I did experience the same thing! Don't be discouraged! What I realized was while I could get away with prephrasing in earlier PT's, I couldn't in the new ones because there would be a trap AC sounding like a popular prephrase, but it would actually mean something else. So I needed to adjust the rigor of my prephrasing (and eventually switched to no-prephrasing, just understanding the argument and maybe spotting the gap if it's obvious approach. But you gotta experiment and practice to find the best approach for you). Overall I think the newer tests do require more flexibility and outside the box thinking. So don't underestimate the power of BR - make sure you really dig deep into questions that gave you difficulty by coming up with parallel arguments, etc. Basically you just need to practice and get used to the newer tests. Also maybe redo difficult questions from these PT's from time to time. In time, and especially if you decide go back to PT 50s or 60s, you'll notice that the questions haven't changed all that much. That's how it went for me and I eventually did fine, so hang in there!

This is golden. Thank you for taking the time to explain everything! Enjoy your internship and hopefully some well-deserved summer vacay.

Our conclusion is about how money was invented. From the premises we know that money is universal, meaning wherever we go, we'll find some form of money. How could this be? There are 2 possibilities:

1. Societies learned about money from their neighbors or travellers.

2. Societies invented money within themselves.

Our conclusion is saying that regardless of whether 1 occurred, it's probable that 2 occurred at least in some cases.

By mentioning geographical isolation, AC A is telling us that in at least some societies, 1 was not possible. It's also providing us with a necessary assumption for 2. Because if none of the societies were geographically isolated (negation of the some statement in AC A), they likely interacted with one another and so 2 becomes unlikely.

But the critical thing is that AC A is also a sufficient assumption. Knowing that money is universal AND that some societies were geographically isolated, it must be the case that some societies invented money within themselves.

So AC A is both necessary and sufficient for this argument to hold.

Takeaway: Weak language or the word 'some' does not prevent an AC from being a sufficient assumption!

I feel like this question requires separating 'beliefs' from 'facts'. We are told up front that there are 2 types of whales and their chatters differ. So when an AC mentions 'whales that only eat fish', we know that they're the cool ones and seals don't have to swim away. But the seals may not know that!! In fact we are concerned exactly with how the learning occurs. With this framework in mind, the 'mature seal' bit in AC C is no longer a cause for aversion.

My thoughts exactly...

Providing necessary assumptions as strengthening ACs is a strategy employed by LSAC to confuse us I think. Another example is PT 65 S4 Q22.

It works too because providing a missing NA really does make the argument better, even if it's by a tiny bit. And that's enough to make it a correct strengthening AC!

I can see this kind of logic applying in toxic workplaces. Oh look, our best employees are white males, so we should hire white male applicants!

Imagine you're an employee in this awful place and you want to teach your boss a lesson with your stellar argumentative skills. Which one would you pick as your comeback?

B) Well, maybe your sexist and racist ass hired mostly white males.

C) Most of our clients are white.

D) Most of the people who apply for a position in our company are not white.

E) Joe, John and James (who are all white males) are not very good at their jobs.

If B had said 'Ten years ago, at least 95% of all accidents on this highway were caused by automobiles going slower than 80 km.' that would have seriously weakened the argument. Because a cause similar to that of the speed limit is there (people who get in the accidents are already driving slower than 90 km), while the purported effect (decrease in accident rates) is not.

Conversely, the correct version of C would've provided an instance where the cause is missing (people drive like there is no speed limit), while the purported effect of decreased accidents is there. The way AC C currently is, it's not enough to show us that the speed limit is useless. The correct version of C could be 'Most people break the speed limit by driving as fast as they used to 10 years ago.' or alternatively 'Almost everyone on the highway exceeds the speed limit by at least 2x'

ACs A and D gave me serious trouble in this question. Here is my attempt at fixing them:

A) Bakery B already depends significantly less on tips to cover its operating costs than Bakery A.

D) Bakery A depends on tips to cover all of its operating costs not covered by the income from anthology sales, while Bakery B depends relatively less on tips.

Not great weakeners, but these versions would at least provide us with a point of dissimilarity. And they also poke a hole at the idea that potentially making more money from an anthology may not make the magazine depend less on donations.

Analogous argument:

Bakery A attends the annual cookie fest every year, where each one of their regular cookies are put on sale. The revenue they make in this fest covers most of their operating costs. Most cookies sold by Bakery B are similar to cookies sold by Bakery A. So Bakery B should also sell each one its regular cookies in this fest. This way, they can rely less on tips.

A) Neither Bakery A nor B depends on tips to cover most of their operating costs.

D) Bakery A depends on tips for most of its operating costs not covered by the revenue from the cookie fest.

