@ said:

@ said:

thanks for following up! i think AC A in 48.4.23 attacks the premise. it's basically saying that correlation that we thought existed (a premise) -- it actually doesn't exist.

A doesn't deny the premise at all. The premise says in general, the most efficient managers have excellent time management skills - time management correlates with efficiency. A says that we use the same metric to measure both things, so of course the results will be the same. How does that deny the correlation? If anything, it accepts the correlation and gives a pretty darn good explanation for why it exists.

If I tell you that I think my friend Tom is smart and also that he's prepared for law school, and the basis for both of those opinions is that he scored 180 on the LSAT, am I denying that a correlation exists between being smart and being prepared for law school? How could I be, when I'm literally pointing out that the basis for both opinions is the exact same thing?

@ said:

Weaken Except questions are the only questions where attacking premises is A-OK. Otherwise, avoid attacking premises like the plague unless you are out of options.

Why would they allow you to attack a premise in a weaken except question, but turn around and disallow it on a regular weaken question? What is the theoretical basis for this switcharoo? The question stem is literally saying "4 of these weaken, the fifth one doesn't, find that one". Why would those four choices that they just claimed weakened the argument suddenly be wrong if I turned the question into a 'normal' weaken question?

@ said:

Hi @ , I know what you mean in terms of weaken questions that attack the premise. I asked someone else this in the past when I encountered questions with answer choices that attacked the premise rather than the gap between the premise-conclusion. His response was that you can only attack the premise in a Weaken question or a Flaw question, but you can never attack a premise in a strengthen question for example.

I don't know why you would even attempt to attack a premise in a strengthen question; seems counterproductive. Aside from that, same question for you - what is the theoretical basis for allowing students to attack premises sometimes, but not all the time?

When you weaken or strengthen arguments, you deal with the support relationship and only the support relationship. I promise you that every single time you disagree, you are the one misinterpreting the impact of that answer choice on the argument. You are not allowed to attack premises on the LSAT, period, end of story.

What do you think about PT75 Section 3, #13, Answer choice C? And PT66, Section 2, #1, Answer choice E?

@ said:

I think you've misunderstood my point. Once you achieve mastery of the material, it honestly doesn't matter what you do. You can redraw diagrams, work over a pen diagram with pencil, eat a cheeseburger with one hand while diagramming with the other, phone a friend while you work, whatever. The question is how you achieve that level of mastery given that you're not already there. You don't get there by relying on prior work as a primary problem solving methodology (i.e. if your explanation of how to do a question is 'look at question #X', you're doing it wrong). You get there by understanding how the questions work individually and independently.

Put another way, an expressed worry about not being able to use prior work indicates reliance on something that ought not to be relied upon. It is a perfectly acceptable thing to use, and it may even be the most efficient thing to do in a given circumstance. But there's a big difference between using a strategy because you've determined it to be the best way to dispose of a question, and using it because that's the only way you know how to efficiently dispose of that question. The former demonstrates command over the situation; while the latter attempts to skip over that part by way of a crutch. (Yes, I am aware that it's not always one or the other)

I absolutely disagree that there is negligible time savings by using the pen/highlighter tactic. OP highlights grouping/chart games, which is the most obvious example of where this is extremely effective. The time savings garnered by not having to redraw 4x6 grids and rewrite all the inferences is substantial for even the fastest of us, non-masters included. I would never, ever go back to recopying the charts in those games. And even in 'normal' sequencing or grouping games, I've come to prefer it. At the very least, it's not disadvantaged and is sometimes significantly advantaged from a time perspective, and how you weigh that against the prior work issue is ultimately your call. It's not perfect, but nothing is. One size doesn't fit all. Hence the comment about it being a fantastic tool for your toolbox, and the significant caveat early in my previous post where I say you can mix and match - you don't have to use every tool every time, but you do want to have it accessible for when it makes sense to use it.

Thanks for clarifying. Reliance on prior work is not the best way to learn games and if one must actually "rely" on it (rather than strategically use it as a time-saver when available), then there's a gap in LG understanding. I agree.

