There's a 500 foot tall apple tree and it is impossible for humans to pick any apples.

A machine is created to help get the apples off the tree

It manages to get all the apples, but still can't reach most of the apples in the upper 50 feet. Did it fail to achieve its intended purpose?

I think D may be an attractive answer choices for some.

With NA questions, it is critically important to remember to consider relevance though.

With this argument, we are considering cardiac health, which potassium can help with. If potassium has few negative side effects, that is great and gives us all the more reason to follow this advice. If, on the other hand, potassium causes people to break out in hives, become irritable, become fatigued, and lose their appetites this definitely sucks. This is also a multitude of side effects and goes against answer choice D. Does it wreck the argument though? No, because it doesn't change the fact that it maintains good cardiac health.

"Hopefully you didn't spend much time on it" : JY

>spends 3 mins on the question< : me

Such a good question.

If the obligation not to cut down trees deals only with our obligation to trees, this is a fine argument. If we have an obligation, it must have rights. Trees don't have rights, so we don't have an obligation to them. Let's cut them down.

The only way to get this is to realize that the "obligation to not chop down trees" may not just be based on an obligation to the tree as an entity. If one steps back, and looks at the bigger picture, it is kind of preposterous that the tree would be the only thing we consider. What if this tree provides habitat for an endangered species? Now the obligation is not solely based on the obligation to the tree and the argument is wrecked.

Complex, but simple at the same time.

My reasoning:

some people say IP → FOT

BUT also.......... IP→ ID

So it can't be the case that IP → FOT

Immediately, we know we are going to be linking FOT and ID then... Get rid of A/B/D

Logically, we can anticipate this right answer choice so we don't fall into the E trap... Think, why is the argument saying that it can't be the case that IP → FOT if IP → ID? Well simply because they exist in a not both rule. If we have ID, we can't have FOT and if we have FOT we can't have FOT

Answer choice C correctly outlines this.

Going to try to reason this out a little more intuitively.

So the argument is saying that there's a difference between beauty and truth because if this were no difference, the most realistic would be the best. But the most realistic often isn't the best.

First thing I think is that most truthful and most realistic are equivalent to each other.

Second thing I think is how it is weird that they're saying "if this were true, the most realistic would be the best". One has to ask Well how can they just arbitrarily conclude this? . They conclude this because if Beauty = Truth then everything that for everything that is beautiful, truthfulness tags onto it. Whenever you see beauty, you see truth as they're are inseparable.

They're out here concluding that if this were true, the most realistic would be the best because being realistic/truthful tags onto beauty. At this point, the necessary assumption is glaring, but one needs to put it into words.

What is pretty much being said is that it actually isn't the case that beauty = truth because many of the most truthful/realistic aren't the best. Well then the necessary assumption here must be that the most beautiful are the best, and since we don't see most truthful/most realistic tag following along, then beauty must not equal truth.

Incredibly hard to explain the intuition

→ We can draw a “Some” relationship with most statements that have the same sufficient, but these don’t even have the same sufficient.

→ Consider how ridiculous our argument here is:

 Say there’s 3 employees at Compujack. 2/3 are programmers hence the most statement.

 Now consider all the programmers in the world. Say there’s 1,000,000 of them. 500,001 receive excellent salaries. Why would we be able to conclude that of those 500,001 programmers, one of them must be a compujack programmer. Both the compujack programmers could fall in the other 499,999.

Answer choice A lines up with this perfectly:

If I consider Molly to have 3 classmates and 2/3 of them are gardeners. Then I consider all the gardeners in the world which is 1,000,000 gardeners. Just because 500,001 of the gardeners in the world have a great deal of patience does not mean that the at least one of the gardeners in Molly's class is going to be in this category.

A way to make this argument valid would be something like:

-- Most of the employees at compujack are programmers

-- Most of the employees at compujack receive an excellent salary

and

-Most of Molly's classmates are gardeners

-Most of Molly's classmates have excellent patience.

The sufficient lines up for both these scenarios, therefore we can conclude a valid "some" statement for programmers/salaries and gardeners/patience.

Some people are saying something along the lines of “USSR splits up and creates more countries. They implement tariffs and free trade is reduced”.

Economist says these small EX-USSR countries aren’t going to consider themselves self-sufficient so it won’t increase barriers of free trade.

--- Well what increased barriers in the first place? Tariffs!

--- So he must be assuming that countries that don’t consider themselves self-sufficient do not implement tariffs.

