I use highlighting. I high light the stem to remind me what stem I am in and then some of the questions that are harder, convoluted and/or long I will use the highlighting to show the conclusion and if I have to sub conclusions and other premises. At first it might me weird and you might think this is a waste of time, however, after a while I did not notice a difference in time 'lost' but I did get an accuracy boost and I never mess up a question stem.

Hello @ruhlena1643 , I agree with @ruhlena1643-saint , to me it sounds like a you're experiencing 'burn out' I've been there, a couple times, and so has just about everyone. The consensus is clear on what to do and generally everyone is better off for it. Take a day or two off and completely disconnect from the LSAT. DO something that you enjoy and really forget about the LSAT. The more I am able to disconnect from the LSAT the better I felt and more motivated I was to get back to studying.

A note about your study schedule, it is just an arbitrary schedule, people learn and progress differently. If you are following a pre planned then likely the plan just divided up the amount of material by the date you want to complete it. Plus, you may learn one thing faster than others and you might learn other things slower than others, but on average you'll complete the course in the same amount of time. I use to force myself to study on days I did not want to and that made me not like the LSAT and my score suffered. Now however, when I am not feeling the LSAT, I stop and come back to it the next day. Give your brain a rest.

Quality studying is way better than mediocre studying, I learned this the hard way. 2 hours of great studying is better than 6 hours of mediocre studying. Lastly, if you are still in the CC, then take your time and get the fundamentals down. For whatever your goal score is you'll have to put in the time to get there you'll either put the time in upfront or later when BR'n PTs. I think it is better to get the fundamentals down in the CC first so you do not use up valuable PTs.

The test is learnable, You got this!

many 170+ test takers I have talked to are split on what they do. I like to map the stimulus, so I do not have to hold that in my head and the questions. Others prefer to not map the stimulus. But none of us map out every AC. On the really difficult ones, I might map the answer choice I think is correct, but other than that I just map the stimulus quickly.

Conclusion--if the work had been done on a different day then I would have gotten to the meeting on time. Well, we do not know this is the case. where you going to be late anyways and the construction is just an excuse?

Say for example even on the best-est of days for travel into the office one needs to arrive 20 minutes early to get to the office on time, then the fact that you arrived only 15minutes early and there was also construction does not mean the construction was the reason you were late, because if the construction was there or not you would have been late regardless.

so this leads me to ask the question what is it like when the construction was not there?

the reason that A is strengthening, is because it is blocking a competing hypothesis.

In the stimulus, the author is saying that more iron----correlated---more likely to get Parkinson compared to individuals whose diet contain less iron. therefore people should avoid these foods and thus reduce one's chance of contracting the disease. (causation conclusion).

How do we weaken correlation causation conclusions? first, we could say, Parkinsons causes higher iron, which would ruin the relationship(reverse the causation, if we deny this it'd strengthen the argument).

Next we could say that something causes high iron and Parkinsons, such as a genetic predisposition, if this genetic predisposition causes both Parkinsons and high iron then the argument that iron causes Parkinson's is ruined because another factor causes both.This is what AC A, uses to strengthen the argument. AC A is not allowing this relationship and thus not allowing that weakness to be there, and making the conclusion more likely to happen. AC A is saying, the people with the genetic predisposition (other factor contributing to both A&B) do not differ in the amount of iron they have, so it is not this other factor causing both high iron and Parkinsons disease, so it is more likely that high iron does in fact contribute to Parkinsons, and thus strengthing the argument by blocking a competing hypothesis.

I agree, when I was doing this question I thought of it like:(arrows are not conditional arrows. (...>)

promising ....> obligation ....> /(can) complete obligation

So I was thinking if we make a promise that creates an obligation, and if something happens out of our control and we can not complete the obligation -----does that relieve us from the obligation or not? If it does release us from the obligation then we can say the rule is/was NOT broken because there is like an exception to the rule now and therefore the conclusion does not hold anymore, because we would be the exception to the rule. However, if the promise creates an obligation that is like iron clad, no exceptions to the rule, then we can say the rule does hold, if one ought then one can, and the conclusion to the argument holds, that 'the general rule does not always hold true.

Hello,

knowing what to do and your plan of attack on different question types makes you more accurate and faster.