I suppose I was just a little bit confused in that I was hoping for a discussion of pros and cons of pen/highlighter approach vs. prior work approach when it comes to actual test-taking strategy and your position on that wasn't clear -- the bulk of your response seemed to be aimed at the idea that prior work isn't something that we should be using anyway, and by saying that there wasn't "much of a cost" to forgoing prior work it seemed as if you were saying the time save by using prior work was negligible. I see now that you're saying we shouldn't rely on it, but seem to accept that it may actually be ok and even more time-efficient to use it when the opportunity presents itself. That's what I'm curious about.

Pen/highlighter approach, no re-copying boards.

Prior work approach.

Pen/highlighter approach + re-copying boards to use prior work.

Which approach, on average, saves more time? It probably depends on the student.

As an aside, given your thoughts laid out above, I assume you're against the "local questions first then global questions after" approach that JY is taking in the more recent LG explanations? That approach is a kind of "crutch", isn't it? I don't mean to be combative; I just like getting into the controversial weeds of LSAT strategy.

@ said:

I don't see it as much of a cost. I haven't (personally) had to use prior work in a logic game for years, and my students don't seem to miss it much either.

From a practical standpoint there are ways to get around that - simply jotting down your valid arrangements as questions demonstrate them to you, for example. There's no reason that you can't keep your old game boards, you just have to 'actively' keep them instead of 'passively' keeping them. "But that's a pain in the ass!" - sure, but is it any more so than having to recreate your diagrams and inferences every single time? Plus, if you're drawing a bajillion game boards in any given game in the first place, it's probably a good indication that you're doing something wrong anyway. AND, if you really want to, you can continue to recreate your diagrams if you want to in situations where it makes sense to - nobody is forcing you to pick one over the other in all circumstances.

From a practice/learning standpoint I think it's an actively positive thing to not be able to refer back. Referring to old game boards is a crutch of the highest order. It can be extremely effective and I have no problem with it at all as a test taking strategy, but it does not absolve you of being able to understand how you should have gotten to an answer in the absence of prior work.

Relying on prior work means that you are counting on 1) the LSAT asking you that 'previous' question at all, 2) the LSAT asking you the questions in the 'proper' order so that the 'previous' question is actually previous to the one you need it for, 3) that you get the 'previous' question right for the right reasons, and 4) you don't accidentally forget a condition or leak a scenario from the previous question that is relevant to this one (for example, maybe the previous question didn't force you to put A next to B, but the new question does - do you notice that when you're frantically scanning through old work?). None of that should be taken for granted.

If it would be extremely difficult/impossible for you to solve a question if it were the only question of a set, i.e. without prior work, then you have a problem even if you wound up getting the question right. It means that you don't understand how to solve the question the 'right' way. What if those dominoes don't all fall like that? Are you just screwed at that point? And even if you can get away with it most of the time, is that an acceptable position to put yourself into when you're trying to -0 the section?

Maybe the 'right' way doesn't matter to you if all you care about is the point, but it absolutely matters from a skill development standpoint. You can always go back to using your shortcuts once you have the theory behind it, so you lose nothing, but you gain a ton from understanding what you're actually supposed to see. This is how skills are honed and intuition is sharpened, and this is how high scorers are able to look at a game and quickly understand what to do - they understand how it works and where the pressure points are, so no brute forced prior work necessary. When you eventually reach the point where you can do everything that way, then by definition you won't need prior work nearly as much as you probably think you do. And frankly, as far as I'm concerned, if you want to say that you've mastered logic games, then you shouldn't need it at all - ever.

Of course, true masters of LG wouldn't need to rely on prior work ever. I agree. I also think true masters would be able to redraw game boards, even complicated ones, for individual questions and not have whatever extra time is taken up by that cause any timing issues, no? In other words, when it comes to what constitutes true LG mastery, both the pen/highlighter strategy and the prior work strategy are unnecessary, right? An LG master should be able to make the proper inferences and connections quickly enough and think in a way that is organized enough that the extra time saved by writing over pen/highlighter are meaningless.

@ said:

For games where you're not splitting, it's just a straight-up win, especially for games with large/complicated diagrams like grouping/chart games.

For games where you're splitting, it doesn't eliminate the need for sub gameboards, but it does force you to find the best, or at least a good, split first (which is a good habit regardless). Once you split the game boards out, being able to work over the top of the scenarios instead of redrawing every single time is IMO still a pretty substantial net positive in most cases.