--- C is the contrapositive of the above statement.

I have a question here about JY's interpretation of answer choice A.

It seems like JY interprets it as "Well, the mythical creature is 50% human and 50% horse, and the argument is failing to consider if the violent and savage characteristics ascribed to it are really about the human rather than the horse".

The way I interpret it is "The argument is pretty much just assuming that the mythical creature here is an accurate representation of the what humans actually think of horses. In other words, it doesn't provide any proof that humans consider real horses in the same way they consider these mythical creatures".

I guess you one could stretch it and extrapolate the way I interpreted it, which would lead to JY's explanation in a very roundabout way. But I think there's also the consideration that the mythical creature is just a mythical creature. It doesn't represent sub-conscious views of either a horse or a human. I am more inclined to think that the way answer choice A is worded, that this is the actual flaw that it's describing. Take a look at the comment 4 years ago from user "Accounts Playable". It touches on a similar thing.

I'm curious to hear other opinions. #help

So this could easily be made into a sufficient assumption question in which the answer would be profits can be sufficient to motivate risky investments only if these profits are the highest among all industries. This would allow us to run the contrapositive back and conclude excessively burdensome.

Interesting how questions are so related.

B would be okay if it said:

All corporations take time allow any employee with a cold bad enough that they can't concentrate on their work to take time off. But people under too much stress concentrate even less on their work than these people with bad colds.

I think it is too easy to get caught up in the mumble jumble at the end of B. Also, the some corporations should be a sign that something is a little off.

Interpreted this as a MSS except type miscellaneous thing rather than a MBF and it absolutely wrecked me.

1. Well why will putting collective goals over individual goals cause slow emergence? Seems like just a random conclusion to throw out here.

2. Well putting collective goals must be a factor in the thing that causes a slow emergence.

4. Okay, what causes slow emergence then?

3. We know this: Rapid Emergence → New Investment → Confidence

4. We just run the contrapositive back and see that lack of confidence or lack of investment will lead to slow emergence.

5. Leads us straight to D like a bullseye

Intuitively, it makes sense too. If we are in a recession, it means our current output is less than our potential output. They're saying, in order to rapidly emerge, we must have new investment. Investment spurs output. Obviously to have this investment, there needs to be a certain degree of business confidence though. If there's no confidence in the markets, nobody is going to invest. And boom, nobody invests, we don't emerge quickly. Our job is strictly to take our stupid out of the blue conclusion and plop it in right at the start of our contrapositive chain.

1. Believing that humans can't look after themselves harms democracy

2. Therefore, we should not prohibit laws that allow stupid behaviour that is only self-harming

Just take a step back here. We are clearly making the assumption that if we prohibit a law that allows self-harming behaviour, we are believing that humans can't look after themselves.

Think about if we were not believing this. We wouldn't even have an argument. "Believing that humans can't look after themselves harms democracy. Well then, who cares if we prohibit these laws prohibiting people from doing stunt bungee jumps off of skyscrapers?? When we're making these laws, we wouldn't be assuming that humans can't look after themselves, therefore we aren't hurting democracy, therefore we are A-okay"

Rekt.

"It is imprudent to cause people to resent you"

1. Forming opinions of others only after doing careful research etc... is prudent.

2. It causes people to resent you

3. Let's negate the AC and say "It is not imprudent to cause people to resent you".

4. With this assumption negated, now argument makes no sense. How is it imprudent to be prudent if causing people to resent you isn't imprudent? The argument only makes sense if it is imprudent to cause people to resent you. BECAUSE then, by being prudent in choosing your friends, you are being imprudent in causing people to resent you.

The last part was key for me

Wow... Cannot believe I read this as a weakening question

The question I asked myself to get this was

"If you're more likely to commit transgressions due to all this stuff, but committing transgressions is not linked to ignoring welfare in any way (negation of B), how could committing transgressions amplify tendency to ignore welfare"

Premises:

Poet → Writer with PPE → Sometimes use words ambiguously

Conclusion:

For any poetry reader at all to enjoy something, they don’t have to precisely understand what the poet means.

Analysis

Well if the poet uses words ambiguously, then readers aren't obviously aren't going to precisely understand what the poet means. This argument goes further, however. It states that everyone still enjoys the poetry. So using words ambiguously isn't bad. It may cause readers to not understand what the poet means, but it never hinders enjoyment.