The easy questions are testing you on the same thing the harder questions are testing you on and vice versa, the difference is usually how subtle the assumption and how abstract the language and topic. However, the process of doing a weakening question does not change because it is harder or weaker the process of finding the assumption between the premise and conclusion still holds and picking an answer choice that weakens the assumption leading to making the conclusion less likely to happen is still going to be the correct answer. Learning the common arguments the LSAT uses on different question types and the common wrong answers will help as well. For example, a lot of weakening questions will use the phenomenon/ hypothesis set up and then the conclusion will be the authors explanation of why/how the phenomenon happened, common answer choices would be correlation/causation, temporal correlation, groups versus sub group confusion, when phenomenon is not present the effect is not present. these are some of the common answers you'll get on a weakening questions, sometimes one of these will be the correct answer and other times they will be the attractive wrong answer, it is good to know what each one looks like so you can quickly select or eliminate answers.

Also, one must have a mastery over identifying the premise and conclusion, how are you able to weaken an argument if you cannot identify the conclusion? How are you going to find the gap when one cannot see where the gap is? you can't. Look at the easy questions because the common answer choices are easier to see relative to the harder questions and start to identify the patterns the LSAC employs. Another Q type where they repeat ACs is flaw they repeat ACs there a lot.

Just in general doing more Qs will help you be better at the harder questions, the harder questions are just dressed up easy questions with a few extra layers of difficulty. the LSAC varies the level of difficulty by: topic, grammar, length, how abstract, and how attractive ACs are, for the most part, what lies underneath all the layers is the same, there is a gap in the argument that needs something done to it depending on what the Q stem wants.

Hello,

assumptions are what the argument does. Assumptions are also weaknesses an argument has.

Weakening is a type of question on the LSAT, where our job is to point out the assumption, and by pointing out an assumption, weaken the argument.

Assumptions are everywhere on the LSAT, if we block an assumption we will strengthen an argument, if we point one out, we will weaken an argument, if it is a sufficient assumption we will guarantee the conclusion, if it is a necessary assumption it is required for the conclusion of the argument. Some assumptions are super subtle, those will likely be the harder questions and the assumptions that are easy to spot are the easier questions, usually. Don't worry if some of that you did not know, or sounded like a new language, it will be covered later in the core curriculum.

Hello @kkole44474 Doing 1-2 from the low 80s then a 1-3 from the low-mid 70s towards the beginning of the PT phase so I get a look and a feel to how the exam is different from the exams from 1-60. In addition after BR of the exams, and after more PTs it is recommended to go over past wrong answers try and find a trend and sure up when went wrong with the answer. When you do this you are still seeing newer-style questions while you are working in the 50s and 60s, so it is not a 'culture' shock when you go from the 50/60s to PTs in the high 80s.

Some people say the change is not that big others say is has a significant impact on there score, but I have found that getting like 5ish from the 70s and 80s gets a good base and people can see the difference from those and the other PTs they will take from the 40-60s.

No. the correct answer here is a conditional statement. You can eliminate the conditionals if the sufficient is never triggered because we do not know if the necessary condition will trigger. And you can also eliminate answers where the necessary condition does not connect to other premises to lead to the conclusion or when the necessary does not include the conclusion of the argument.

@carlyboyd1991217 thank you for the kinds words! the comment that @dimakyure869 was talking about is from @kkole44474.

Did you use the correct order of the sections. Almost every time I take an exam through LSAC website the order of the section changes and is not the same as 7sage. Also did you do a flex exam or the 4 section exam? Either way you could have the LRs flipped.

PSA

Premise--psychologists have discovered a technique for replacing one's nightmares with pleasant dreams, and have successfully taught it to adults suffering from chronic nightmares.

Premise--Studies have found that nightmare-prone children are especially likely to suffer from nightmares as adults.

Conclusion--thus, psychologists should direct efforts towards identifying nightmare-prone children so that these children can be taught the technique for replacing their nightmares with pleasant ones.

A--incorrect--this would not lead us to the conclusion. we are talking about teaching children a technique that works on adults.

B--incorrect--this would be an assumption that is needed in order for the argument to work, however, this is not a PSA. we need an answer choice that shows why psychologists should do a thing.

C--correct--when this is the case, then it makes sense to help the children to because the children will grow into adults.

D--incorrect--we do not care if it is more difficult or what. we want psychologists to help the kids.

E--incorrect--okay, we do not have any information of what psychologists should not do, only what they should do.

