I think D is better at weakening the argument than strengthening it. Consider the reverse:

The ingredients used to make Han purple and white glass were not easily obtainable during the Han and Qin dynasties.

If that was the case, it would be more likely that Han purple was accidentally created during glass production - rather than independently synthesized - because access to its ingredients were hard to come by. As it is, answer choice D could imply the opposite. It is irrelevant at best and weakening at worst.

I think it really depends on whether or not taking the January test will leave you with a higher LSAT score than you would've had applying in November. Data shows that applicants submitting later with a test score well above a school's median are often more successful than those who submit earlier but have a lower LSAT (although how big the point difference has to be to create this effect is more complicated). A lot of people suspect admissions will be moving more slowly this year anyway, so if you really expect your score to go up, I'd say it's worth a shot.

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@ The LG with the library game was experimental? I didn't watch that Powerscore podcast. And I hate it here, too.

Nope, library game (section that also had Ultra and regular stores) was real. Section with park rangers and trios/quartets was experimental.

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No problem. The fact that A explicitly uses the word "efficient" tipped me off to its being the correct answer. In technical usage, efficiency usually implies a relationship between output produced and energy consumed, so I found it was more directly related to what the stimulus was saying.

I think you pretty much nailed the reason why answer choice A is right above. Before the new device, vacuums that had silencers also had motors that were less efficient, which means they were using more energy. The new device bypasses this compromise, making these vacuums more energy efficient.

Answer choice E isn't as relevant as you might think; old silencers making vacuums heavier and less mobile doesn't really relate to energy consumption - it just sounds like they were cumbersome to use.

In the stimulus, we know that the "parts that satisfy our government standards" include Clark brand-name parts, because that's what the advertisement is talking about. We also know that the conclusion is that we must insist on Clark brand-name parts for our car instead of the cheap, foreign-made parts that are poorly constructed. So the argument proceeds by distinguishing between the Clark parts that pass our country's tough tests and the foreign-made parts that are poorly constructed, and by concluding that the Clark products are better. If this is true, then we must assume that the Clark parts are better constructed than the foreign-made parts - answer choice D doesn't say this outright, but instead uses referential phrasing: "parts that satisfy our government standards" = Clark parts.

I like using the negation test for necessary assumption questions. If we negated answer choice D, so it said: parts that satisfy our government standards are the same poor quality as cheap foreign parts, this would mean that quality-wise, Clark parts are actually no better than the poorly constructed foreign parts, and the argument collapses.

Love how answer choice A doesn't actually deny the truth of premise 2 (may people agree that those opposing higher taxes are better leaders than those who don't) but weakens its relationship with the conclusion by pointing out that despite the fact that many people believe it, it's not actually true.

Q15 - Answer choice A doesn't work because we already know that the action the was committed is a crime; the passage refers to the blackmail victim as a "criminal" who pays to avoid being turned in. The blackmailer isn't subverting the government's power to determine what a crime is because the criminality of their victim's actions is why they're blackmailing them in the first place.

Agreed with the comment above about easing up on notations. From someone who used to heavily markup the passage, I think it causes more clutter and redirects your attention to too many places, especially when you're trying to get to a specific part of the passage.

Do all those schools accept the March LSAT? Some schools have a February cutoff.

Btw I love the profile pic - IT STINKS!

I definitely agree that misrepresentation is associated with intention, but the basic dictionary definition characterizes it as "giving a false or misleading representation... usually with an intent to deceive..." It's still an astute observation though, because a lot of main point questions require you to choose the answer that not only summarizes the information in the passage, but is accurate to what the passage actually does. I think that if the LSAT wanted to make it a more clearly questionable answer choice, they would've used more direct language: "organicists intentionally misrepresent the analytic method."

The biggest reason why D is a better answer choice is that it more fully encapsulates the meaning of the passage. C focuses on the theory of internal relations (paragraphs 3 and 4) and its consequences, but mentions nothing of the last paragraph discussing how organicists are working with a flawed understanding of the analytic method. D is able to touch upon internal relations (faulty theory) and misunderstanding the analytic method. Additionally, D offers a better account of the passage's conclusion; organicism is not only flawed, but offers no real challenge to the analytic method (last sentence of the passage).

