When I first learn how to translate, the hardest part was getting rid of words and only capturing the most essential to input into the translation. Now, that's become automatic to me and I was able to see the valid structure of this argument and omit information that will not help me understand the logical structure. The the next step now, is to continue doing that while being mindful of what we were omitting to make the translation. Here, I knew "people believing" is not the same as arguing "X is Y" but that was not important to understanding the logical structure. Once I realized the logic was ok, it was easy to anticipate that the problem was gonna be with that omission that I intentionally overlooked in the translation.

I appreciate you engaging us in the process!

Oh I get it now. I think the assumption was very obvious to me and I expected to say a version of the following:

"the argument assumed, without justification, that the tax they were polled about was corporate tax"

I needed it to make explicit that the assumption is between general tax, personal tax, corporate tax. Yet, B says we don't know if the constituents think the corporate tax is high. B is an implicit way of saying the legislator made an assumption about these different types of taxes or conflated them. Am I understanding this correctly?

That's great, JY!!

I have another suggestion if I may. I think it would be useful to add a drill category for types of stimulus. For my own study, I have categorized stimulus according to different types (causal logic, formal logic, cost-benefit...etc) and I use them to get more confident and flexible with the different ways these frameworks show up. What do you think of this? I don't know if I am just wasting time or if this would be useful. Let me know what you think. And I am happy to help out with this if you guys want to develop something similar to provide different drilling options.

I still think it is useful for these common flaws/stimulus types to be presented clearly as different types. Once we learn those and internalize it, it becomes easier to quickly identify what's going on with a question and switch in between the different types.

One of the challenges I have with the CC, is that these specifics are not outlined as clearly as an LSAT book that puts all the theory/knowledge upfront. That learning of the fundamental is very crucial. But the 7Sage approach is "let's learn through doing some questions" and they would scatter info "hey this is a cost-benefit analysis" or this "X type of flaw" without 1 place we go to (whether a video or text lesson) that will have all the fundamental about something)

I know that usually there is a unity to LSAT so these categories are not always helpful at the real deal. But for the foundations, it would give you a good mastery of the test. And you can later train on getting more intuitive and adaptive.

Not sure if this answers your question but the way I thought about is this.

The rule says "you must have widespread agreement on how reliable a test is". Two questions need to be answered to clarify this rule:

1) is the test reliable? yes, there is a widespread agreement that it is.

2) To what degree is it reliable? We don't know because there isn't widespread agreement (or "considerable controversy") as per the factual premise about the degree of reliability.

For this reason (2), the conclusion is flawed because it does not accurately apply the rule. In other words, the rule has two components (as outlined above) and the factual premise only shows at least one (or event both) of these components are missing.

The language in the factual premise don't clarify these two components and remains vague which is why we end up making certain assumptions about them. The challenge is that both the rule and factual premises use the vague language "how reliable a test is" so these two components I outlined are not as clear. But I think the ambiguity in the rule should make us to want to raise those two clarifying questions about the rule entails to get grounded. And then that will make it easier to to see the assumption in the factual premise. But not sure if there is a clearer and more obvious indicator in the language (please let me know if there is.)

#help I thought the flaw was going to be that the legislator assumed the results of the poll which was overwhelming opposition to high taxes to apply to corporate taxes. How are we just assuming the two are talking about corporate taxes since the poll is not clearly indicating that?

In my mind, I was thinking the poll asked "do you support high taxes?" and that didn't specify corporate taxes so the people that responded were rejecting high taxes thinking it is targeted towards them.

I know I made a lot of assumptions there but that's what made me waste so much time on the question because I was looking for answer choice that will conform with my pre-phase. How should've I known that I got my pre-phase wrong?

I think it is very straightforward from the rule that we are dealing with the culpability so the application of the rule would naturally be dealing with facts within the domain of the seller.

But if that's not enough and one remains skeptical, there are a few other indicators. First, the grammar/referential is obvious. "Harris" can't be the subject since the preceding sentence put him as the object to which the action is directed. It is Wilton (the subject) that carries out the action of (selling) to Harris (the object).

I am surprised this is a 4 star question. I got this right in 37 seconds even though my formal logic is not that solid.

I think what helped me is read the stimulus quickly and got a bird's eye view of the logical structure without going to specifics. This allowed me to see it was invalid argument structure in the forms of

A--> B

/A

-----

/B (invalid)

I also inferred /A because immediately assuming yeah they're saying it's unlikely they will favor, I will take that to mean they will not favor. I know it is not accurate but it helped me spot the logical structure of the argument much quicker.

oh right forgot about that! thank you very much

#help isn't C circular?

Not sure if there was a lesson on that. But I can try to explain (if I understood correctly) why he made that comparison.

