I messed up on this one because for some reason (no idea why) I thought they were asking me to find the flaw. They're not. I mean, it is a flawed argument. Just because something has happened one way in the past, doesn't mean it will every single time. We know this. But they just want you to restate the reasoning in the argument, which is B.

Ok I feel dumb, I think I got it though. Finally. Many Sociologist say: rise of political organizations cannot be caused by something simple.

It has been accepted by at least some people that Voting for Economic Reasons = simple.

Many Sociologists, agree with this. They say "Voting for Economic Reasons = not a complex phenomenon. Ergo, it is simple. Just like we said. VER is a simplistic way of thinking, it is not complex. And cannot be responsible for the rise of political parties because it is not complex, and is simple."

Wow. My brain needs a cigarette now. Jeez.

Edit: after reading the question again, I can confirm I actually have no idea what I'm talking out. I thought I had it figured out, but I think I misread it. This is a horrible question in my humble opinion.

Ok, the best I can understand it is this: the sociologists are saying "this political phenomenon can't be caused by something simple. It must be caused by something complex." The blurb implies: voting because of economics = simple. The sociologists are saying, again "political phenomenon is caused by something complex." So they're saying, yeah maybe we agree that economic reasons are a factor, but we see this as a very complex factor, it is not simple.

It's pretty bull-sh!tty if you ask me. It feels like they're really playing dirty here, having us think the sociologists are saying it is something besides economic reasons, not saying, economic reasons are complex not simple. I really don't like this one and I hope whoever wrote it gets a flat tire on the interstate today.

I'm having the same issue and can't seem to wrap my head around it. This is a question I've missed before too. I guess I'll never get it. :/

I am also having a very hard time putting my finger on why I didn't like A. I think I still just don't understand it. I don't see how other insects having vision similar to bees, but they don't rely on color... so is this implying that bees don't rely on color? Or is it implying that bees are different than the others because they can see color/rely on color? I am not making the connection between Flowers Evolved - bees don't perceive their color though. So... how are they finding these flowers?? E made more sense to me because I thought, well, the flowers have evolved so well to attract the bees that now they exclusively dine on flowers whereas before maybe they ate other things as well.

formal logic or not, E is still a true statement. I don't think they should include multiple true statements in the answer choices. I eliminated D quickly because it said that coffee MAY be served EVERY Wednesday. It literally says "on most if not all Wednesdays." I struck it out immediately because I said to myself, "welp, we know for a fact that they don't do this every Wednesday. LSAT language is very specific, and if it doesn't say all, and it says 'almost every,' then D has to be wrong."

I misread D and have a feeling you might have too

well, it's not even a matter of whether or not the practice is bad, necessarily. I just don't see how answer C weakens the argument at all. I immediately crossed it out because it seemed irrelevant. I don't care what other countries are doing - we are suppose to only care about the tainted products that make it back into the US. Maybe those other countries only ship to each other. We don't know.

I didn't choose C because at no point does it say those pesticides are used on products that make it back to the US. The stimulus is talking about things that are imported back into the US. B seems to weaken the argument more because it's saying that maybe only a small portion of the pesticides we export are the bad kind. It's not a perfect argument, but it's a weakening question. The answers are often not prefect. That seems to be tripping me up a lot. It's like they want you to use common sense for some problems but not on others.

I chose A and then E on blind review. This question was really confusing! Engels is thinking that McKinley is saying "they will be able to tell which patients are taking the drug because they will be getting better!" But really McKinley is saying, "bro, that stuff will turn their hair purple. There's no hiding it." But he didn't actually say that, he said, "the drug will have various effects on the patients' bodies." Engels is saying, "well, yeah, that's what medicine does." McKinley would probably respond, "no, bro, you don't understand. It turns your skin green with pink polka dots - there is no hiding this!!"

for the record, I chose A because it seemed to say "well, they could still be a little different treating various injuries and maybe the study doesn't totally reflect that."

Answer E: the argument is vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument: overlooks the possibility that specialists and general practitioners each tend to excel at treating a different type of injury.

This does not make one lick of sense to me.

