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michellehowardmmh303

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PT118.S3.Q17

michellehowardmmh303

Saturday, Jan 28 2023

I chose E at first and changed to D during BR, because the stimulus says the drug COULD BE dangerous, not that the drug is indeed dangerous. AC D implies that the drug COULD BE fatal, whereas AC E states the drug WILL BE dangerous. So despite the assumptions made in AC D, it seemed to me that this answer better fits the discrepancy the stimulus describes. Can someone help explain why this line of thinking is incorrect? #help

LSAT

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Tuesday, Feb 28 2023

michellehowardmmh303

PTA.S1.Q24 - The shoe factory in Centerville...

Question Stem: Sufficient Assumption

Stimulus: Shoe factory employs more unskilled full time workers (W) than all other businesses in town combined.

If shoe factory closes, more than half of town RESIDENTS who are W will lose jobs.

See the shift between the W that are employed at the factory in the premise, and RESIDENTS in the conclusion? Look for an idea connecting these 2 ideas: workers at the factory and residency.

A. residency, no workers

B. workers, no residency

C. workers, no residency

D. everyone employed at the factory is a resident.

E. neither

D works because without it, we have no idea where the workers come from - what if they all live OUTSIDE Centerville? Then there is no way the conclusion is true. So D closes this one gap.

Admin Note: Edited title. Please use the format: "PT#.S#.Q# - brief description of the question."

LSAT

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Monday, Feb 27 2023

michellehowardmmh303

PTC.S2.Q3 - Columnist: Polls can influence voters'..

Weakening Question

I identified 3 premises here:

Subconclusion: Poll results can influence decisions and may distort outcomes. SubPremise: Poll results may not be as reliable as public thinks.

Publishing polls immediately before an election doesn´t allow enough opportunity to dispute findings.

A ban on polls during the week leading up to an election would not totally violate freedom of speech.

Conclusion: Polls during the week leading up to an election should be banned.

Goal: Find answers that show why one of the premises isn´t true, or why we shouldn´t believe the conclusion to be true.

Answers:

A. Few people are influenced by polls in the 2 weeks leading up to elections. THIS INCLUDES 1 WEEK LEADING UP TO THE POLL!!! I completely skipped over that obvious implication originally, but see now why it makes sense.

B. Uneven - too specific. What about close elections?

C. Remove motivation actually strengthens.

D. Gains in popularity - who cares? Irrelevant.

E. Informed citizens is a stretch to unaffected citizens. Also the comparison is weak - this is ONE country, and we don´t know anything about it.

My takeaway: Don´t read over answer choices too quickly. Maybe try to visualize even abstract answers and concepts like time - in this case, picture a timelines with a dot representing election. Scribbled out right before it is the 1 week without elections. Answer A says 2 weeks right before, there is no influence. I KNEW I could be looking for an answer showing polls don´t affect citizens, so think about how a bigger line right before your election dot would overlap with the part scribbled out, and see how A is actually giving you about a strong point about the 1 week before.

PrepTests ·

PT106.S1.Q6

michellehowardmmh303

Thursday, Jan 26 2023

On my first try, I agreed with D because it felt intuitively correct. During BR, I used the chart method to check my answer and felt D was incorrect bc the admin actually never mentions the Rodriguez family fund´s conditions, nor does it express any opinion about compliance with them. The admin simply defends that diagnosis technology can be used to minimize patient suffering. But they could also agree that the clinic is in violation of the fund´s conditions (maybe others not mentioned here). The admin also doesn´t even agree or disagee that the funds are being used for the diagnostic technology. Can someone explain? #help

PrepTests ·

PT126.S4.Q18

michellehowardmmh303

Monday, Feb 20 2023

Writing out this argument and the answers really helped me, although I did it differently than JY:

Argument says:

1. Either bee vision affect flower color (BV->FC) or flower color affected bee vision (FC->BV)

2. Bees probably affected flower color. (BV->FC)

Answers:

A: Insects with vision similar to bees did not affect flowers (I /-> FC). This is not an obvious strengthener, but I reasoned that this is eliminating one more factor that could have affected flowers, which supports the BV->FC relationship more.

B: Some flowers rely on other insects. F -> I. Not even close.

C: This doesn´t even come close to supporting the relationship; I thought for a minute about if i have 1000 flower species and 10 bee species, maybe that indicates that BV affected FC since I´m assuming that bee vision has a lot of colors that maybe flowers evolved to accomodate. You can see how risky this is though, since you have to make 2 assumptions here: 1. Bee vision has a vast array of colors and 2. More flower species = more flower colors, which is not necessarily true. What if half are orange and half are white? We simply don´t know what the color composition is, and certainly don´t know how it related to bee vision.

D: Non flowers rely on bees. NF -> B. Not even close.

E: Today´s bees rely on flowers. F -> B. This actually reverses what we want to show.

I´d love to hear if anyone sees any issues with how I broke this question and answers down, since it is not how JY did it, but it helped lead me to A!

LSAT

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Thursday, Feb 16 2023

michellehowardmmh303

PTB.S1.Q17 - The difference between manners and morals

Stimulus says: Manners are necessarily social (i.e. manners require a social element). Morals are not necessarily social (i.e. morals do not require a social element). Rules of etiquette do not apply to situations with morals or manners alone.

Things I noted upon reading:

If manners apply, we better see a social element.

Morals may apply if there is a social element. Morals may not apply if there is a social element.

Morals may apply if there is NOT a social element. Morals may not apply if there is NOT a social element.

Rules of etiquette will not apply to a situation that is purely moral or purely manners.

Rules may or may not apply to a situation that is both moral and manners.

Most strongly supported?

A: You can be immoral without causing harm. (i.e. you can not be moral in a case that is not social). Yep, this fits with #3 above.

B: An immoral act is never a violation of etiquette. This could be false if the situation also involved manners, so we can´t say it is supported.

C: Morality applies only when one is alone. I think you´d only choose this if you were hella confused.

D.: It is more important... I stopped reading right there and knew this was wrong. There is no comparison being made in the stimulus.

E: A social situation will never have anything to do with morality. Clearly wrong based on #2 and #3 described above.

Admin Note: Edited title. Please use the format: "PT#.S#.Q# - brief description of the question."

LSAT

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Sunday, Mar 05 2023

michellehowardmmh303

PTA.S4.Q25 - People's intentions cannot be...

This was not a fun flaw question.

At its absolute most basic, the stimulus says:

Conclusion: Not X.

Premise: If we BELIEVED X -> Y.

The assumption here is subtle: Since not Y, not X.

But why on Earth would we make that jump based on the single premise we are given? Also, notice we are drawing a conclusion based on what would be true if we BELIEVED otherwise, not if the case it WERE otherwise.

Answers:

A. A true belief (X) can have bad consequences (maybe, not Y). In other words, the author is failing to consider the possibility that X -> not Y. If this is true, the argument doesn´t work.

B. The author establishes one claim to not be true, but where is the other???

C. Irrelevant, there are no motives mentioned.

D. No implication that the most negative outcome must occur.

E. There is no group of individuals being compared to another.