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mdsmith013859
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mdsmith013859
Monday, Mar 31 2014

I too work 40+ hours/wk with the unscheduled OT a law firm offers. I'm often too drained to want to waste fresh material on the mush that my brain is after a day of work, so I take probably 2-3 lunches per week to just study and then I do as much as I can take on the weekends. I started a the beginning of February aiming for the June 9 test, and I think I'm going to be ready. If i'm not hitting my floor target score of 170 by then, I'll just eat the registration fee and keep prepping until the October test. Wish I had started studying December or so.

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PT107.S2.P4.Q26
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mdsmith013859
Saturday, Mar 29 2014

For question 26, the quantitative studies can't be done because the work described in (B) hasn't been done... How is that just words strung together? Since nobody was interested in doing the work, the court documents haven't been published, which prevents the quantitative studies from bein undertaken... confused. Maybe (B) can't be right because the court documents don't need to be edited?

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mdsmith013859
Tuesday, Apr 29 2014

Jonathan does that apply to chrome as well?

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mdsmith013859
Monday, Apr 28 2014

I am having trouble both with the translations and applying the logic. I think I just need to practice the translations more and then really actually master the valid and invalid inferences

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PT106.S1.Q25
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mdsmith013859
Thursday, Mar 27 2014

This question is driving me crazy. I watched the video and read the comments below and I still don't see how what Engle says give us any clues at all about what kind of effects McKinley is talking about (or what kind of effects Engle interprets McKinley to be talking about).

When Engle says "that conclusion," he's referring to the conclusion that a double-blind study cannot be performed on this drug. Why? Because we will be able to tell who took the placebo and who tool the drug. Why would be be able to tell? Because the drug will have various effects on the patients' bodies. That's the outcome Engle thinks McKinley is assuming, that the drug will have various effects on the patients' bodies. What kind of effects? I have no idea. No clues lead me to think it will be any particular effect. Why do we know these effects will exist? I have no idea.

It seems to me like therapeutic and side effects are conjured out of thin air. Help :(

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PT124.S4.P4.Q24
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mdsmith013859
Monday, May 26 2014

For 24, I don't see any support in the passage for using pesticides? I knew I was making a leap with D because I had no idea whether T-mites harm the strawberries, but the author definitely thinks using predators is generally more effective than pesticides (because the author says the features of the T-mites are common). I decided it was better to make that leap than to make the leap toward thinking the author supported pesticides. I don't see where the author offers ANY alternative in the case where predators prove inadequate.

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PT124.S1.Q8
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mdsmith013859
Monday, May 26 2014

I'm failing to grasp how a study that wasn't robust enough for any conclusions regarding *a causal relationship* says anything about *findings related to correlation.*

The argument seeks to explain a correlation, that infants who slept with a night light tended to be nearsighted as young children but the effect disappeared as they aged. Choice (D) doesn't say anything at all to make me doubt the correlation related findings in the latter two studies, it just says we can't use the the two studies to make any causal conclusions.

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PT137.S3.Q25
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mdsmith013859
Sunday, May 25 2014

I used the method of looking at each choice and saying "Yes, No, Agnostic" for the each person. I put agnostic to A-C for Graham, so I ignored C when it came to Adelaide. I can see why D and E are wrong now, but I don't see how Graham attributes the victory to the computer. I don't see how Graham says anything at all related to C.

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PT111.S1.Q15
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mdsmith013859
Saturday, Feb 22 2014

Whoa whoa whoa. JY I know you said no LSAT answer is ever wrong given the scrutiny each question goes through, but this question does not have a correct answer. I can see how E does not strengthen the argument, but A does NOT provide support. One of the very first lessons in any Intro to Logic course is that an ad hominem attack is never a valid line of reasoning. Choice A does not say anything about the survey in question, it only attacks the conductor of the survey. Not only would no statistician worth anything ever use such a premise to convince someone to be skeptical of the survey, but neither would a logician.

How can this be? A and E both do not strengthen the statistician's argument. How can we then choose only one choice that does not strengthen the statistician's argument?

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PT113.S2.Q22
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mdsmith013859
Saturday, Apr 19 2014

So is B basically correct because it is the only answer choice that even addresses differing punishments?

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mdsmith013859
Monday, May 19 2014

Any thoughts on which to rely more on?

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mdsmith013859
Monday, May 19 2014

Kind of on this topic, when do we expect to receive the admissions tickets for the June 9 test?

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mdsmith013859
Sunday, May 18 2014

Where do these data come from? I've seen the ranges higher in other places like here http://lawschoolnumbers.com/.

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mdsmith013859
Sunday, May 18 2014

Definitely co-sign the first comment.

I thought I had hit a wall and then got my best score yet. For reading comprehension, one thing to do is make sure you're just reading a lot in the course of your life. Make sure you have a book/magazine you're into and read it on commutes (etc.), and actually practice reading, don't just fly through the story. Another thing that helps is actively listening to podcasts like Planet Money and Radio Lab. You can use these tool to practice evaluating arguments even when you're not "strictly studying."

