Self-study
I'm really stuck. I understand that the correct answer is A, but I can't diagram the logic out. I'm fairly certain it involves subsets, which has always thrown me. So if anyone knows how, please share!
PT Questions
jspence316289
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jspence316289
Monday, Aug 22 2016
Thanks for the explanation. I rejected (a) primarily because it stated that the reducing effect would last only "temporarily." This clearly implies that the non-reducing atmosphere inevitably returns, and because amino acids can't form or hold together in a non-reducing atmosphere, it does not resolve the paradox.
I chose (b) mainly because I thought it played on a technicality. The stimulus states that amino acidS tend to break up, but it does not say anything about a single amino acid. I've started to notice however that subtle changes between singular and plural such as this rarely have anything to do with selecting the correct AC. Therefore I should have just disregarded it and gone with the least bad answer, that being (a).
But if you could explain the point I set out above regarding "temporarily" it'd be much appreciated.
jspence316289
Monday, Aug 01 2016
The biggest jump for me came when I tried an experimental theory one morning on a prep test. It worked so well I never looked back. It's LR specific, but since that's 50% of the test, it's still super helpful.
Here it is: for the first 10 questions of each LR section, don't overthink the questions. Just glide through them! Almost as if they are just a warmup for the actual questions. Read for detail, be attentive, select the best answer and just move on. If you do this, you'll have a much much better chance of finishing the section on time.
It sounds useless, but you'll be amazed. You really should be able to get through the first 10 questions in 10 minutes. Sometime even the first 13 in 13 minutes. Not only is that 20 points you're not dropping, it's also very very useful minutes in your pocket for when you need to take on questions 10-25. Also, you're more focused and less taxed going into the harder questions. But once you do hit question 10, gird your brain loins.
Occasionally they do sneak a difficult question or two into the first 10, but you'll recognize them when you see them. While you're practicing, assume that all 10 are easy and avoid overthinking at all costs. If it turns out you missed a few of them, identify what made them difficult questions. That way you'll know to slow down a little when you see a similar question next time.
I really believe the most dangerous traps on the lsat are the ones we set for ourselves. Stroll through 1-10, then machete your way through the rest. Of course this all assumes that you're willing to take upwards of 30 practice tests, and review them in detail. If you're not doing that, then do that.
The score boosters in LG and RC come with learning their unique nuances through sheer repetition. There's no magic bullet, it's more like a magic buckshot that you agonizingly build one magic pellet at a time. That's my most useful insight. God speed!
jspence316289
Sunday, Jul 31 2016
1. My name is Jack Spencer, I'm 28 and graduated Poli Sci/Int'l Relations from GWU in 2011. I'm somewhat of an atypical law school candidate. After graduating I lived in Egypt for three years and became fluent in Arabic. I now freelance translate (Arabic-English) and work for an Int'l Human Rights org here in the US. I'm averaging around a 171 and had a 3.6 in undergrad.
2. My biggest worry about my application are my references. I have one strong professional reference. I could have a second solid professional reference as well, but it would be from the same job, so potentially redundant. More worrying is that I don't have a strong academic reference. It's been 5 years since I had a professor with good written English. I could reach out to a few from five years ago or to a few foreign professors, but I fear the reference letter they'd write would be rote. Should I include an academic reference even if it's weak? Should I have three references instead of two, even if the third doesn't add much? And what's the statute of limitations on references? Is going back to someone I knew well 8 years ago too far?
3. I plan to write about my experience learning a foreign language, living abroad in politically unstable country, and my recent work with Middle Eastern human rights activists and lawyers. I plan to tie this together to show that I can commit to something difficult and to give a glimpse into why I want to study international law.
jspence316289
Saturday, Jul 09 2016
i found locating the conclusion in this question to be particularly difficult. To me it looks much more that a fact-set than an argument. Can someone explain to me how you went about identifying the conclusion? That step is skipped in the explanations. And does the conclusion include the first and second sentences? Or just the first?
jspence316289
Monday, Jun 27 2016
I appreciate the response. You make perfect sense. My issue is that the "young people move out" hypothesis is conveniently worded to fit the correct AC, and was likely chosen in retrospect for teaching purposes, which is perfectly fine. But in reality that hypothesis is more accurately represented as the "people between 0 and 52 years of age become fewer" hypothesis. When we go by the second wording, asserting that there was an increase in the 0 - 18 year old subset, which makes up approximately 1/3 of the 0 - 52 grouping, it becomes more clear how much AC (A) is lacking in terms of strengthening the argument. I concede that the 0 - 18 subset has a relatively stronger weight on the average age, however it is still only 1/3 of that subset. So in all I think we can agree that the degree to which (A) undermines the "people between 0 and 52 years of age become fewer" hypothesis is negligible.