Therefore no writer who ever uses words ambiguously has any reader whose enjoyment depends on attaining a precise understanding of what the writer means.

Really did not like this question. I was between B and E and went with B.

B To me, preparing the soil should always come after deciding plants. Different plants have different moisture and soil nutrient requirements. One should decide what plants they will be planting, and choose soil second. This way, it's possible to choose the appropriate soil (e.g. a mineral based soil vs. an organic topsoil with a thick humus layer). Naturally, I would think choosing soil first is working backwards.

I do see how E is right, but B being wrong bothers me.

Took me a while to understand what question 10 i asking.

Pretty much, the answer choices are all going to say Passage A does one thing and Passage B does not do that thing or vice versa. Definitionally, this is what not parallel means. If the question stem were to ask how they are parallel, we would be looking for an answer choice where they're both doing the same thing (E.g. psg A does this and so does psg B)

Now that we've figured out the question stem, all that needs to be done is evaluate the answer choices for truthfulness/correctness. Obviously they're going to present all 5 answers as not parallel situations. It's up to us to decipher which of these situations actually occurs in the passage.

A Passage A presents and rejects arguments for an opposing position whereas passage B does not. This is inaccurate of A. Like B, A does not do this. Therefore they can't be not parallel in this sense

B Passage A makes evaluative claims, whereas passage B does not. Actually, they both make evaluative claims. Therefore they can't be not parallel in this sense

C Passage A describes specific examples of a phenomenon it criticizes whereas passage B does not. Yes, this is true. Passage A does this and passage B doesn't. They're not parallel in this sense

D Passage B offers criticism whereas passage A does not This is inaccurate. They both offer criticism

E Passage B outlines a theory, whereas passage A does not Neither of them outline a theory

It should be clear that the 4 wrong answer choices (A,B,D,E) are parallel and then the LSAT writers changed one aspect of them to make them not parallel as answer choices. All four wrong answer choices say "One does this and the other does not do this", whereas in actuality it is either "They both do this" or "They both don't do this". Answer choice C is the only answer choice that holds true to what's actually going on in the passage. Passage A does this and indeed, passage B does not do this. Therefore, they're not parallel in this way.

Stimulus

We can't place blame on people for feeling certain emotions.

They are responsible for what is under their control and these emotions are not controllable.

Okay, so... why can't we place blame on them then? The premise doesn't really answer that.

The assumption has to be "We can't place blame if they're not responsible" alternatively "If we place blame, they must be responsible".

Not our conclusion can be logically drawn that they're not responsible, so we can't place blame.

Was between C and D

Eventually discounted D because I actually flipped the argument in my head (in favour of typological theory) to someone saying "Since the biological theory count sibling species as distinct species, it is unacceptable". These typological theory advocates would be be wondering how the hell two butterflies that look exactly alike are different species. According to their theory, they look the same so they are the same species.

In essence, both the argument above and the argument in the stimulus are presupposing the truth of their own way to define theory. If classification doesn't fit into the mold of the theory that they believe to be true, they discard it.

NA assumption question which means that we should be even be more curious and active in analyzing the stimulus. We want to anticipate.

So... stimulus

Ecological problems are simple. They're basically supply and demand. Earth supplies the resources such as coal/oil/wood and we demand it. Obviously supply is limited to the capacity earth has to produce these resources, but we could theoretically demand unlimited coal. This all makes pretty good sense. So the argument is saying that to solve these simple ecological problems, let's just reduce our demand so it is balanced with supply.

Glaring necessary assumption is that we actually have a demand that exceeds supply. If we negate this and demand < supply, supply and demand clearly isn't even the issue here. AC C.

If happiness is elusive and can only be obtained after years of sustained effort, Deirdre is indeed changing the definition here.

Walking on a sunny afternoon does not entail years of sustained effort.

So C.

Not A → If it were A, she would be saying something like "These philosophers are crazy with phoney credentials, so we shouldn't trust what they say".

Not B → B seems pretty generic, but how would taking this into account do anything. "Simply walking along the seashore on a sunny afternoon causes many people to experience feelings of happiness. It may not for some though". This doesn't change the argument at all, but adds a rather useless piece of info.

Not D → Deirdre doesn't do this. She says that many philosophers argue this. The philosophers aren't even really presuming it. They are arguing it, aka making a case for the point.

Not E → Just way off. There's no group involved.

Hey, if I were you I would go and listen to the 7SAGE podcast. J.Y. addresses this in podcast #15!