MISC/fill in the blank.

A theoretical framework facilitates the conceptual organization of material and fruitful expansions of research.

Many historians argue that historical analysis is therefore done best within a theoretical framework.

But the past is too complex for all of its main trends to be captured within a theoretical framework

therefore----correct AC

A--incorrect--maybe there is some benefit we just don't know.

B--incorrect--' any other' that is very strong, we know that it does not work best in history.

C--correct--working within a framework is too complex to capture all the main trends. so no matter how good the report is it will not capture all of the main trends.

D--incorrect--word mash here. this would be above the conclusion. not the conclusion.

E--incorrect--well we know that when the work is placed within the framework that it cannot capture all of the main trends, and when it says that when the work is placed within and it cannot capture all of the main trends then it kinda seems that works that are not within the framework can capture all of the main trends. but this is too deep for the question, this AC would just not follow.

RRE--this is like the dramine flawed question. 'people who take dramine for sea sickness still get sick, so dramine does not work.'

Medical research has established that the Beta diet is healthier than a more controversial diet.

But on average, people who have followed the Beta diet for several decades are much more likely to be in poor health than are people whose diet is more conventional.

problem--why is the beta diet considered to be healthier by medical research Yet, people who follow the Beta diet are more likely to be in poor health.

A--incorrect--this does not resolve the problem. this makes the problem worse, if the people who follow the beta diet have better habits and are considered more healthy by doctors, yet the people who follow it are more likely to be in poor health.

B--correct--this diet is used to help the peoples whose health is already poor. the population that uses this, is already starting lower than the general population. it makes sense that the Beta diet over the long term would show that people who follow the diet would be worse health.

C--incorrect--this again confounds the problem

D--incorrect--okay, this would probably be expected to help some more than it would help others.

E--incorrect--this is outside the scope. plus this adds another complication of why docs would recommend this when there is a better alternative.

parallel flaw

perform & admin ---> /member

L/Admin & M/admin----> members

----------

L & M ---> performers

if you deny the sufficient the rule goes away.

Just because you are not an administrator does not mean you are a performer, the stimulus says that they are not both. Maybe L and M and neither admin nor performer and just a viewer. We cannot deny the sufficient and then conclude the negation.

A--incorrect--this is flawed but not in the same way. maybe they are in the same group that is salaried. some statement rules this out.

B--incorrect-- this follows

C--correct--

C & M--> /HQ

/M

------

C. this does not follow. it could be the case but it is not an MBT. just because we do not have the HQ in Mexico does not force us to have it in Canada. We could have it anywhere else as well with the information given. We do not know if it is a biconditional cut of the places where the HQ can or cannot be.

D--incorrect--this follows

E--incorrect--this follows, the min they can have is 5 each so the minimum of the combined boards is 10. it follows.

flaw--. one goes down while the other has gone up(correlation) in the same time period. therefore one must be the replacement of the other(causation)

though ice cream is an excellent source of calcium, dairy farmers report that during the past ten years there has been a sharp decline in ice cream sales.

Premise--And during the same period, sales of cheddar cheese have nearly doubled.

Conclusion--more and more people must be choosing to increase their intake of calcium by eating cheddar cheese rather than ice cream.

there is an inverse correlation between ice cream and cheddar cheese. does this mean that people are choosing cheddar as their intake of calcium, no.

Must is a very strong word in the conclusion. why must people be eating cheese instead of ice cream to increase their calcium? what if they just like cheese for cheese?

A--incorrect--this is not the flaw, though they failed to provide the data.

B--correct--the decline of the sales could be for a number of reasons. not just the reason that people are choosing cheddar cheese over ice cream for their calcium intake.

C--incorrect--no the farmers, as far as we know, have no incentive to lie about ice cream sales declining and cheese sales increasing.

D--incorrect--the statement in the stimulus is not relative, it is just stating the ice cream is an excellent source of calcium. Maybe cheese is a better source. we do not know. plus this is not the flaw. this would be like saying, calcium is a good source of calcium, so is milk and so is ice cream. Icecream takes the best out of those three so ice cream is the best source of calcium. we cannot just assume that because it tastes better it is a better source. maybe the negatives of ice cream make another source a better option.

