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PT Questions
laurensharpe445
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laurensharpe445
Tuesday, Apr 01 2025
After applying the principle, you can't vote for N or L, but you don't know about M.
The principle applies when the candidate's opinions differ from Kay's on at least one issue important to her. There's only one issue important to Kay here and M agrees with her, so the principle doesn't apply and we can't speak to whether or not it is acceptable or unacceptable for her to vote for M.
The principle does apply to N and L because she disagrees with them on at least one issue important to her. Then we look to see if she disagrees with other candidates on more issues important to her and she doesn't (there's only one issue important to her so there are no more issues to agree or disagree on), so is unacceptable to vote for N or L.
laurensharpe445
Sunday, Mar 30 2025
I guess you just have to hang your hat on the "somewhat dangerous" part of C making it wrong because it's not strong enough, but I find that very objective, and still have all the problems listed above with A.
laurensharpe445
Sunday, Mar 30 2025
I assumed that when much of their habitat was used as a weapons testing range, they naturally stayed out of that part because of the active bombing. Animals just don't hang out in places that are being bombed after they learn that is happening in a particular location. They would have continued dying during that time because they had little habitat and resources. Then, when the testing range was opened back up, and they noticed no bombs going off, the camels started to venture back out, but then they got hit by the unexploded bombs.
I didn't feel like A explained it because I thought the poachers would have still been active while the weapons range was active, just outside the range where the camels were hanging out. I thought they could have even been more effective during that time because they had a smaller area of land to hunt down camels on. A says "The weapons tests had kept wildlife poachers out of the testing range." I thought so what, the camels wouldn't have been in the testing range while it was active anyway, so the poachers were just as effective during that time if not more effective from the smaller area to cover.
Just struggling to see this one. If you don't know anything about animals and assume they were hanging out in the testing range while it was active, then A makes sense, but they just wouldn't have stayed there too long after the bombing began, so poachers staying out of there wouldn't have had an impact.
laurensharpe445
Tuesday, Feb 04 2025
I think the definition of unsuccessful in 26 E isn't very clear. If you read it as the left to right hypothesis of what mirrors do is unsuccessful with the people because it's based on a rotational claim that's not intuitive while the imagined object claim in the front to back hypothesis is one that people understand, then E is completely the right answer. If you read it as unsuccessful as in the left to right hypothesis is unsuccessful as an explanation of the phenomenon of what mirrors do because it uses the rotational claim rather than the imaginary claim, then I see how it is wrong. But how do you know that's the way we should be interpreting unsuccessful?
laurensharpe445
Sunday, Feb 02 2025
I felt like A didn't strengthen the support the premises give the conclusion, it just added an additional premise. Isn't adding a new premise one of the main things that the core curriculum says doesn't strengthen an argument? The premises were birds eat spiders and use their webs. How does birds eat spiders' food strengthen the support birds eat spiders and use their webs gives the conclusion?
laurensharpe445
Sunday, Feb 02 2025
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20241030-the-island-ruled-by-alien-snakes-and-spiders
laurensharpe445
Saturday, Feb 01 2025
I didn't feel the scope of E was as narrow as JY said it was. The big paragraph about fish farming requiring catching wild fish to feed to the farmed fish (cannibalism, yuck) definitely showed fish farming can't replace wild fishing. C just fits the author's focus better than E. The author's focus is the decline of wild fish stocks. The reason they give against fish farming is not that it won't replace wild fishing, but that it would result in a net decrease in fish (wild fish die from pollution, wild fish die from gross fish farm pathogens, wild fish die by being fed to the farmed fish at disgusting and alarming rates, altogether more wild fish are dying than fish farms are raising, if it goes on like this the end of fish is nigh).
laurensharpe445
Saturday, Feb 01 2025
The contrapositive of E gives us what we shouldn't do (If fish farming doesn't replace other methods that have undesirable ecological effects, then we shouldn't employ it), so if you decided the passage concluded we shouldn't farm fish, you would still have 2 choices left not just one.
laurensharpe445
Wednesday, Jan 29 2025
Kevin rocks RC! Thank you for being so thorough in your explanations!
laurensharpe445
Friday, Jan 24 2025
Here's why C is wrong, and BOY did it get me... C says "Before the invention of the homing beacon, automobile thieves who stole cars containing anti-theft devices were rarely apprehended." And that's all it says.