What do you think about the loss of ability to re-use prior work for help eliminating answers on "global" questions? You believe the benefit of pen/highlighter + pencil over main diagrams is worth the cost?

You don't need to write anything, but you should absolutely be identifying the conclusion and the premises.

What was your diagnostic score? And the # of errors in each section, if you remember?

What is your typical # of errors in each section now?

Did you read every answer choice on those questions? If so, do you remember why you got rid of the correct answers? There must be some failure of analysis if you eliminate the correct answer on a straightforward stimulus.

@ said:

I don't want to be really nit-picky here, but does (B) lacking the word "now" still make it necessary? Meaning, our set in the stimulus is drugs "now being tested" and (B) is just about drugs being tested. Curious as to where this leads us in the discussion.

David

As a matter of the meaning, I don't think there is a difference between something "being tested" and "now being tested". How could something have the quality of "being tested" but not "now being tested", and similarly, how could something have the quality of "now being tested" but not "being tested"? They seem to mean the exact same thing to me.

In any case, (A) doesn't use "now being tested", so that cannot be a distinguishing factor between (A) and (B).

I think it has to do with the language "counts as … if at least". That statement is conveying a definition, and definitions can be seen as bi-conditionals. Being interpreted in a national tradition is defined as doing any one of 3 things: X, Y, Z.

@ said:

While I'm a bit disappointed in my score as it's lower than my recent PT average, I'm grateful for all the support communities like 7sage, TLS, and Reddit provide to those who are just mediocre or below average. Sure, if your diagnostic is in 150-160 range it's relatively easier to hit 170+ than someone like myself. You may get discouraged over and over again feeling like you've hit a plateau or you're not smart enough. Trust me, my first real LSAT score was a 147 and that was after a year of studying. This post is for those that feel like they're losers. Failure is a better teacher than success will ever be!

Also, just want to give a big shout out to my tutors @ and @. Not sure if you guys use 7sage anymore or remember me since I stopped tutoring 6 months back but both of your approaches/strategies are the reason I was able to even hit 170. Josh with his tiered time management approach and Sami for teaching me how to read for reasoning structure. And yes, I actually tried on the diagnostic but still ended up with a 120 lol.

Thank you! Keep moving forward!

Congratulations!

Do you think you can provide some insight into how you were viewing LSAT problems at the start of your studies compared to how you view things now? I ask only because I have never heard of anyone starting in the 120s making it to the 170s. The 120s that I know of through my experience tutoring have had major language issues such that even if their logic was improving, their language difficulties did not allow them to complete the LR and RC sections. I am very curious for your input on whether it was a true 120 and if so, how your reading/understanding have changed between then and now. I know you said you tried on the diagnostic, but random guessing would produce a better score than 120. So there must have been something seriously different about how you were reading and thinking about these questions - your thought process was actively driving you toward wrong choices and away from correct choices, even on the easiest of problems. It would be fascinating to hear from you how your view of the test has changed.

Noted, that does seem like a reasonable way to attack the argument. However, I think one thing much discussion overlooks is that the correct answer is about how no contribution needed to be registered with the city council. That part often gets chopped off in our analysis, in which case the truncated statement in (C) would very reasonably raise the issue of state or federal laws perhaps adding additional reporting requirements. But if (C) is limited to registration with the city council, I think it is a lot less vulnerable to these types of objections. Granted, theoretically a law outside of Weston might compel registration with Weston's city council, but I don't know if that is a reasonable way to look at this situation.

@ said:

I can't see his explanation either, but the shift from "the" to "this" seems to weaken the sense of bi-conditionality. By not sticking with "the" it reads to me as though it is opening up the application of laws from outside Weston. It's been a few weeks, but I searched through a few different forums after posting this and that seemed to be the prevailing issue (at least the bi-conditionality part).

Interesting. I don't know if the use of "this" actually affects the interpretation, though. Consider the following:

"The banana on my table is ripe and delicious. This banana will be my breakfast."

The use of the word "this" seems to be a reference to the thing we were talking about in the previous sentence. Similarly, the use of the word "this" in the Weston problem is referring to "the law", which still remains as "the law of the City of Weston", no? Whether there are other laws outside Weston is not introduced by the use of the word "this" - if that issue is a problem then it would be one even if the use of "this" were changed to "the".

