- Joined
- Jul 2025
- Subscription
- Core
Admissions profile
Applications
Discussions
The best part is that there is another question with a similar answer choice (where the AC says this is the only thing that the argument relies on) but its wrong because it says that!
And I fourth this, especially as someone who is naturally a skim reader. These passages are too short and nuanced to skim read sometimes for me. If I skim, I invariably miss some important parts of tone or the argument.
I've started writing a few words or a concept for each paragraph and it has been super helpful.
for those of us that are data/health geeks, it would be really cool to see a feature where you can put in factors like what time of day you took a PT, how many hours of sleep you got the night before, whether or not you exercised, if you ate, etc., so you can see how these factors affect your performance on your PTs!
Brain farted and assumed that Podhoretz was the author of Passage A. Bruh. Next time, just take the easy win of looking at the 2 capitalized names and go with it. There is a reason you are having to do a mental triple backhandspring roundoff backflip to have the other ACs make sense.
Love this method, but A is also an answer that does this! Super helpful for getting it down to these two at least.
Actually angry that I didn't get this one because I knew that it was either D or E instantly and just lazily chose not to diagram it out.
~CSIB --> SSB (Comp not stay in bus. --> SS go bankrupt)
(~SSB --> CSIB - contrapos)
-------------------
MSIB --> CSIB (manufacturer stay in bus. --> comp stay in business)
break apart work
MSIB ??? ~SSB --> CSIB
so there must be a relationship betwen MSIB and ~SSB. this can be either:
1) MSIB --> ~SIB (AC E); or
2) SIB --> ~MSIB (its contrapos)
This was also a thought that I had, and this is def a little bit of a question where you have to bring in some outside knowledge regarding science, that being that determining something like gravity depends on discovering the mass of an object. If the cosmo constant (aka dark energy) is needed to make sense of other relationships in space, then that increases the likelihood that it, or something similar to it, exists. It is almost a little of a sufficient and necessary thing.
Phenomena exist --> dark matter needed to explain (aka the dark matter must exist)
dark matter exists --> first theory true (or more likely to be true
The conclusion is about patenting something. The (relevant) premise is about discovery not being equal to invention. We immediately know that we need an answer that deals with patenting, since that is missing in the premise.
If I had had this thought, I would've immediately gone to the search bar and searched "patent."
That act would leave us with B and E.
B: connects the premise to the conclusion
E: does not connect; leaves us still questioning what the relationship between discovery and patenting is.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Now to solve this the long way round...
Conc: patening genes should be illegal
note: the conclusion is a recommendation, so CAC will have to help add weight to that rec.
p1: discovery not equal to invention
(implicitly implying that an organism's genes are discovered, not invented, so we are firmly in the world of needing to connect discovery in)
p2: could've been relevant if any of the answer choices dealt with it
possible CAC using p2: Anything that is selfish and irresponsible should be illegal to patent.
A: no connection to conclusion, also somewhat redundant of the information that is already present in the stimulus.
C: weak AC, also already covered by stimulus, also NOT A RECOMMENDATION/doesn't add weight to the fact that it should be illegal to patent genes.
D: not connected to it being illegal to patent; we are also looking for an answer that bridges the gap between discovery and rec to patent.
E: implicitly covered by stimulus, so it cannot be bridging the gap; also we already implicitly know that genes are not invented, but discovered.
B: recommendation 😍; talking about connection between should patent and discovery; and rules out the possibility that there is another way that discovery can lead to patenting by saying its universally not patentable
It is just there to confuse us! It seems to be something they are doing a lot in this section.
This is one of those questions that seems crazy hard but is actually super easy to move through based on structural kills.
Premise: HT + 12+ trunk --> ~THT (not tree harm by tapping)
The rest of the stim is basically irrelevant and there to trick you.
B: we dk sh*t about the relationship between healthiest and biggest trunk; this would force you to create a flawed correlation
C: literally where is the evidence for this?
D: KILLABLE BECAUSE STRUCTURALLY INCORRECT
~HT and ~12+trunk --> THT
We just don't know this!!! Picking this answer forces you to do a confusion of sufficiency and necessity flaw because it negates the premise without flipping it.
E: We aren't given any evidence to conclude this; picking this answer forces you to commit a sort of vague term flaw (equating "best" with "most common")
A: winner, winner chicken dinner. The perfect contrapositive of premise.
THT --> ~HT OR ~ 12+trunk
This creates a couple of combos of necessary conditions:
Healthy tree, but not 12+ in trunk (less than 12)
healthy tree and less than 12+in trunk
Unhealthy tree, but 12+in trunk (directly what A says)
Lowkey genius question that can be totally solved using the structure of the premise.
Ugh I had a fire explanation to this question and then it deleted itself.
The barrier to my getting this question is that my guess at the NA was that it was going to involve connecting dumping to environmental degradation since that is not expressly stated in the stimulus. This made me eliminate E on a first pass, but I should've reset after I realized my guess was not an option.