So long as you've given yourself enough time to study for this test, privilege quality over quantity. Better to skip one night of studying and feel refreshed the next day than function at half capacity over the course of several days.

I used the stimulate flex option while taking prep tests. While the comments above make a good point about working on your endurance, you don't know whether or not you will actually receive two logical reasoning sections come test day. I recommend keeping a random section from another test in a different tab and inserting it into your test as the "experimental". Switch it around so you get used to having LR, LG, and RC experimental sections - in different orders as well. For example, sometimes I would place an experimental RC right after the real RC section (back-to-back RCs do happen) to help me build my stamina.

I've personally found that curiosity is a common answer choice, but not a very common correct answer. I wonder if it's because it's a fairly weak descriptor and test makers figure that writing the passage alone suggests the author must have been curious about the topic. I see the same phenomenon with "mild disapproval", found it in a lot of passages where the author's tone leans heavily toward a positive/negative stance.

What prep test is this? Also is there a specific video where you got that rule from?

Shout out to my proctor Gissel. During the October test there was about an hour between when I sat down to when I actually started the first section. Gissel had me hitting the ground running in less than ten minutes. Love you girl xoxo

I had a similar "incident" my freshman year of college, as did a close friend of mine (birds of a feather!) who applied in 2019-2020 and took the route of full disclosure. He was accepted into several t14s and is now attending a t20 school, so safe to say disclosing didn't hurt his chances of admission by very much. I suspect law schools see quite a lot of addendums regarding drinking-related probations. I plan on disclosing it - better to be safe than sorry.

The stimulus exhibits a common flaw type: assuming that because the components of a thing have a feature, that thing itself also has a feature. It's usually used in stimuli that talk about individuals and groups (e.g. all the city council members are inefficient people, therefore the city council is inefficient). In Q13, it's regarding energy, mass, and the physical objects they make up. The premises tell us that both energy and mass are theoretical constructs, and conclude that because physical objects are made up entirely of energy and mass, they are physical constructs too. But nowhere in the argument are we told that if something is entirely made up of components that have a feature, that thing should have that feature as well. B says that in a very evasive way: something (physical objects) may lack a feature (being a theoretical construct) even if it composed purely of things (energy and mass) that have that feature (being theoretical constructs).

I think JY's response as to why C and E are incorrect would be that they attack the truth of the premises rather than the relationship to the premises and the conclusion. But besides that, I think there are at least two other reasons to rule them out:

C: This answer choice says that the argument assumes that two things may be different even if there is no essential distinction against them. The language here is taken from the premise about mass also being a theoretical construct. But the argument actually does the opposite: it assumes that mass is the same as energy (they both are theoretical constructs) because there is no essential distinction between them. This is kind of a word trap answer choice.

E: The argument isn't really saying that energy is a theoretical construct because prominent physicists suggest it is. The argument is more so just outright stating that energy is a theoretical construct, which is something that many prominent physicists have also suggested. The physicists may be used to bolster the credibility of that premise, but the argument isn't basing the claim of energy being a theoretical construct off their suggestions. It's like the difference between these two sentences:

"As the best dog trainers have stressed, it is important that dogs have their own private sleeping space."

"Because the best dog trainers have stressed it, it is important that dogs have their own private sleeping space."

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Your score is what schools have to report and is all that matters. Score bands are just a fancy way of accounting for statistical variation in scores.

Score bands have traditionally been +/-3, but that was for the 100 question test. The current LSAT only has 75 scored questions. Smaller sample sizes mean larger statistical variation so score bands moved from +/-3 to +/-4. It has nothing to do with individual performance.

Your username LOL

Sure! The stimulus contains the arguments of two speakers: McBride and Leggett. We know that both speakers agree on one thing: the new fuel efficiency standards will discourage the manufacture of full-size cars. McBride views this as a danger; when a full-size car and a smaller fuel-efficient car collide, those in the smaller car are more likely to be injured than if it were two full-sized cars colliding. Leggett, on the other hand, considers an alternative view: if the fuel efficiency standards discourage the manufacture of full-size cars, they'll put more small cars on the road, thus increasing the chance that when two cars collide, they'll both be small ones. When two non-full size cars collide, there's less chance of injury than when one of the cars is full-size. So unlike McBride, Leggett views the fuel efficiency standards as promoting safety rather than threatening it.

