway. I didnt expect this, but it works.

E- Pass. We dont care

Takeaway:

Imply is not the same as make an assumption. When an AC implys something, we need to push it back to the stimulus and see if it can be implied. If we push it back, and there is no reason to make this assumption based on the stimulus, then pass. In C, I had no reason to believe that the single tree species were native. It wasn't clear. D talked about trees in general, so our single species falls under this group.

Focus on what is implied and can be pushed back to the stimulus. Pass on assumptions.

Principle: If people feed wild animals, it makes the wild animals dependent on humans and less likely to survive on their own. Therefore, people should not feed wild animals.

Situation: Bird lovers commonly feed wild birds to attract them to their yards and gardens.

Question Tactic:

I want to justify why its okay that in this instance bird lovers feed the wild birds to attract them to their yards and gardens.

A- This weakens. We want to justify humans feeding these wild birds. Pass

B- This may benefit humans, but I'm on the lookout for an AC that highlights something about wild birds survival in particular. I'll keep it around but I'm not liking it.

C- This is irrelevant and does not explain the exception for the wild birds, especially if we care about their survival.

D- Okay? But why are the bird lovers allowing the wild birds to come to their yards and gardens for feeding?

E- Bingo! This justifys why the wild birds have the exception of being fed by the bird lovers- its cause they need the human help, and most of the habitats of the wild birds are being ruined by human settlement.

Takeaway:

Read every word of the AC. And ask myself what the implications of each AC is. Don't linger so much. For example, I lingered on "D" for a while. But looking back at it, I should have asked myself: How does this justify the exception, especially since we know that for their survival, wild animals should not be fed by humans. Stay aggressive with my task.

Question Type: Flaw

Where does the argument make the error from premise to conclusion?

Argument core:

The allowance of a foreign company to buy FM will result in the possibility of foreign companies buying other iron mining companies. Foreigners will soon control most of the iron mining here, and our manufacturers will be left at their mercy. The end result will be that our manufacturers will no longer be able to rely on domestic supply of iron ore.

Therefore, we should prohibit this sale.

Flaw: I couldn't see the flaw. So I went to the ACs.

Answer choices:

A- No, a circular argument is not present. Factually innaccurate

B- I almost went with B. No, no industry in general is mentioned. Rather, we are focused on the iron ore industry. Factually innacurate.

C- Widely accepted? Is not mentioned. Factually innacurate

D- Yes, the argument does proceed as if the chain of events will in fact happen as is.

E- A causal flaw is not present in the argument.

Takeaway:

Sometimes, POE is the way to go.

I did not see the flaw, so focusing on being "1) descriptively accurate 2) is this where the argument is in error?" is

I saw this. I should have selected it with at least 75% confidence, rather than spending so much time up toggling between ACs. Stick to the two-step process wholeheartedly.

I initially had a problem with this because we are supposed to accept premises as true.

Is there a particular LR section you are referring to?

There could be most individual volunteers who preferred Sparkle Cola, but still have more groups preferring the competing cola.

Is the flaw that the groups are being disregarded?

#help

Although A is attractive, I eliminated it because it did not specify about cream in a blender. Just cream in general.

D has no impact on the conclusion.

How B would look in an argument (imo):

The team of accountants say that you can't have a work-life balance in accounting, but that is not true. The accountants' judgement is based off of what they see on social media, which is not a correct medium to conclude a belief from.

Here, the author is saying that because the reasoning used is wrong (criticizing the reasoning), the conclusion can't be true (i.e., attempting to should the falsehood of the conclusion).

Just because the accountants should not have used social media to conclude X doesn't mean X can't be true.

question type: necessary assumption

what must be true for this argument to stand?

Casts doubt on the view that human migration in Europe → master of fire

why?

because earliest evidence of fire use was just 400,000 years ago

E) is the assumption. for this argument to stand, it must be true that there were humans before 400,000 years ago, the earliest evidence of fire. When negated (there were not humans inhabiting Europe prior to 400,000 years ago), our argument is weakened severely, implying the possibility that humans did migrate and therefore had to master fire in Europe