Basically here is how this goes:
Conc: policies --C--> env. harm
p: companies --C--> env. harm
(you get this from the premise that companies --c--> dumping, and the implicit premise that dumping = env. harm)
What we are missing is the connection between policies and companies.
policies --?--- companies --c--> env. harm
Because we know that both policies and companies lead to enviromental harm and have had some sort of interaction due to the correlation presented here, we need the assumption that the policies --c--> companies to dump.
E does this by ruling out the possibility that this dumping would've happened anyways (aka would've been caused by an alternate cause). It is adding weight to the correlation by making it more likely that the policy change caused/allowed the companies to dump.
A: if negated, is completely irrelevant to conclusion.
"Without the urging of certain mining companies, the government would have lifted the ban on dumping mining wastes into streams."
So what? the conclusion is about env. harm, not about the repealing of policies. plus this doesn't matter because we konw that the ban is already repealed.
B: we don't gaf about what the officials believe; "really believe" is also too strong for an NA question
C: it doesn't matter whether these companies themselves were the ones who dumped; we just care that the dumping was env. harm and that the policy change is what made this more likely, doesn't matter who did it.
D: who tf cares? this is not essential to the arg. we aren't talking about responsiveness or attitudes. "generally" (51% of the time) is also too strong for an NA.
I think if you have worked significantly since you graduated, it would be remiss to not include a LOR from someone from where you worked, but I also know that a lot of schools only accept 2 LORs and generally prefer academic letters. It sounds like you had great relationships with these professors, so they are great people to ask!
I think another huge thing is that the number of people intentionally seeking out accommodations has increased significantly as well. It is impossible to deny that the test is radically different if you have extra time or one less section to sit through. There are some people that truly need them but seeing how I got an ad on YouTube the other day for a service to "help" get me accommodations, it is definitely a problem that skews the fairness of the test, especially since law schools never know if you had accommodations or not.
A wayyyy easy way to eliminate E as well is that it is "presumes" header of the question and thus should be treated like a NA. Do we need to know that that the number and variety of (all) great artworks already in the world affects the amount of aesthetic fulfillment derivable for ANY contemporary artwork?
No, we don't.
Negating it too doesn't destroy the argument.
The number and variety of great artworks already in the world does NOT affect the amount of aesthetic fulfillment derivable from any contemporary artwork.
Okay and? How does this destroy the fact that this belief is mistaken?
This is one of those beautiful questions that show you how much word/concept specificity matters on the LSAT.
Go get a massage or do something relaxing! A lot of massage chains do an $80 massage for first timers, so think of it like just paying for an extra month for 7sage (or not if you are lucky!)
People usually say their first LSAT is harder because it is a newer experience, and August has some of the most first time test takers, so hence the reputation for seeming "hard." Style wise, it was no different in vibe from the PT150s. My August test felt the most like PT155. The biggest thing that helps with testing anxiety or stress is making sure to mentally frame the exam and your expectations before the test.
@kellytello554 This is what I was thinking as well, but "more than the rest of the population combined" implies most :(
@Walrus They don't, is what I have been told, unless you directly matriculated into a university for a year or so.
I am in the exact same boat (even down to June score). I think that this next leap is all about believing in ourselves and our abilities. I really truly believe that I could teach someone else to a 170+ at this point, so I have to let myself be my own student too lol!
I have implemented an afternoon caffeine bump (have either a coffee around 3-4p at work or a matcha when I get home around 6p), but always make sure I eat something with it. I also try to go for a walk before I get down to studying and I've noticed I can go longer if I take frequent breaks. The killer part is just spending all day looking at a computer only to look at a computer some more!
I am in the same boat. I've learned its about rigorously comparing the 2 answer choices I am getting down to and diving into the stimulus more and more. I would also encourage you to look at the PTs in the 150s because they are a bit different style wise.
This question is actually kind of genius.
if you diagram the stim:
WE --> ~BWLS
~WLS
------------
WE
So, we know from this that anything that translates or is a restatement of either premise is NOT the conclusion, and anything that is a restatement of the conclusion is the conclusion.
A. is a restatement of the 2nd premise (~WLS)
B. is a random ass recommendation
C. a restatement of "well equipped to judge reasonableness..." which is our conclusion, DING DING (WE)
D. is the contrapositive of the 1st premise (BWLS --> ~WE)
e. is the first premise (WE --> ~WLS)
I did NOT think about it like this when I first did this question, but unlocking this view kinda changed the way I look at some of these less clear Main Point questions.
I feel like they had some sort of algorithmic glitch recently. Just last night, I got the same question in 2 back-to-back drill sets for general Flaw tag, so nothing particularly special. These 2 sets also had an immense amount of questions I have seen in the past month at least two other times. Maybe I just keep getting them wrong and that's why they are showing them to me though lol!