It doesn't say anything about how much apprehension is going on after the invention of the homing beacon. It could still be that people are rarely apprehended--even less apprehended--we don't know. But god, does it bait you to think that more apprehension is going on. If you take the bait there's all sorts of reasons you could give for why more apprehension is causing less car thefts. Maybe it is having a deterrence affect like scaring others from stealing cars, or maybe it's like E where most of the car thefts are committed by a few people and more apprehension means they caught some of them.
When you step back and realize C says nothing except in the past they rarely apprehended people and nothing about the amount of apprehension since the electronic homing beacon, you realize C doesn't give you anything for why the thefts have dropped.
With E you don't even need a increase in apprehensions for it to explain the drop in thefts. Apprehensions could still be really rare even after the invention of the homing beacon. Perhaps before, the police only once in a blue moon caught an inexperienced car thief because the thief was incredibly sloppy and fell right into the hands of the cops. Since the homing beacon, the police still rarely catch car thieves, except now with a major assist from the the beacon, they catch an experienced thief that as E says is one of the ones committing a majority of the car thefts.
I'm sure someone in this comment section has said this, but putting it back at the top for now. Hope this helps.
laurensharpe445
Tuesday, Jan 21 2025
THIS. You said exactly my thought process. I'm not sure I've ever seen a morphing answer before this question. I guess if I am torn between a morphing answer and a non-morphing answer in the future, I will go with the non-morphing answer. And now, thanks to you, I will have terminology for it!
laurensharpe445
Tuesday, Jan 21 2025
Mapping it out the way it is done in the explanation and then choosing D goes against the fundamentals of logic.
Popularity of music scale the result of social conditioning → diverse mixture of dia. and non-dia scales in world music
NOT diverse mixture of dia. and non-dia scales in world music → Popularity of music scale NOT the result of social conditioning
Not the result of social conditioning is pretty clear. I don't think it matters if it's the result of social conditioning and innate dispositions together - the formal logic says the popularity of a music scale is not the result of social conditioning in any way.
If you abstract it you can see this even more clearly.
Premises:
A → B (contra: /B → /A)
/B
It would be a flaw to conclude A and C. A just can't be a part of it. When there is not a B, there cannot be an A.
It cannot be mapped out this way--the way JY did in his explanation--and D still be the correct answer. I think the problem is JY tried to make the stimulus fit formal logic when it doesn't. The subtly of the wording makes it not a pure conditional. The we would expect is the problem.
A more accurate summary of what the stimulus is saying would be this:
If the popularity of a music scale is the result of social conditioning then we would expect a diverse mixture of dia and non-dia music scales in world music. But there isn't a diverse mixture of dia and non-dia music scales in world music (dia dominates), so we wouldn't expect the popularity of a music scale to be the result of social conditioning.
This is a lot less strong than a pure conditional.
I think the best way to view what the stimulus is saying is purely through a cause and effect lens.
If we do not expect the popularity of a music scale to be the result of social conditioning because there isn't a diverse mixture of dia and non-dia music scales in world music, then we must consider that our expectations could be wrong, there's another cause, or there's multiple causes that work together to affect a music scale's popularity. If there are multiple causes, they could include social conditioning because the stimulus is not a pure conditional. It isn't saying the hard rule /diverse → /social.
The author has gone ahead and concluded that because we don't expect the popularity of a music scale to be the result of social conditioning, that it can only be the result of one other thing, innate dispositions. They have failed to consider that music scale popularity could be caused by multiple things including social conditioning. This is the mistake that answer choice D points out.