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PT112.S1.Q25
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mdsmith013859
Wednesday, Apr 16 2014

Why is answer choice A so useless? It's presenting evidence that many people who exercise don't do so by choice, which calls into question the idea that sedentary lifestyles come from choices. The conclusion is all about people who choose to be sedentary.

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Monday, Mar 10 2014

mdsmith013859

Syllabus Format Change?

Has anyone noticed that the Syllabus looks different? The stars aren't yellow anymore, and it's hard to tell which lessons I have already done because all the check marks look the same. Is this something on my end or is anyone else noticing this? Please help! I forgot which lesson is next

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Sunday, Jun 08 2014

mdsmith013859

PT34.S2.Q01 - bad faith to researchers

http://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-34-section-2-question-01/

I’ve been struggling with questions like this. It’s clear that the author is using an attack on the character of the writer, but that part where (A) says “as evidence that this person is not competent on matters of scientific substance” is not descriptively accurate. The author’s argument doesn't mention R’s competence on matters of scientific substance, it only tries to say the _book_ doesn't merit professional attention.

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PT110.S2.Q1
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mdsmith013859
Sunday, Jun 08 2014

I've been struggling with questions like this. It's clear that the author is using an attack on the character of the writer, but that part where (A) says "as evidence that this person is not competent on matters of scientific substance" is not descriptively accurate. The author's argument doesn't mention R's competence on matters of scientific substance, it only tries to say the book doesn't merit professional attention.

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mdsmith013859
Wednesday, May 07 2014

I do the same as Al. If I discover another inference when doing that I also write that into my list of the rules.

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PT134.S1.Q15
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mdsmith013859
Friday, Jun 06 2014

(E) almost seems like a PSA answer choice, or no?

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PT134.S1.Q6
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mdsmith013859
Friday, Jun 06 2014

I feel like this explanation takes answer choice (E) as obvious too much for granted. (A) and (C) are clearly irrelevant, but (B), (D) and (E) all all deserve careful consideration. (B) is plausible because because we only know that the factors that create tornadoes haven't changed, we have no idea if the factors that influence tornado intensity have changed. If these latter factors have in fact changed and tornadoes have increased in average intensity, that would go a long way towards explaining the increase in recorded tornadoes, because more tornadoes would be obviously be noticed. A similar logic applies to (D). If the amount of property damage from tornadoes has grown substantially, that could definitely help explain why more are recorded, because more tornadoes would likely be noticed as well, for a reason made more explicit in (E), that more property damage could be occurring because there are more people, and thus more property subject to potential tornado damage. With just this information, (E) would be the best choice because it best explains the discrepancy. But that's not all we get. We also have the word "now" in (B) and (E), which should disqualify these choices. Who cares that there are more citizens or more intense tornadoes now? We're interested in a discrepancy recorded year over year, from 1953 up to now. (D) is the only plausible answer choice that allows for the explanation to explain the annually recorded increase. Knowing only that there are more citizens now doesn't help explain the real discrepancy at issue with any certainty whatsoever. Given the information provided, I have no idea, for instance, if the "many more citizens" came from a one year massive immigration that happened just last year. How could that help explain?

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PT104.S1.Q20
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mdsmith013859
Wednesday, Feb 05 2014

This is a good one to remind me not to bring in any outside information. "Of course limericks are poetry!" I thought. So it says it's not artistic, boom non-artistic poetry. Trap!

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mdsmith013859
Wednesday, Jun 04 2014

I was a Political Science major. I think it depends what state you want to work in. I know California requires a paralegal certification/class, but in DC i was able to get the job with just a BA.

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PT136.S1.P2.Q9
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mdsmith013859
Wednesday, Jun 04 2014

I read Passage B to be more ambivalent than Choice (B) in #9. The author kept asking questions and then presenting conflicting possible answers. So I chose (D), because Passage B does speak about both point-counting and holistic methods. I should have remembered that Passage A doesn't express an opinion about holistic methods, and not chosen it. But I didn't see another likely choice :( I just didn't feel like Passage B had an opinion on the likelihood of incorrect matches, it just seemed wholly skeptical.

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mdsmith013859
Friday, May 02 2014

Chrome is working at all. Mozilla has worked for me and IE ( i know...) has been working most of the time. I really need chrome back...

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PT111.S2.P4.Q24
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mdsmith013859
Wednesday, Apr 02 2014

Man, on Q24, the very first sentence of the passage threw me off. It says "Dworkin argues that judges are in danger of uncritically embracing and erroneous theory..." That line totally dominated my memory of the later line that JY points out about seeking to validate the practice.

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mdsmith013859
Monday, Jun 02 2014

You could apply to paralegal jobs. That's the route I took, and I know many of the paralegals at my firm plan to go to law school. It's a great way to get legal experience and also think about the reasons you actually want (or don't want) to be a lawyer.

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Sunday, Feb 02 2014

mdsmith013859

Print all attachments?

Hi,

New student here. I wanted to see, does anyone know of an easy to way to print out all of the materials for an upcoming lesson? If I could see and print all of the attachments (quizzes and such) that are part of each section, that would make the logistics much easier, because then I wouldn't have to spend as much time planning around access to a printer.

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