Hi! This is late lol but I crossed out E because it was too narrow and extreme. I saw this like a SA / NA question. We know that the author thinks that the critique is mistaken because 1.) we can't separate real and false needs and 2.) the Marcusians assume that we have no free will when we look at ads.

Just because we are given two reasons as to why the author finds fault with their beliefs does not mean those are the only two things the author finds fault with. Also, the word "except" was weird to me because the claim mentioned isn't even accurate to what the passage said.

well I took a one week break after killing it consistently on RC. Did this, and went -4. I literally switched from the right to wrong answers. I guess this is my sign to 1.) Go back on the LSAT horse and get back on track 2.) stop second guessing.

Trying not to take this personally but in absolutely bad spirits.

I did end up picking the right answer at the end, but I was hesitant to pick B because I thought that it did not show explicitly why the birds were picking boxes over the woody forests; it was just showing why the birds were not picking the woody forests. I was tempted with C, but didn't see how the behavior would stop intruding birds. Also was hesitant to pick C because I didn't think of intruding birds as the predators in question.

I guess I need to be more flexible in my thinking; an answer does not have to explicitly show why someone is doing something, but can also tell you why they aren't doing something.

Got this right when timed, but got this wrong on BR.

I think what made this question hard for me was that I didn't think any of the ACs were good, so I was trying to make all of them work.

I realize now why C is right. I'm summarizing what another commenter has already written, but basically, C is an implicit way of saying that there is another thing that is hurting the oysters that is not TBT. If the species that benefits from the oysters dying is also being hurt, that means there is something in the water that is still bad.

What makes C difficult is that your instinctive reasoning is that it's irrelevant because we don't care about other species that aren't the native ones. But you need to think about the second half; if the oyster species that harm the native ones are also suffering, there's something else that probably killed the native ones too.

TBH, not too mad about missing this one. Can't believe it's only a medium level question, though.

Oof. During my PT, I got this right, and on BR, I got this wrong.

I was stuck between B and D but later picked D, thinking that it showed more clearly how less strokes on the right side would be diagnosed if doctors were only aware of strokes based on what they knew about the left side.

However, I realize that B is the right answer because just because the symptoms are different does not mean that the right side strokes would be diagnosed less. That was me working under the assumption that the number of strokes on both sides were the same already; which is what B states.

Basically, I need to be careful when it comes to assuming things that aren't warranted. I thought that B wasn't strong enough to show why the right side strokes wouldn't be caught as much; but B does show how if most are diagnosed in the left, then some of the right side would be left out. D brings in new information that goes too far beyond what the stimulus gives us.

I got this question wrong on a PT about two months ago but I just did it blind and got it right.

I think what makes this question difficult is that we think our goal is to show how this cannot be a speaking staff; however, we want to show how the artifact cannot be a COMMUNAL OBJECT. Saying it's a mace doesn't show how it's not a communal object, but if communal objects are meant to be passed around, then they wouldn't be buried in a tomb.

Somehow got 8/8 on this passage but barely; my reasoning for 19, 20, and 21.

19. messed with me because I didn't see how C or D were ever mentioned, and was scared that A was a stretch. However, I realized that the author explains how physicists can monitor radiation by using soot or whatever so they know what is the radiation from the object and what's not from it. I realized that if they have to use soot to be confident, then it must be difficult without it.

I didn't see C or D at all in the second paragraph because it never discussed temperature. I think this is hinging on us assuming that because the second paragraph is talking about THERMAL radiation, there would be temperature involved somehow.

20. was stuck between A and E. I picked E because I realized there was never some strong admiration from the author. Furthermore, the author never calls Planck's reasoning "intuitive."

21. Picked D, almost went to E. D is right because Planck is not told to contribute to CLASSICAL wave theory; he contributes to the theories we use now. I was really nervous on this question, but I realize that E is absolutely answered in the last paragraph, where it states that Einstein came up with a theory after the other scientists found what happens with metal surfaces. This is difficult because it's never explicitly stated as an experiment.

On Q24, the passage states that the need to revise is widely recognized never explicitly, but it's an implicit understanding based on what's discussed in the passage. We're told that two parties are conflicting with their interests, and current laws don't give us a definitive answer. Furthermore, the whole passage revolves around why the laws don't work and why the solution some people suggest wouldn't work. Based on that, there's an understanding that something needs to change because you can't just let two parties sit in conflict for the rest of time, but it's difficult to come to an explanation.

missed 27 and 28 bc i entirely forgot the sentence ab academics lmfao what an L

Super late, doing this for my own understanding!

E is not something the author would agree with. This is because the author notes how intellectual authority does conflict with precedent in the last paragraph; they say that the doctrine of precedent would be institutional if it was not for the intellectual ability of judges to reconsider, revise, etc. So, intellectual authority does conflict with previous rules / decisions; because they have the ability to rethink what was previously thought or decided, which is a conflict.

The author also agrees with institutional authority never conflicting with precedent because we know that the only thing that makes the doctrine of precedent have intellectual power is the judge's ability to reconsider things. So institutional authority never conflicts with precedent, because the intellectual power is the only thing that stops it from being entirely institutional.

Hi! I believe that B still strengthens the argument because if the government is obliged to take measures to stop people from hurting themselves, then it makes sense as to why they want to impose some liability fee.

It's not about how to proposal causes people to stop from climbing; it's moreso about why the proposal is justified. In this stimulus, we are trying to justify why the proposal is valid; not that the proposal will make people stop getting hurt.

Hi! This is super late, but I ended up picking B over D. However, during BR, I almost switched over.

What I realized is that D assumes that cognitive psychotherapy helps change beliefs; we don't know that. We only know that it focuses on it. Focuses is not the same as helping.