AC (D) is far from perfect, but looking at it again, I think that it's biggest weakness isn't the fact that it makes a general statement about there not being a net loss in the area, as you pointed out, but that it only talks about moving out/moving in, and in doing so neglects to mention anything about deaths and births which could also impact the average age, especially since those phenomena impact the oldest and youngest subsets the most. AC (A) at least covers those phenomena.
So looking at it again, I concede defeat. You win LSAT, this time...
jspence316289
Saturday, Jun 25 2016
In your explanation JY, you wave away AC (D) by saying that the net gain of 0 could just be babies being shipped out and mid-aged people getting shipped in, which would increase the avg age without increasing the number of 65+ people. Fair enough.
But why can't you do this to explain away AC (A) as well? You can easily say that the net gain in people under 18 years old was just one person, while hordes and hordes of 40 - 60 year olds moved in, or that hordes and hordes of 20 - 40 moved out, or both. Both would cause the avg age to increase without increasing the number of people over 65 years old. Thus also not strengthening the argument with any certainty.
So why is choosing AC (A) any better than AC (D)?
jspence316289
Saturday, Jun 25 2016
This answer makes absolutely no sense. Nowhere in the passage does it mention the religion or religious ethics of the society, professed or otherwise, that shunned Naomi. At one point it mentions religion and the culture/ethics of society in the same sentence (at the beginning of the 3rd Paragraph) in which it says: "Kogawa's use of motifs drawn from Christian rituals and symbols forms a subtle critique of the majority culture that has shunned Naomi." But this in no way implies that Vancouver or elsewhere in Canada or the US were Christian, and it certainly does not imply that it violated their own Christian values by shunning Naomi.
How can one assume that because an author used Christian motifs in their symbolism, that the society in which the protagonist was shunned violated its Christian ethics? I can use Christian motifs to describe a Syrian refugee being shunned in Egypt, but that doesn't make Egypt a Christian society and it certainly doesn't imply that Egypt has violated its religious ethics.
What's worse is that answer choice (A) is very feasible given the wording at the end of Paragraph 2 which states that "...Naomi breaks through the personal and cultural screens of silence and secretiveness that have enshrouded her past..." How can this possibly not validate Answer Choice (A)?
The only possible explanation for this is that they expected the reader to know that the value system of the majority culture Canada and the US around the time of WWII was based on Judeo-Christian religious principles. I of course know this, but this is outside knowledge that the passage never mentions. This alone is a leap, but what truly makes this a frustrating question is that nowhere is "shunning" someone a violation of Christian culture. I'd say it is inherent in Christian culture.
Can anyone give me any guidance on this?
jspence316289
Tuesday, Jun 21 2016
Contrapositive of (E): If art was not produced in past eras, then it cannot be properly assessed.
I don't see how that affects my argument. It affects my argument if you assume that James has stated a conclusion regarding the non-inferiority of contemporary art. Which I contest.
Really it all comes down to if, by "mistakenly", James means that the people are mistaken that contemporary art is inferior, or if the people are mistaken in their reasoning for what makes them conclude that contemporary art is inferior. If it's the former, you're right. If it's the latter, I'm right. And I don't think it's clear cut either way.
jspence316289
Tuesday, Jun 21 2016
Thanks for the very prompt reply! I can see the weakness in my argument against (A), it is close to a conclusion on James' part, but to me he still never concludes that "contemp art is not inferior."
As for (E), I disagree with you. If someone does something, then they are implicitly claiming to be able to do that thing. If I say for instance "All music is great" and you say "People do not have the ability to judge whether music is great or not" then we clearly disagree over whether or not people have the ability to judge if music is great. I can't see any holes in that argument.
So when you compare (E) to (A), E seems much more airtight than A does, which I think makes it the stronger Answer Choice.
Thanks regardless for your input!
jspence316289
Tuesday, Jun 21 2016
I disagree with this answer. James never really disagrees with Rachel regarding Answer Choice (A), because he never concludes that "contemporary are is not inferior." he only ever goes as far as to say that something (i.e., the forgetting of artwork with the passage of time) causes people to mistakenly think contemporary art is inferior. He only offers a premise that functions to defend the conclusion (that contemporary art is not inferior) but never actually makes that conclusion.
Ironically, this erroneous logical leap that leads us to claim that he HAS concluded the above is the exact thing the LSAT consistently tests against: that debunking evidence which undermines an argument does not necessarily make that argument true, nor does it assert that argument to be true. James only ever debunked evidence, but he never went so far as to make the conclusion that "contemporary art is not inferior." He strengthened/defended that conclusion implicitly, but he never concludes it. He could easily turn around and give additional, new evidence as to why contemporary art IS in fact inferior, and he wouldn't be contradicting his previous statements in the least.