Why is this a poorly written question in JY's opinion? (I can't see the explanation.) Is there some dispute about "the law of Weston regarding contributions" not actually implying that there is no other law regarding contributions? As far as I know, the article "the" does indicate that there is no other item fitting the description to which the word applies. "The president of the organization..." = only 1 president. "The banana on my kitchen table..." = only 1 banana on my kitchen table.

173 is likely to be YLS median, so does a higher score help? Look at LSN -- How does admission rate at 173 w/ your GPA compare to the rate for 175+ with same GPA?

bumping this for feedback. Jonathan Wang never replied!

@ said:

Any advice on how to get better at LR 4/5 star difficulty Q's? I'm like -7 for LR (both sections) and almost all of the 7 wrong are all level 4/5 questions. The 7 wrong are also kinda scattered throughout question types.

I find that many of them I can't get right in blind review, and it also sometimes takes me a LONG time just to process and think through it -- even after reading an answer explanation or watching the video explanation.

How can I expect or get to a point where I can get to -0 or -1 in LR and get these 4/5 difficulty questions with speed and confidence?

Can you give an example of some of these tough questions that you couldn't understand without a LONG time? Can you describe what made it tough for you? Like, was there a fundamental misunderstanding of what the argument was even saying? Or a total misreading of what an answer choice means? Etc.

@ said:

@

Let's look at it this way:

"All cats drink milk"

Yes, it could be true that something that's not cat can drink milk, (my dog) hence C and Milk or C some milk could be true. However, it's not true if we say "anything" that's not a cat drinks milk: C --> milk. The cell phone I'm using writing this comment right now isn't a cat, and it doesn't drink milk and the example list goes go.

Hence it cannot be true that just from C --> milk, we conclude C --> milk

Now, let's use your "whenever" example.

"Whenever I'm happy, I study for the LSAT.

Happy --> LSAT

Yes, it could be true that if we say there are times I'm not really happy and yet I still study for the LSAT, hence happy and LSAT or happy some LSAT.

But it's not true if we say "Whenever" I'm not happy, I study for the LSAT. I could be sad crying and going to bed, hence the conditional arrow cannot be drawn there, not from Happy --> LSAT.

Back to your your example of "Whenever A is true, B is true.

It could be true that sometimes when A is a not true, B is true. But it cannot be true if we say "Whenever" A is not true, B is true. Not from A --> B (I have a C that's not an A, and it's not a B )

But what if B is true all the time? In that case, then A -> B and /A -> B, (and C -> B and /C -> B). If B is true all the time, wouldn't any conditional that has B on the necessary side be a true statement? LIke, if I am literally studying for the LSAT 24/7, then it would be correct to say "whenever i'm happy, I am studying for the LSAT" AND "whenever I'm NOT happy, I am studying for the LSAT."

@ said:

No it doesn't, and that' the key issue here. It cannot be true that A --> B just based on A --> B. The only possibility we have from that statement would be A and B or A some B, if we need to conclude B.

Why is it impossible for /A --> B if we start with the fact that A --> B?

Here is how I'm interpreting A -> B. "Whenever A is true, B is true."

Given that fact, isn't it possible that "Whenever A is not true, B is true." In this situation, B is true all the time. And so if B were true all the time, then wouldn't it be correct to say that A --> B and also /A --> B?

@ said:

@

Good question.

A --> B

From this I don't think we could conclude A --> B, the "conditional arrow" is the key here. We can say based on A --> B, it could be true that something not an A, (A) and yet we could still get a B: A and B, or A some B. But I don't think we could say A "implies" --> B.

Therefore just from A --> B, neither A --> B nor B --> A is true.

Same goes with "All dogs are cute"

It could be true that something is not dog and yet still cute, D and C, or D some C, but it's not true that "anything" that's not a dog is cute. For example, my gf is not a dog, and I think she's pretty cute. Hence the conditional statement D --> C isn't true only based on D --> C.

Yes, I know. I was saying that A -> B leaves open the possibility that /A -> B. It doesn't imply /A -> B, though.

This is a really fascinating question. Let me try to state it in even more basic terms.