Furthermore, B is stronger because it shows how the therapy is not effective unless you focus on the things directly under a patient's control. We know that only cognitive psychotherapy does that, so it would make the other forms guaranteed to be weaker / worse.

Following to say that this is why I picked D, because I thought that they just didn't want a decrease. I knew D was bad because of the "other countries," but saw how it was closer to how I interpreted the argument. I'm wondering if we both read the stimulus incorrectly?

Hi! I don't think this is an error on behalf of the test. I say this because we know that Passage B has a rule that explicitly states that selling anything coming from the UCH is banned. (Point #2). Passage A also states that archaeologists are very against selling recovered artifacts because it will inhibit analysis and public display.

So, to strengthen this standpoint, we have to show how selling or offering to sell the artifacts will inhibit analysis and public display. That is AC B; because if selling the artifacts causes people to want to steal from the site, then we lose the chance of analysis and public display. (In better English: If people go and steal an artifact, scientists can't analyze the artifact and the museums can't display it, because it's literally stolen.)

E is not correct because it is not about disturbing human remains; the stance of the critics for the for-profit archaeology are silent on that. They are concerned with how selling the artifacts can lose the chance of displaying them.

Hi! I got this question right and picked this AC because of what is implicitly inferred. Something that has really helped me with difficult RC passages like this one is also understanding what the tone / jist is from the authors.

Passage B talks about monetary vs. nonmonetary value with the point #2, which states that the commercial exploitation is banned from UCH. This is monetary vs. nonmonetary value because it says spending money or selling is absolutely incompatible with UCH.

I knew this was where it discussed monetary vs. nonmonetary value because obviously they find that the excavations are valuable - why else would they encourage noninvasive or nondestructive public access to UCH, and why else would they require that the methods and techniques used have to be nondestructuve? They obviously think there's value, but they do not want any monetary value.

On the flip side, POE can also help here. You can cross out AC A because Passage A never talks about shipwrecks and other UCH, You can cross out AC B because Passage B never talks about legal and international agreements, You can cross out AC D because B does not talk about government ownership and private ownership, and you can cross out AC E because Passage A does not talk about situ preservation. You're left with C.

Let me know if I can explain this better!

This section spit on me and called me stupid. I did this RC passage a month ago and went -4, and just did it again, and went -3, but on different questions lmao.

Let's goooo. C is right because it directly shows how the mild winter caused a larger population. If the birds are more vulnerable by feeders, the mild winter prevented them from being eaten, causing the population to be larger than usual. A is wrong because just because a winter was mild does not mean it was unusual. That is another assumption the test makers want us to make.

Starting to see how the strengthen / weaken questions are really preying on us making unwarranted assumptions.

I think what makes this question difficult is that it's easy to go autopilot and make assumptions without actually parsing the ACs. I almost picked A, but realized it was wrong when I realized that the stimulus talked about exposure during infancy; and only E speaks to that.

D is the right answer and they want you to glaze over how it says that half of people are given the pill and half are given a fake one, because they want you assume that that equates no change. However, it doesn't resolve anything. That's like saying that 1/2 of a study took a red pill, 1/2 of a study took a blue pill, and claiming that that explains why nobody had any changes by taking the red pill.

personally found this passage much harder than a measly 2/5 lol

how did i go -0 on this and every other passage but for clay tablets i tanked to -4....

Here to tell you that if you're struggling now, it will get better. I first learned SA back in May, and literally went 5/22 on all of these lessons. I just did this over as quick review, and went 21/22 pretty quickly. SA and NA really take time to understand and really comes to just repetition and letting things click when they do. I say this as someone who was sobbing over these concepts a few months ago. Just hang in there, and if you put the work in, you'll start to see how to answer these!

This passage spit on me and called me stupid. Can anyone explain why 18. is D? I thought that the biological concept states that a species can be defined as a group that is isolated from those in the wild and don't interbreed. So how would D be right, by saying two populations should be classified because they interbreed when they're different? I also thought that the lumpers use biological concepts to say that similar species should be together. D says how the two species are different.

I do get the subtle definition of what it means to lump things together, but I just don't get how that's strong enough to go against what the text said.

Also, if someone can explain 21 better, I'd appreciate it.

I see why 16. C is right, can someone explain why B is wrong?

Hi! I got this wrong the first time by picking E, but I realized D was in my review. Here's my reasoning. Let me know if it's confusing!

In Passage A, the author talks about how insider trading laws have made it illegal to make stock transactions, or help others make them, based on your position inside a company. That is a roundabout way of telling us the definition of insider trading.

The author tries to justify their argument by saying that trading based on what you know is the definition of a functioning stock market. The author says that it's legal to analyze a stock, realize it's overvalued, and sell it. What tells me that they are comparing this to I.T is the next sentence "You are taking advantage of knowledge that many others do not have." The author is trying to show how I.T is the same as analyzing a stock.

AC B's phrase "Acquisition of inside information" is the reworded version of that. I know that this is the reworded version because the author first said that I.T = analyzing. They see it as the same thing. The author also says that I.T is making transactions based on your position inside a company. Inside information = position inside a company. The same can be said for their comparison with analyzing a stock. We see this by the sentence again saying you take advantage of knowledge others don't have. That is also insider information because you have something that others do not.

As for the Passage B portion, they also contrast it with acquring inside information. Second paragraph says "IN INSIDER TRADING SITUATIONS some people make investment decisions based on information that others do not have." Information that others do not have = inside information. In the first paragraph, it says that success can only be gained by analyzing information. The author makes the contrast by saying that I.T is different than analyzing information, because I.T harms the market while analyzing information doesn't.

This is the best I could do; the comparison and contrast is super subtle and you only get it if you really understand what each author is saying, and how each author goes about saying that. I have no idea how I'd do this timed.