Answer choice (E), however, is a better fit, because Rachel argues implicitly that she can correctly assess the quality of contemporary art, for she claims it is inferior. Whereas James says, no, you cannot correctly assess the quality of contemporary art because of the reasons he mentions.
Does anyone else see my point?
jspence316289
Wednesday, Jun 15 2016
I don't follow. How can you say that the flowers evolved to attract bees, and rule out that the bees evolved to better identify flowers based on that alone? Why can't the bees have experienced a slight change in their visual system that enabled them to better identify flowers' color markings?
jspence316289
Wednesday, Jun 15 2016
I agree. And I think having a background in evolutionary biology actually hurts in evaluating this question. The very fact that there exist "many insects that have vision very similar to that of bees" could easily indicate that the ability of bees to identify color was a mutation off of this visual system that it shares with other insects. Because having "very similar vision" in the insect world can mean a thousand things, such as the number eyes, field of vision, low-light sensitivity, etc. Thus just because they have "very similar vision" doesn't mean they share the same color perception, because they could have all those other things in common, which in turn would imply that the bees evolved a color spectrum of vision to specialize in identifying flowers in a manner that benefited them, which would actually strengthen the opposing hypothesis.
You could also easily disregard AC (A) entirely as not strengthening either hypothesis. "Many insects" could easily just mean one species of dung beetle and one species of praying mantis, both of which have absolutely nothing to do with collecting nectar. And their having "very similar vision" could easily just be a coincidental consequence of convergent evolution (in the same way that hyenas and canines both evolved very similar body types, despite not being closely related at all). Thus the fact that "many insects have very similar vision" can validly be taken to have absolutely no bearing on the argument in the stimulus, and therefore not strengthen it.
This was a huge issue for me as well. When I learned about and started applying split boards, I thought they were this clever little back-door to getting answers fast and on the cheap. But that is far from the case.
There are multiple factors to consider (Powerscore lists 15) when deciding if you should diagram out multiple game boards. Much of it is based on feel and intuition, something that only comes from doing and re-doing lots of games. What it comes down to is that you want to split game boards when you have a hunch that there are only a handful of ways to solve the game. Here are some of things that I find the most useful (these are mine, not Powerscore's, but you should look up Powerscore's as well, they call it "How to Recognize Limited Solution Set Games"):
1. By game type:
grouping game with multiple groups, splitting is likely a good option.
straight in/out game, it's unlikely.
straight in/out game with sub-groups, it's unlikely.
straight sequencing, almost never
single layer sequencing, toss up.
multi-layer sequencing, toss up.
2. If you have a hunch that the game might be best approached by splitting, and you see a good rule/variable to base the split on then split it! But don't do it until you've read all the rules. when you do do it, do it the right way so in the event you shouldn't have split, you don't lose any time. Here's how: Take the most limited rule/variable, ie, the variable you think will have the most influence on the game, and use it to determine your split game boards. Make them clear, organized by progression, and equally sized. if, after you've split the game board, you decide that the game isn't all that limited, then all is not lost! use the split boards as clean, well-organized places to refer to and work in during the questions. Since they're built around the most limited variable, they're sure to reveal some insights as you move through the questions. And that means you haven't wasted any time in your failed attempt to split the game. You've just front-loaded.
3. This is probably my most important insight. Don't worry about solving splt boards to completion. I'm on PT 69 (working my way up) and over the past 10 or so tests I've noticed a sharp decrease in the amount of games that can be solved to completion or near completion by split game boards. It seems more important lately to use split game boards as open ended guides, from which you can base your visualizations when you're going through the questions. This trend may have reversed in the more recent LSATs, but it's still a good rule to live by.
4. If a game is straight-forward, don't bother with splitting out all of the possibilities. If you do see a benefit in splitting, split it partially. You should be able to easily visualize whatever else is needed.
5. Lastly, a lot of my over reliance (and time wasted) on splitting game boards was due lack of self confidence when dealing with games that weren't very limited. I wanted games to be more limited than they were because I hadn't developed other strategies to deal with the more open ended games. Best thing for me was watching the live commentary JY does for the games in PT41,42,43,44,45,51,59,61,71,76. Watch them all, and try out different strategies. It's a huge boost to get out of your own head and see how others are approaching the questions.
So all in all, identifying a definite split will never be a sure thing. Best thing to do is hedge against time wasting by using the boards you drew as you go through the questions, being ok with partially completed split boards and moving on to the questions, and developing your other skills so that you aren't itching to split when you just shouldn't.
Good Luck!