They have failed to... (D) consider that innate dispositions and social conditioning could jointly affect the popularity of a type of music
Some people may have implicitly weakened the conditional in their minds and weren't bothered by answer choice D, but I think it is important in review to be explicit about the underlying logic so we don't begin to implicitly believe a conclusion like the one below is okay.
Premises:
A → B
/B
Conclusion: A and C
laurensharpe445
Sunday, Jan 19 2025
I don't see how C is required because if traditional fish don't die because they are less bold in forging for food, couldn't they still die because they are less bold in exploring new environments?
I guess attacking the support just food boldness gives the conclusion is enough to wreck the argument since the conclusion is BOTH food and exploring boldness are the reason experimental hatchery fish are more likely to survive.
laurensharpe445
Tuesday, Jan 14 2025
I thought C was a strengthening element too. It certainly provides additional support for the conclusion that you run faster on hard surfaces than soft surfaces, but then I remembered to strengthen an argument, not just the conclusion, an answer has to increase the support the premises in the stimulus give the conclusion, and C does not do that. C doesn't increase the support that the premise of having less contact with the running surface, gives the conclusion. It provides a completely separate new premise that separately supports the conclusion. C weakens the argument in the stimulus ever so slightly by saying your foot contact support for the conclusion isn't the full explanation. There's another separate argument that you missed.
It's the weirdest weaken question setup I have ever seen, and although understanding it as a weaken question could be helpful to deeply solidify just how you weaken or strengthen an LSAT argument, by weakening or strengthening the support of the premises for the conclusion--I don't think seeing it as a weaken or strengthen question in timed circumstances was really helpful.
For me, looking at it as a weaken question while timed led me to B as a trap answer because when not carefully evaluated it was the only one that felt traditionally weakening of the support the stimulus' premise gave the conclusion. If I had looked at the question as it's own unique question stem, then I wouldn't have been clouded by the expectations of what a weaken answer should sound like, and could have tried to stick more closely to what it was asking. Partial explanation isn't saying there is lack of support the stimulus' premise gives the conclusion and you should point that out. It is saying the explanation in the stimulus is one explanation, but there is another one as well. C is that other explanation.
God forbid there's an out of pocket question stem on your LSAT. If that happens I'd do just what JY says in his explanation video--spend less time trying to figure out which known question type it conforms to and just stick close to the words in the question stem. This is long, but I hope it helps.
laurensharpe445
Monday, Jan 13 2025
This is exactly what happened to me. I guess focusing on the grammar would have revealed it was a part of the conclusion, but I definitely missed it under timed conditions. JY saying that to weaken an argument you can't attack the premises but instead must attack the support between the premises and the conclusion was top of my mind when I misread it.
Once reviewing, I went back and looked over tools for weaken questions and in the LR cheat sheet it says, "pay attention to new concepts brought up in the conclusion but not mentioned in the stimulus. The argument has to make some kind of assumption about those new ideas." If you point out that the assumption is wrong, you weaken the argument. I will try to be on the lookout for that in the future.
laurensharpe445
Sunday, Jan 12 2025
I thought the same thing, but if you negate D and say it is not the case that to be great you have to have an intuitive grasp of the emotions of everyday life than the argument falls apart because the rest of it is just what's required to have an intuitive grasp.
Said another way, the author's focus from the premise to the conclusion is if you are a great novelist, you have to have an intuitive grasp of everyday emotions (which consequently can only be obtained by immersion in everyday life outside of academia).
laurensharpe445
Sunday, Jan 12 2025
D is one of those rare tricky NA right answers that is also a SA. NA right answers are usually required by the argument but not sufficient, and the LSAT writers put E in as the perfect trap answer to imitate a NA. You have to be able to under timed conditions pick up on the fact that knowledge is not the same as intuitive grasp, and that is really hard when you are primed to look for an answer like E in a NA question. I can see it now in review, but damn LSAT writers. I guess the lesson here is NA right answers can also be a SA and you better make sure every last word of an answer truly is required by the argument if you choose it.
