Hello! I’m coming across this several years later. I’m wondering if you’d be willing to share what ended up happening with you (if you see this). It'd be greatly helpful for me as I am navigating similar difficulties. Thanks so much!

I found Q11 very challenging. I eliminated (D) because I assumed it is going further than what the author has claimed. The answer seems to be playing on two clauses from the final sentence:

(1) "Because knowledge of genre is acquired,..."; and

(2) it is advisable "to first consider how viewers process cinematic images and eventually come to accept them as conventions before generalizing...."

I focused on (2) when answering Q11, thinking that the author does not go as far as so say HOW audiences come to view images as conventions, but merely advises that scholars like Bordwell ought to consider this "how". In the video JY refers to sentence (1) as perhaps the giveaway to why (D) is correct, but is it fair to assume that "knowledge of genre is acquired" warrants an assumption that the author would agree that "audiences learn to accept cinematic conventions PRIMARILY through repeated exposure"? It feels like a far jump... it seems like the author does not know HOW the audience acquire these conventions.

I did not like any of the answers, exactly as JY stated, and ended up thinking perhaps (B) is correct (though I also see why it is NOT), but any #help or #feedback from a tutor on how to understand this would be very appreciated. Questions like this drain my time and are super discouraging.

Aah, I misread the stimulus to say that "most of the people who got sick that day had not come into contact with the bacteria in question" so obviously, only B, and barely so, could resolve the discrepancy that I made up....

My advice is to just put your head down and keep going. It is about reaching the potential that you believe you have. It isn't about all the other scores. I don't know if you should cancel or not (my hunch is not), but honestly, shut out the noise, and keep working. Otherwise, it is too demoralizing - so many entry points for negative thinking.

I think about NA questions like covering a hole in the bottom of a ship (the argument) to prevent it to from sinking.

So when you negate a NA, you pierce a hole in the boat, and when you state a NA, you cover it up the bottom of the boat.

#Help: What does it mean, and example of, to "concede one of the major assumptions on which an argument depends"?

I struggled to understand why (B) is wrong, so I broke it down for myself this way, and sharing in case helpful for anyone else:

The crux of this argument is: The author concludes that it is not true that CEOs BEHAVE a certain way BASED on a poll of claim made by CEOs.

Premise/Support: Stats about claim made by CEO

Conclusion: About behavior of CEOs

(i.e. Author assumes that claims made by CEO warrants/allows a conclusion about CEOs behavior).

Answer choice (B) states that "one is not indifferent" while the conclusion is about "behaving indifferently." I think the key here is that to BE indifferent and to BEHAVE indifferently are two different concepts.

Answer choice (D) picks up on this and says: Just because the poll shows that CEOs make a certain claim does NOT mean that this claim is reflected in their behavior. As Kevin says in video: there is such a thing as lying...

I read (B) to be saying what (A) is saying, but for some reason, when I read (A) it didn't hit me that it was saying what it is saying. I chose (B) immediately because it hit at the gap I sensed when I read the stimulus. A lesson on importance of articulating the gap we "sense" when doing difficult flaw questions. It matters.

This question and comments on it made me reflect on answer choices for difficult weaken questions.

It seems that when evaluating answer choices for such questions we should first ask that if we were to assume that the statement made by the answer choice must be true, does it become powerful enough to weaken the argument or shake up the relationship between the premises and conclusion? Perhaps this way, we can turn attention to how strong or weak the statement being made is, and hence, its potential to disrupt the relationship btwn premise and conclusion.

(similar to how in Must Be True q's, we eliminate and do not choose a "could be true" answer.)

For this Q, for example, if we take answer (D) at face value and say it must be true, then it affects the argument more than (C), because C is about common/uncommon customs, while D is about violating etiquette (not merely doing something different from common etiquette).

I don't know if this works, but I am trying to make sense of these odd questions, because otherwise I will sccumb to cynical surrender.