E) Bakery A always makes several special, secret recipe cookies not contained on its regular menu for the cookie fest.

The flaw here wasn't readily clear to me although it seems like a basic one. It's sort of funny but an analogous argument could be something like:

Using facial cleansers by itself is an ineffective method against acne breakouts. However, they can be very effective if followed by an application of toner. Therefore to get clear skin, one should apply toner in addition to facial cleanser, rather than applying either one by itself.

I thought this explanation felt familiar from somewhere. JY talks about the intuitive approach to deal with exceptions in his explanation for question 5.

https://classic.7sage.com/lesson/quiz-complex-conditional-translations-4-w-answers/#comment-159756

Hey, I'm on the same boat! I'm also scoring in the mid/high 160's with an eye for the 170's. I would say with where you're currently scoring, there's no reason why you can't improve till test day with the right state of mind. I also remember reading about plenty of people scoring their highest on the real thing so fingers crossed!!

I'm definitely considering October as a back up like you, and while it's not ideal to re-take, I think it's comforting to know that you have another chance. Personally I don't think November is too late either. Also we can always apply to schools with our June scores and tell them upfront that we're also registered for October. And hopefully with a score jump we'll be in a better position afterwards. At least this is what feels reasonable to me right now but I'd appreciate it if anyone commented on whether this look like a sound plan :)

Also is it just me or is it really unfair that we don't get an April take. It's going to be an online test so I don't see why they wouldn't give us the same opportunity...

#help

Would D be a necessary assumption if it said "It is not fair for lawmakers to favor the interests of families that have children old enough to vote over those with underage children."?

#help

JY takes a peek at the line citations before starting to read the passage and marks them. I hadn't thought of doing anything like that before. Would anyone reccommend this approach??

That's amazing! Thank you so much for sharing. And for all those who are eager to see that much earned score jump till the June test, we can do this!

#help

I had identified this argument as causal. But can it also be thought as conditional?

JY fixes AC A by changing 'that species' to 'other species', and changing the 'necessary' for 'sufficient'. But is it possible to translate the phrase 'adapting to ice ages was responsible for the evolution of the human brain' into conditional logic as 'Adapting to ice age → Evolution of the human brain'?

Not at all! There are plenty of ACs in strengthen and weaken q's that bring in another situation that either corroborates or competes with the situation outlined in the stimulus. I cannot think of a specific example at the top of my head but I've seen this pattern especially in more recent tests (namely 80's). It's tricky because at first blush it seems irrelevant but you gotta be able to think of the underlying, abstract principle and make the connection.

I think so. It's not like a regular A → B statement. Instead I thought about this relationship like in a positive correlation graph (an upward slope). So in that representation the relationship comes out as A ↔ B.

I would appreciate a verification of this though! #help

I think you're right.

Take the example If you don't have a computer or a tablet, you cannot take the LSAT Flex.

NOT (Computer or Tablet) → NOT (Flex)

/Computer and /Tablet → /Flex

This is similar to what we had in the stimulus. Not having a computer AND not having a tablet are jointly sufficient to get us to the conclusion. If you had either one, you could've taken the Flex.

As for your question, we can use the following example:

If you don't have a valid ID or if you don't have internet connection, you cannot take the LSAT Flex.

NOT (ID) or NOT (Internet) → NOT (Flex)

This time, NOT having an ID and internet connection are independently sufficient to get us to the conclusion (see what I did there? :) )

Sorry for the annoying example lol but this seems ok unless I'm missing sth. Would appreciate some feedback though! #help

Honestly, great explanation. Thank you for taking the time to write it!

JY put it much more nicely than I did in his live commentary video. When resorting to ad hominem, you talk about irrelevant things. And by doing so you fail to talk about relevant things. In a way this AC touches upon WHY ad hominem attacks are flawed.

The historian concludes that these people are motivated by snobbery by resorting to their ancestors. This is a typical case of ad hominem, and we know that ad hominem arguments are flawed because they're irrelevant to the argument.

To properly attack an argument, one would have to evaluate the premises and the support they provide for the conclusion. The historian here did not do this. Instead, he went directly for the ad hominem attack. In other words, he “failed to exclude” the possibility that OPA is valid. If he had been able to evaluate the argument structure of OPA and illustrate that it's flawed, his counterargument could've been a valid one. Since he didn't do this, his ad hominem attack has no bearing on the validity of the OPA.

Hope this helps and let me know if I can clarify something!

Haha. I think your explanation is spot on, and I too didn't think Passage A was too bad. Though I can imagine how for those who don't have much interest in the feminist movement or gender studies might find the concepts here intimidating. And this is coming from my own experience with science passages :/

It does help, thank you for your detailed explanation :)

It's short for other people's argument