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me616
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LSAT · LR question
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me616
Thursday, Aug 03 2017

One way to think about this is intuitively. Say B out loud to yourself.

"If you are not in this house, then you will go to the party." Guess what? I live 200 miles away! I'm not going to your shitty party. If the sufficient condition is that I'm not in the house and the necessary condition thus implies that I MUST be at your party, then everyone in the world except for those in the house are now at your party. See what you did there?

"If you are in the house, then you will not go to the party" well there you go!

1

Hey all,

What's really tripping me up is that this question stem is written in the passive voice. The stem saying "could have remained unchanged in force and focus IF which one of the following had been advanced as a counterexample in place of the word 'absentee'" makes me believe that the original explanation wouldn't have to be amended if it weren't for the counter example of "absentee" being used. So I was trying to find a counter example that talked about an individual performing the action unilaterally, while not needing the explanation that resolves the impasse which is what I thought the question stem was asking me to do.

If the question stem was "the reasoning could remain unchanged in force and focus if which one of the following words is used in place of the word 'absentee'" rather than the goddamn passive voice, then it really would be much easier.

Can someone clear up my confusion? Am I just crazy???

Paging JY

https://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-27-section-4-question-22/

0
PrepTests ·
PT110.S2.Q7
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me616
Tuesday, Aug 01 2017

I didn't internalize the "only" part. If I did, it would make me think that I would have to connect habit to powerful temptation.

0
PrepTests ·
PT111.S4.Q23
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me616
Tuesday, Jul 18 2017

Here's a better way to look at why A is the wrong answer choice.

As one gets older, one gets wiser. Sure, so Henrietta could go through 5 years of her life and get a little bit wiser. However, imagine that her daughter goes through 3 years of her life and gets a lot wiser.

Generally, a tree, as it ages, will have a ring for each year its been around. Something tangible, unlike wisdom.

0
PrepTests ·
PT109.S4.Q21
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me616
Wednesday, Jul 12 2017

The way JY does it is a little whacky, so I'll try my best to give an explanation for this one.

Just like JY, I'm only going to diagram Terry's argument.

P1: Some actions considered to be bad have favorable consequences B←s→FC

P2: But an action is good only if (group 2: introduce necessary condition) it has favorable consequences G→FC

C: Some actions considered to be bad are actually good B←s→G

Let's put this into its complete logical form

B←s→FC

G→FC

B←s→G

So this is invalid. What would make it valid? If you answered /B←s→/G then you have a pretty good memory! Back to the chase though. Let's do some logical manipulation to end up at the correct answer choice.

Remember in a flaw question we look at the gap between the premises and the conclusion. If you identify that the logical form is incorrect in a flaw/descriptive weaken question, the correct answer choice will describe how the argument incorrectly arrives at the answer.

That's exactly what D does. It focuses on the second premise

FC←s→B (I flipped these around)

G→FC

B←s→G

D says "presupposing that if an action having a certain property (favorable consequences) is necessary (G→FC) for its being a certain type of action (good in this case), then having that property (favorable consequences) is sufficient for being that type of action (FC→G)."

Notice the FC→G. If that was the case, that would make the argument valid. So the argument presupposes that's the case in order to arrive at the conclusion B←s→G

Hope this helped anyone. (It took me a while to get to this)

4
PrepTests ·
PT101.S2.Q8
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me616
Tuesday, Jul 11 2017

I eliminated all other answer choices and was left with B. Here's the reasoning I came up with after the BR

P: "violent crimes are very rare occurrences"

C: "violent crimes are actually a rare occurrence"

BOOM! the premise up there presupposes the truth of the conclusion.

EXAMPLE

P1: Oranges have low crop yields

P2: The temperature in Florida has been very high this summer

C: Therefore, oranges have low crop yields

This case, the premise ALSO presupposes the truth of the conclusion

9
PrepTests ·
PT109.S4.Q4
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me616
Tuesday, May 30 2017

The stimulus says that she must have the ability. That does not mean that she has to have done it in order for her to be a great writer. For example, I have the ability to sit down and practice for the LSAT. That does NOT mean that I am going to sit down and practice for the LSAT.

7
PrepTests ·
PT111.S3.Q9
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me616
Sunday, Jan 29 2017

Right. So transitively, which of the following would strengthen the argument so that the premise to the conclusion is complete.

2

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