I mean answer choice B is not great at all, but D just seems to introduce way too many outside assumptions, even for a PSA question. I was so surprised that it was the right answer.

Nowhere in the stimulus do we have any hint about Traintrack having ordinary food because its location does not necessitate that it improve its food quality. Maybe no matter where it is located it simply cannot improve its food quality and this is the best that it can do and the fact of its location is mere coincidence. and Marva’s is exceptional not because it needs to compensate for its location, but because it simply has the best chefs in the country.

I could not have made all these connections during times test. #Feedback

I found that rephrasing the question helped me streamline what to look for. So instead of the convoluted way it is asked, I thought: which of the following principles is consistent with the newspaper's behaviour?

Not sure if this is correct, but felt easier to sort through answers this way.

That "too" in the last sentence has more power than it should....It made (B) more appealing to me during BR, as though the author is implying that the proponents are also at fault for the very thing they critique.

Of course, reading closely and focusing on the actual content of what is being said shows that this is not the case.

That "too" in the last sentence has more power than it should....It made (B) more appealing to me during BR, as though the author is implying that the proponents are also at fault for the very thing they critique.

Of course, reading closely and focusing on the actual content of what is being said, shows that this is not the case.

I think (A) hits at the analogy being made by the argument. I read it as essentially saying that there isn't something special or particular to resident physicians that controllers and operators do not have, which, had it existed, the analogy could not be drawn out.

I wonder if (B) is not the correct answer also because it merely lists one possible way in which the polls have no substantial effect on elections, and this alone cannot negate or weaken all three other reasons in the argument for why polls negatively effect elections, and hence call for ban on their publication.

Also, B does not specify when to ban the polls, as in not "during the week prior to an elections," but makes a more general statement instead. Could this be another fault? #Feedback

Just imported several PTs. This feature is great - it updated all my stats and areas of weakness. Thank you so much for making this possible!

Did anyone else infer the wrong author position/tone while doing this passage?

For some reason, I read this twice, and still completely missed the mark that the author is presenting evidence against Temple's causation hypothesis, and read it as an attempt to advocate for, or at the very least present, T's attempts to prove the hypothesis. This made me miss the mark on so many of the questions - unusual for me.

I read the counter examples as mere critiques/counters to Temple's hypothesis, and, for some reason, did not catch on to the author presenting them as attempts to show the unlikelihood of T's hypothesis.

Would love a tutor's #help with or #feedback on this!

I can completely relate to the negative emotions the red marks trigger, as many others do, I am sure. But I think it is imperative to emotionally disconnect from your results, That is, even the green marks trigger us emotionally sometimes, and I think that neither triggers are conducive to progress. I think it is best not to take any results to be a reflection of yourself, capabilities, or potential, and merely look at it as a factual result that reflect your command over the test. This might actually free up your energy so you can invest it into focusing on what your thought process is when getting answers wrong, how might you change you process or attune it, what might you be missing here and there, and putting in the effort to just go through the process, sincerely. How is your working schedule and environment? Your lifestyle and study habits.etc. Focus on those elements.

Ultimately, instead of thinking that the score you want is farfetched, you can just simply think that you are not there yet, and believe that you will get there.

I don't know if any of this will help, but I genuinely think that the discourse around law school admissions can be unnecessarily harmful and noisy. This is a test with a trainable skill, and it takes the time that it takes for every individual. There is no need for us to be looking for signs from a test to tell us whether we can or cannot make it down a path we desire or if we "have what it takes." Even if you don't currently have what it takes to do as well as you want to on this test, through practice you can eventually get what it takes. Just put your head down, do sincere attentive work, rest when needed, shut out the unnecessary noise, learn to be patient and smart with a learning process, and keep working till you get what you want, regardless of how long it takes.

I chose (C) and see questions in the comments about it (albeit from 4 years ago..), but thought to share the faults I identified in the answer choice, in case helpful:

--1) It is making statement about "services" in general and not "various services", as the stimulus does. So it is more exaggerated.