E--incorrect--this is strong. never. the argument does not do this. people could still be eating ice cream but not for the purpose of getting their calcium. the argument does not make the two groups mutually exclusive.

flaw

throw away--Although Jaaks is a respected historian,

conclusion--her negative review of Yancey's new book on the history of coastal fisheries in the region rests on a mistake.

Premise--Jaak's review argues that the book inaccurately portrays the lives of fishery workers.

premise--Yancy used the same research methods in this book as in her other histories which have been very popular.

Premise--this book is also very popular in local bookstores.

flaw--uses popularity as a justification for someone's critique of inaccurate research

A--incorrect--no, 'respected historian' tends to give rise to that they are not unqualified. plus this is not the flaw committed in the argument.

B--incorrect--this is not an ad hominem attack.

C--correct--it uses the idea that the book is popular to indicate the critique of accuracy is not warranted. that does not work. the book could be extremely flawed in its research and still be popular.

D--incorrect--what is the general conclusion? we have no indication that the local bookstores are an unrepresentative sample.

E--incorrect--no this is not presumed we have no indication of what would produce accurate results, we just know that a claim of inaccuracy was made by a respected historian, and the reason given on why the claim is wrong is because the book is popular.

Strengthen

Gilbert--Conclusion--this food label is mistaken.

Premsie--It says that these cookies contain only natural ingredients, but they contain alpha-hydroxy acids that are chemically synthesized by the cookie company at the plant.

Sabrina--conclusion--this food label is not mistaken.

Sabrina--alpha-hydroxy acids also are found to occur naturally in sugarcane.

A--incorrect--this would weaken the idea that the food label is not mistaken because the cookies no longer contain that ingredient.

B--incorrect--this would weaken the idea that the food label is not mistaken because maybe this ingredient is not actually in the food.

C--incorrect--this would again weaken the idea that the food label is not mistaken, because if there is a different ingredient than what is listed, then the food label is not accurate.

D--incorrect--okay, this does not help us with this specific case. Plus even if we accepted this as true, the same objections Gilbert raised would still be valid here, the argument would get nowhere.

E--correct--this would strengthen the argument. a substance has to not occur anywhere naturally to be considered not natural. this would help Sabrina's argument. because alpha is found in some places naturally. this AC added to the fact the alpha does occur naturally would support Sabrina's stance.

flaw/descriptive weakening

While studying centuries-old Antarctic ice deposits, I found that several years of relatively severe atmospheric pollution in the 1500s coincided with a period of relatively high global temperatures.

Conclusion--so it is clear in this case that atmospheric pollution did cause global temperatures to rise.

A--incorrect--this is not the flaw in the argument. the flaw is correlation causation.

B--incorrect--the sample would seem to be representative of the 1500s. the conclusion seems to be found, it is how the conclusion was drawn, not the fact that it was drawn.

C--incorrect--like B, it does not generalize inappropriately it talks about the 1500s and an ice sample from that time. However, it is how the conclusion was drawn. It takes two phenomena that are correlated and drawn a causal relationship.

D--incorrect--we have no reason to believe that the method was not reliable.

E--correct--correlation causation.

MSS

Despite the enormous number of transactions processed daily by banks nowadays, if a customer's bank account is accidentally credited with a large sum of money, it is extremely unlikely that the error will not be detected by the bank's internal audit.

A--correct--this is basically double-checking one's work for the day. plus it says specifically double-checking 'large transactions'

B--incorrect--this does not matter because this is about banks making mistakes in crediting accounts, not people trying to pull a fast one over on the bank.

C--incorrect--how would sending a monthly statement help the bank check each day if they made a mistake??

D--incorrect--yes, the average ratio has increased, however, we do not know if just a couple of large banks are the ones that are getting the workers because it says average and averages can be skewed.

E--incorrect--the stim, was not talking about hacking it was talking about the bank itself making a mistake.

Conclusion--Price-- A corporation's primary responsibility is to its shareholders.

P--premise--they are its more important constituency because they take the greatest risks. If the corporation goes bankrupt, they lose their investment.

A--Premise--shareholders have diversified investment portfolios.

A-- employees, however, the well-being of the corporation for which they have chosen to work represents their very livelihood.

A--conclusion--corporation's primary responsibility should be to the workers.

Disagree over the shareholders should be primary or the workers should be primary.

A--incorrect--they would both agree.

B--incorrect--they would both agree. like A we are looking for the degree they care for the employees.