I think most people get this question right because they don't know what a necessary assumption is and answer it like a sufficient assumption question. I think if you got it wrong and fell for E you could be on the right track because you probably understand the concept of NA pretty well. We'll just have to hone in on our attention to detail and remember an NA right answer can also be a SA!
laurensharpe445
Sunday, Jan 12 2025
I chose A and the only thing that really sticks with me for why C is better than A is that C specifically addresses childhood learning while A is more centered around learning across a lifespan.
laurensharpe445
Wednesday, Jan 08 2025
If you're finding that multiple deep breaths take too long, or you are breathing them too fast to be a good reset because you are trying to fit them into 10-15 seconds, I humbly suggest doing one long deep breath and then one shorter breath and a quick sigh.
To guide this and the timing I hear in my head, "Slowly" as I inhale the long breath, then "and a long deep sweeping sigh" as I exhale. Then to guide the shorter breath I hear "Now I lock it up, as I take another little breath and a quick sigh."
You can put it in your own words, but I really like this combination because you get to take your time with the deep breath and then the concept of "locking it up" with a shorter breath really creates the feeling of locking in the calm and getting back in the game.
I find it resets fight or flight, makes me feel calmer and stronger, and actually only takes 10-15 seconds. I learned it from a 1930s recording of a spiritual teacher named Edwin J Dingle, so thanks Mr. Dingle.
laurensharpe445
Sunday, Nov 03 2024
I see how E shows part to whole but it's throwing me off that the stimulus' premise maps to E's conclusion and E's premise maps to the stimulus' conclusion. So far it has seemed like those typically parallel each other in these types of questions. What am I missing?
laurensharpe445
Friday, Sep 13 2024
Anyone ever realize they completely read something wrong right after the edit clock ends and they don't need to ask the question they just posted? I certainly have. Please ignore the question above.
laurensharpe445
Friday, Sep 13 2024
I'm trying to understand the phrase "may be sufficient" in answer choice A. I thought sufficiency was concrete--if you have A than you have B. I don't know how to logically reconcile may be sufficient. "It may be that if you have A than you have B." That doesn't seem like sufficiency. Can anyone square this circle for me?
Booooo this question, but I finally see why A is right and D is wrong. Ironically, I got it right initially and during blind review thought it had to be D, but as professor McGonagall would say, I think that was a stroke of "sheer dumb luck."
So why is A right and D wrong? Conditional conclusion.
You can't pull a new concept out of thin air and put it into the conclusion. The premises have to support all parts of the conclusion either explicitly or implicitly for it to be a valid argument.
If the conclusion was not conditional here and the argument read, "Computer voice-recognition technology currently cannot distinguish between homophones. As a consequence, it cannot recognize and utilize grammatical and semantic relations among words." Then D would be right, but they had to throw that GD conditional conclusion in there.
We don't just have to connect our one premise, "can't distinguish between homophones" to "can't recognize and utilize grammar," we also have to connect it to "can't accurately translate." The hard part is seeing the implied conditional that helps make that connection. Sure, when assessing outside of timed conditions, it's not too hard to admit that if the tech can't distinguish between Their and There, it can't accurately translate spoken words into written text, but even then it's hard to quickly realize that is the implied premise that allows everything to connect. I think 59% of people got this question right not because of formal logic, but because A more naturally feels like it has to be a NA of the argument when going fast.
So how do we practically get these questions right under timed conditions especially if the answer doesn't naturally "feel right"? I think a good rule of thumb would be that when a conditional conclusion is present, recognize that, and know that the answer must connect the premise to both parts of the conditional. Then use process of elimination.
B is just an inverse of the conclusion which gets us nowhere.
C is irrelevant. Why do we care what humans can do? We're talking about what tech can do.
D doesn't connect the premise to the "can't accurately translate" portion of the conclusion.
E is irrelevant. Why do we care what spell check can do? We're talking about voice recognition.
Hope this helps myself as well as others to not get tripped up by conditional conclusions in the future!