--2) It is assuming that in addition to new customers, the bank would offer services at no charge to all its customers (so old, and new, loyal and not loyal).

If it is true that offering services to all its customers is prohibitively expensive, then the author's argument is potentially weakened, because it shows that perhaps offering services at no charge ONLY to new customers (instead of all customers) is a good business plan, and not "not an ideal business," as author argues.

In question 18, the correct answer states that both authors agree that:

• lack of judicial candor "could conceivably have positive benefits under certain circumstances"

While in question 20, the correct answer states that the authors would disagree (they do not both believe) that:

• "judicial candor is an obligation that can be overruled in certain circumstances"

It feels like these two answers are contradictory, and I am trying to parse out why they are not.

I don't see how Auth A agrees that lack of judicial candor could conceivably have positive effects. My sense is that at best Author A's opinion about this is unstated. It only presents other people's argument about this, and don't we always have to differentiate between (and no conflate) author's and other ppl's arg?

I'd appreciate any insight on this. #Help #Feedback

I feel the explanation is not getting an important difference between the two scenarios.

Shouldn't it be that if it is true that Selena does not have psychic powers → then we cannot determine whether it is possible to have psychic powers??

That is, in negation, the conclusion is NOT about psychic powers not existing, but rather that we cannot determine their existence, because we do not have proof they exists.

In other words:

If Selena has psychic powers ---> we can determine that it is possible to have psychic powers

Contrapositive:

If we cannot determine that it is possible to have psychic powers ---> then Selena does not have psychic powers (and therefore we do not have proof from Selena that it might be possible to have psychic powers)

I chose A because it made the most intuitive sense, but still something seems to be missing. It seems that "it is possible to have psychic power" is a missing third premise that is not showing up in diagramming this...

Any #feedback on this would be appreciated!

I believe answer choice (C) preys on those who might assume that "most consumer would not care" in the application is NOT equivalent to most consumers "are not upset," in the principle and hence erroneously concluding that the application is flawed for using a value judgement (not caring) different from the principle (not upset).

As JY states in the explanation video, the assumption of "not care" = "not upset" is an implicit one the test taker needs to deduce, and I see it as sort of a hurdle that must be surpassed in order to see the other flaw.

Okay, in case it is helpful to anyone struggling with A, after watching/reading many explanations, it seems that crux of why A is right is this:

Just because the majority of people oppose tariffs, does not automatically translate into these people voting based on their preference about tariffs.

That is: If 80 people out of 100 are opposed to tariffs, 70 of them might base their vote for a politician on policies re education funding and immigration, and not care much about pol's stance on tariffs (i.e. they oppose tariffs, but in the grand scheme of things, it is not an important policy topic to them). Only 10 might actually base their vote on their opposition to tariffs.

Whereas the 20 people who support tariffs only care about a politician's stance on tariffs and it is the single most determinant policy on which they base their vote.

If so, then the politician's stance against tariffs would win over the votes of only 10 of the 80 tariff opponents, but a politician's stance for tariffs would win over the 20 tariff proponents. i.e. the conclusion is failed.

I immediately caught the gap about "normal-appearing" insects, but still was stuck between (C) and (E), because (C) still appeals to the premise that forgers are aware that animal-containing amber have higher value, and then the conclusion states that it is more likely then, based on this, that amber is more likely to be fake if contains insects (regardless if grotesque or normal-appearing) than if they do not.... so I felt like (C) spoke directly to the link between that premise and the conclusion, in that, yes, if indeed it costs more to have amber with insects in them than plants, then would this not strengthen the argument that forgers do indeed have incentive to include insects in amber, raising the likelihood of it being fake?

I don't know, I really was so torn, because I also saw why (E) is right, but I thought maybe E is irrelevant, or more of a necessary assumption answer than a strengthen. I'd appreciate any #help with this.

The difficulty here truly is knowing what "economies of expression" and "verbosity" mean.