AC A: According to Leggett, McBride is failing to consider another possibility of the fuel efficiency standards, but his claims aren't contradictory. If McBride instead had claimed that full-size cars were more dangerous and posed a risk to roads but that fuel efficiency standards should still be opposed, and Leggett had pointed McBride's contradictory views out, answer choice A would be a better fit.

AC B: I see how this answer choice can be tempting! McBride's example features a full-size and subcompact car, and he doesn't consider the possibility of mid-sized cars or other cars whose passengers would be safer colliding with a full-size car than a subcompact's passengers would. The problem with this answer choice is that Leggett does not point this out in his response to McBride, and the question stem is asking us how Leggett responds.

AC C: McBride considers what would happen if two cars collided and at least one of them was a full-size car. Leggett, however, considers what would happen if two cars collided but neither of them were full-size cars. So while McBride considers automobile safety as making sure that when cars collide they'll both be full-size, Leggett considers safety as making sure that when cars collide neither will be full-size. McBride sees more full-size cars as safer, but Leggett sees less full-size cars as safer. Answer choice C is correct.

AC D : Leggett doesn't go after the generalization in McBride's argument, but instead introduces another fact (that two non-full size cars colliding is less likely to cause injury than if one was full-size) to challenge the way McBride is looking at the issue.

AC E: McBride's advocates for the new fuel efficiency standards to be opposed. For answer choice E to be correct, Leggett would have to prove that it is actually impossible to oppose the new fuel efficiency standards, and Leggett does not do this.

I think A uses a subtle language trap to get you. What it's saying is that the argument assumes that the effectiveness of seeing major improvement from a GP vs a specialist won't differ (the conclusion, so this part is correct) if the effectiveness of seeing any improvement from a GP vs specialist doesn't differ (the premises don't say that). It's also conditional logic, which can be written out as:

Any improvement doesn't differ ----> major improvement cannot differ

The stimulus isn't using conditional logic to support its argument. Additionally, the argument only discusses major improvement in both its premises and its conclusion. Answer choice A would be better if the argument was worded something like: "31% of patients saw slight improvement in less than 6 weeks and 50% saw more than slight improvement in more than 6 weeks (both regardless of who treated them), so it shows that the choice between GP and specialist won't affect changes of seeing major improvement."

Flaw questions are double-pronged in the sense that the correct answer choice will not only be an actual flaw (technically A is working with flawed reasoning) but also will be found in the argument. E works for that reason; the argument never tells us (and "possibly overlooks" by omission) whether the patients seeing GPs had the same type of injuries as those seeing specialists. If you have questions on the specifics of why E works I'd be happy to post a follow-up comment.

Yes, for LR I always look at the question stem first and then read the stimulus with the problem-solving framework for that type in mind.

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Do all those schools accept the March LSAT? Some schools have a February cutoff.

Yeah! For waitlists they will.

Then I can't see how it will hurt, if you're sure as sardines that your score will go up. Best of luck!

Often in evaluate questions, the right answer is one that you can test: answering yes or no to it will either strengthen or weaken the argument. Using answer choice A as an example:

If we said yes, these car owners with decals are also taking other special measures to prevent car theft (parking in well-lit areas, installing trackers, etc.) this would weaken the argument by adding several alternative explanations as to why the theft rate for cars with decals is lower.

On the other hand, if we said no, we would be eliminating the possibility of alternative explanations, which would strengthen the argument.

Answer choice E is asking about whether the types of cars in the neighborhoods running these programs is representative of the types of cars in neighborhoods in general. You may want to assume that if the neighborhoods with these programs only have clunkers lying around, they're not getting stolen too often and aren't representative of neighborhoods with nicer cars. But the stimulus says that the rate of theft for cars with decals is lower than usual for cars in those neighborhoods. This means that for the neighborhood the program is running in, the car theft rate was around 30%. But for the cars with decals in that neighborhood, the theft rate is 2%. We're still working inside the same neighborhood, it's just that the theft rate for decal cars is lower than the general theft rate for cars in that area.