C--incorrect--i would assume that both agree. but who should get first crack at the money they would likely disagree.

D--correct--they would disagree about this, one would say the investment is the most at stake the other would say that it is the people whose livelihood is on the line.

E--incorrect--I would imagine that they would both agree, though this is an extreme case.

Strengthen

On the Caribbean island of G, a researcher examined 35 patients with atypical Parkinson's disease and compared their eating habits to those of 65 healthy adults.

Premise--She found that ll of the patients with atypical Parkinsons's regularly ate the tropical fruits soursop, crusted apple, and promme, whereas only 10 of the healthy adults regularly ate these fruits.

Conclusion--she concluded that eating these fruits causes atypical Parkinson's.

A--correct--this helps show that the fruits are correlated with the health when the causes is there the effect is there and when the cause is not there the effect is not there.

B--incorrect--we do not care if they ate the fruit once, in the stim, we are told that the Parkinson's people ate the fruit regularly.

C--incorrect--this would weaken the argument, this is indicating that maybe it is not the fruit but some other factor/other hypotheses.

D--incorrect--again this would weaken the argument because the evidence given is that the fruit is the factor that is contributing to Parkinson's, but if the healthy people ate more of the Parkinson's causing factor then it is less likely that it is the fruit.

E--incorrect--well maybe it is these 'vitamins' that are correlated with the Parkinson's and, who care if there are vitamins that are in the fruit that are not in the normal diet, maybe they don't need the victims or they can get the vitamins from another source.

RRE

An antitheft device involving an electronic homing beacon has been developed for use in tracking stolen automobiles.

Phenomenon--Although its presence is undetectable to a car thief and so does not directly deter theft, its use greatly increases the odds of apprehending even the most experienced car thieves.

Phenomenon---the device is not yet used by a large percentage of car owners, but in cities where only a small percentage of car owners have the device installed, auto thefts have dropped dramatically.

Problem-why is it that the auto thefts have dropped so much yet the device is not used in that many vehicles?

A--incorrect--this is probably factual however, this does not help us resolve why auto thefts have dropped dramatically.

B--incorrect--this would make the probe even worse, in cities that on average have less car thefts, saw their car thefts fall even farther.. this only makes the problem worse.

C--incorrect--okay but how does this explain that there are very few on the homing device and yet auto theft has dropped dramatically?

D--incorrect--okay, but still this does not resolve the problem, few devices and dramatic drop in auto theft.

E--correct--if only a few people are stealing the vast majority f car then it is likely that they stile one with the device and were busted, and since they were a huge operation that dropped the stolen car rate down, for example, if every 10 cars stolen by the big operation only 1 car was stolen by a small set up. So the accounts for the few honing devices because if there are few cars with the device but you are stealing the majority of the car then you are more likely to steal a car with the device, and also if you do steal a car with the device you are more likely to get caught and if they catch the one guy then they stopped a 10 to 1 ratio.

weaken

Conclusion/hypothesis--gifts of cash or gift cards, which allow the recipient to choose the actual gift, are more highly valued by the recipients than are gifts chosen for them by others.

Premsie/phenomenon--In a study, when people were asked how much they would have been willing to pay for the gifts chosen for them by others, they responded by citing amounts that were on average only bout two-thirds of the actual price of the gifts.

A--incorrect--maybe this is because more companies are now allowing people to return gifts. there could be many reasoning for this correlation. this however does not weaken the idea that people value cash or gift cards more than when people pick out gifts for them.

B--incorrect--okay this is just a snapshot of who the world is not, this does not weaken the idea that people prefer cash or gift cards more than when people pick out gifts for them.

C--incorrect--this is bringing in a new point that would make the problem confounded, is it the family member that is making the person want to pay more? however, this does not weaken the argument. this makes it more confusing but this does not weaken the assumption because people will only pay two-thirds for the gift that means they prefer cash or gift cards.

D--correct--this gets at the assumption that people do not value the gift that much as indicated that they would only have paid two-thirds for the gift. However if it was true that they did not value the gift that much then they would be willing to part with the gift for cost or less than cost right? yes, however this answer choice is not allowing for that to happen saying that the people receiving the gift will only part with it for 150% of what it cost indicating that they value the gift.

E--incorrect--this is random information about retailers. this is about returning gifts and our argument is about people valuing cash/gift cards over gifts bought from others and this does not play a role.