The premise of the argument is basically: patients who are treated for <6 weeks show 31% improvement, regardless of if it's a specialist or a general practitioner, and patients treated for longer see 50% improvement, regardless of spec or gp. It does not say that the people who were treated longer had different or more severe injuries. Maybe some people had a pulled muscle and were recommended less than six weeks therapy, and some people with the same injury were recommended longer, either because diff doctors or just because, who knows. According to this data, we cannot say that they are different at all. We just know that people have the same results regardless. So, if 100 people were treated for less than 6 weeks by a specialist, and 100 people were treated for less than 6 weeks by a gp, in both groups 31 people are going to say they improved. There is zero evidence that they are different at all at treating diff types of injuries, and we know nothing about the injuries being treated. They could all be slipped discs in the same part of the spine, absolutely identical. The answer contradicts the premise.

#help

This one was extremely confusing for me. Seemed like the difficulty rating would be much higher. I figured it out as such:

at first, I came up with a prediction. The flaw, in my mind, would be: well, just because there are other celestial bodies besides stars and planets, that doesn't mean that they are the light-generating kind. I became frustrated going through the answers, not seeing my prediction. Why wasn't there anything that stated, "just because they're not stars or planets doesn't mean they generate light?"

Answer E does say this, but in a very confusing way. It says "Planets are not the only celestial objects that do not generate light." In other words... there are those pesky "other celestial objects" that aren't stars or planets and aren't light-generating. It confirms the prediction of, hey, just because it's not a star doesn't mean it's making light. It could be something besides a planet that reflects it or even just sits there and doesn't do anything at all. Anyway, I hope this long-winded explanation helped someone else.

If anything, companies and government agencies who buy cars in bulk are getting discounts, like when police bought new Dodge chargers for everyone, they didn't pay full price. This questions asks you to make a lot of assumptions that I feel they don't want you to make in other questions, plus the assumptions you need to make don't make sense in the real world. A lot of LSAT questions don't make sense in the real world, but this one doesn't make sense to me at all, period.

Ok so I guess they're saying that no single species lived for the entire Mesozoic era, but dinosaurs of different species lived at different points in this era. Hope this helps someone else. Still, real weird wording.

Um... A can't be true because the passage clearly states that no dinosaurs lived ANYWHERE for the entire Mesozoic era.

Yes. But I don't know what to do about it.

#help

SO, the main conclusion is that these paintings must have depicted the diets of these people. We are trying to find four answers that WEAKEN this conclusion, and one that does not weaken it.

A. Once on the island, they hunted and ate land animals. - Does not weaken the argument that the paintings are of their diet. We have apparently just misunderstood their diet. They did not eat sea creatures, or did not depict them, but obviously these paintings were of animals they ate. They are depictions of their diet.

B. Parts of the paintings did not survive. Again, does not weaken the argument that the paintings are of their diets. Also does not strengthen it. We have an incomplete depiction of what they ate, but we know some of what they ate. Or maybe they're not paintings of animals they ate, we just don't know. Doesn't rule out that they were paintings of food animals.

C. The Cave paintings had lots of pictures of land animals. Ok, again, not really strengthening or weakening the argument that the paintings depicted food animals.

D. They had advanced methods of preserving meat. This does not weaken the argument that the paintings depicted food animals. It just means maybe they didn't have to eat fish, maybe they carried beef jerky, but it certainly doesn't weaken the argument that the cave paintings depicted food animals. It actually strengthens the idea that they din't need to eat fish so they were depicting the land animals they regularly ate.

E. The cave paintings were done a long time ago by the original inhabitants of the island. Ok, so, again, this does not weaken the argument that the cave paintings were of food animals. It strengthens that argument, actually. The original people on this island apparently ate land animals and painted pictures of them.

So, the goal is to find which of these things doesn't weaken the argument that the cave paintings are of food animals. Someone make it make sense.

Same. The fact that she's studying with other students actually strengthens the argument that she will make a B again, because a B is still a relatively high grade especially if the subject matter is difficult. So if she studies with other high achieving students there is a better chance she will make a B than, say, an F.

Just wanted to say thank you for posting on these boards. Your insight is very helpful and well-worded. Out here truly doing the most for fellow LSAT takers. I salute you, sir.

So, while others saw this as a contrapositive, I saw it as an illegal reversal. Any advice for telling the difference?

#help (Added by Admin)

Thank you - this was a really good breakdown of the explanation.

What is the loophole??

Does anyone else find phrases like "you missed out on some good shit" to be a little... unprofessional?? Or is it just me? Way too casual IMO, not what I thought I was getting when I signed up.

All of his pop culture examples come from media that targets male demographics. Just an observation. My brother knew what Goku's power thing was; I did not.