A -> B.

In this world, it is a could be true that /A --> B. And yet, the contrapositive of this is /B --> A...which contradicts the initial claim, because according to the contrapositive of the initial claim, /B -> /A.

Can a logic master make sense of this? Aren't contrapositives supposed to be expressing the exact same logical relationships?

All dogs are cute.

In this world, it's theoretically possible that Anything that is NOT a dog is cute. But is it possible that Anything that is NOT cute is a dog? Is it possible that Animals are either a dog or they are cute (or both)?

@ said:

@

PC isn’t a floater

If economy is weak, prices are constant

EW -> PC

/PC -> /EW

True, if econ is weak, then prices are constant. But, we are never told PC, hence we can't take the contrapostive of PC --> EW, and that's where the issue lays.

In the stimulus, we have:

EW → PC

EW→UR→ID

But we are only told investment is not decreasing (ID) with which we would only get UR and EW, and in order to also take the contrapositive of PC, we need to be told PC, but we weren't, hence to take PC --> EW just bc of ID would be incorrect. PC is a true floater in this case.

Therefore anything they say about PC could be true.

D : either econ is weak or "PC constant", the latter could be true.

(1) In order for any human to survive, he needs to eat. This means If S -> E. And If /E -> /S

Based on (1), could the following statement be true?

(2) If a human does not eat, he can still survive. (This seems like it cannot be true.)

What about the following statement?

(3) Humans must eat or they must survive. (This seems like a COULD be true.)

The issue is that in some curriculum, (2) is seen as logically equal to (3). People diagram (3) as "If /E -> S". And yet the fact that (2) seems false, and (3) seems like a could be true suggests that there IS a difference in what they mean...

@ said:

This is a really tough question and I would have to defer to anyone that has studied logic to further elaborate any holes in my approach to this question.

A MBF is something that cannot be true in any possible world. So if the stimulus gives us the conditional statement: A--->B--->C the MBF would be A and C.

Because the "prices remain constant" element has no listed necessary conditions, the translation in (D) reading:

EW--->PRC in fact could be true and therefore not a true MBF.

I have never come across something like this again in LSAT history, but am open for correction on that.

Now, there is another layer here: we are given a conditional chain and then we are told in reality we are failing one of our necessary conditions. Meaning we derive a "real fact" about the particular world in which the condition chain operates, the fact being that since investment is not decreasing, we run the contrapositive back to unemployment not rising and economy not weak. (A) MBF because it is expressing both in the given form and the contrapositive something that cannot be true.

-David

But the contrapositive is a restatement of the same relationship, isn't it? And the contrapositive of /EW -> PC is /PC -> EW, which seems to contradict the information given? So if we view "OR" statements as conditional relationship, we run into the problem OP found.

I think an easier way to view this problem is that an "OR" statement is asserting that "at least one of these two things is true." And I think it's easier to see that EW is not true under the facts given, and that PC could be true. So that's why the "OR" statement could be true. I don't know if there is a difference between the statement "A or B" and the conditional version of it "/A -> B". Some people view them as exactly the same, but if they were, then we'd have OPs issue.

@ said:

Yes its section on grammar is unique. I have taken testmasters, blueprint and other courses. None of them dove into the foundations of being able to parse complex language found in the lsat

Could you describe what you found to be the biggest takeaways were from those grammar sections? Any particular things they broke down that really helped you?

They hate on 7sage a ton.

I think we should be careful about criticizing Spivey on the basis of this discussion -- as whoami indicated, what the consultant stated was more like "I can't tell you where to apply but I wouldn't do the T-20. Check out Brooklyn law instead and then transfer into the top-20." So the initial characterization of the consultant's advice as "do not apply to the top 20" is misleading. The consultant's advice seems to be that the top 20 is highly unlikely to admit you, which is why other schools are a better focus. I don't think the consultant is saying that it's impossible to get into a top 20 and so you should definitely not apply to them.

Now is the advice that you're unlikely to get into a top 20 good or bad? It's hard to tell -- that advice might be premised on having seen many applicants with your statistics and # of LSAT takes. Maybe it's bad advice, sure. But I am uncomfortable with a cascade of posters saying that Spivey sucks merely on the basis of a misleading characterization of the advice...