First of all, you are correct to have interpreted as a conditional because it is a conditional statement and you translated it correctly. But that same statement can be interpreted as a causal statement as well because it is saying that "the presence of water causes life evolving." Thinking about it as a causal logic in this question is helpful because you can immediately recognize the flaw that the fact water causes life evolving does not mean it is the only cause for life evolving and there might be competing causes because life is a complex phenomena.

In my opinion, approaching it through the causal logic lens in this particular question is more helpful. However, I myself got the question right by doing it through formal logic. But I used the strategy from logic games. There, we said, if a necessary condition is reached, that renders no valid conclusion on whether the sufficient condition is reached. Here's how it applies here:

the conditional is (life --> water). The necessary condition (water) is reached because of the empirical evidence about the ice and ocean of water under. But reaching this necessary condition does not allow us to validly conclude that sufficient condition of (life) is reached. In logic games, we would often just remove the conditional arrow whenever a necessary was reached so that we don't confuse ourselves and assume the the sufficient condition must be reached. Same idea here.

Very good point!! I think that applies to the rest of the CC too

#feedback this was a great explanation!

Super women right here!! I'm sure you will make a fantastic attorney and even a more fantastic mom. Best of luck!

Depends on the question and what's assumed. I would never eliminate based on whether there was a NOT.

A lot of arguments will be flawed because they make a certain assumption such presuming the truth of the conclusion.

Not really. The first sentence create's a causal relationship whereby symptoms of a mental illness is "affected"/caused by compound in the brain.

So they can't both be the same because one is the cause and the other is the effect.

If I am depressed, then my main symptom would be feeling flat. Lack of of Serotonin, for example, is the chemical compound causes the effect of me feeling flat.

Tbh it is not that odd. Illicit means forbidden by law/custom/rules. And in this context, it makes total sense. Because A is stating a rule "correlation does not imply causation" albeit by different wording. And the argument is flawed by it violates this rule and to make good arguments, you are forbidden from violating such rules.

With the correlation-causation framework, it is pretty easy to spot the correct answer because we're dealing with 4 possibilities. But I am curious if we thought about this with the normal weakening approach where we try to attack the relationship between the premises and conclusion, how would our thinking process differ?

#help

Argument makes a logical leap

Argument assumes that moral code = values. Based on that, the argument assumes that having different moral codes necessarily means having different values. This is a leap because while moral codes (specific rules or practices) can be based on values, two different moral codes can still be rooted in the same underlying value.

To illustrate:

Both Middle Easterners and Westerners might have the value of "caring for elderly parents." However, how they express this value in action — their moral code — differs.

- Middle Easterners might believe that caring for the elderly means keeping them at home and personally taking care of them until they pass away.

- Westerners might believe that sending the elderly to a nursing home ensures professional care, community, and proper monitoring.

The premise (or observation) is that Middle Easterners and Westernershave different moral codes regarding the care of the elderly. The logical leap is to then conclude that Middle Easterners and Westerners have entirely different values.

However, as the analogy highlights, both cultures value "caring for the elderly." The difference lies in the moral codes, or the specific ways they believe is best to express or act on that value. Iraqis and Americans might have different beliefs about the best methods of care (different moral codes), but they share the same foundational value of caring for one's parents when they are old.

So, the logical leap in the question is assuming that different moral codes automatically equate to entirely different values, without considering that the same value can manifest in different ways across cultures.

Imagine working as an unpaid intern for a company. After working diligently for a year, the company recognizes your effort and decides to offer you a salary. A year later, you approach your boss for a raise, arguing that your current salary doesn't cover your living expenses. Your boss, taken aback, responds, "But I've given you a 6X increase from what you initially earned!"

In this scenario, the starting point (like the wetlands funding) is essential. You initially earned nothing, so even a sixfold increase from a minimal amount (say $1) would still result in a very low salary (only $6). Just like the wetlands scenario, a significant percentage increase from a very low base might still be insufficient. Identifying this relationship between baseline and percentage of increase resolves the core conflict.n

C could also be similar to A and B in some respects. (C) If recent research has made it easier to identify wetlands in need of preservation before they're at serious risk, this might imply that there's a greater urgency to preserve more areas. This taps into our world knowledge of how environmentalist use a sense of urgency to elicit response/action/increase funding/donation for their cause. So here, they are making us think, hey science can discover these wetlands before they're are at risk, and since we can do that, we should have enough funding to preserve them when we discover them. Based on that reasoning, the current funds are not enough and should be increased.

Why A and B are wrong?

The reason why A and B traps us into thinking it is correct by making us think of the question in certain way. In this case, to reconcile the scientist's conclusion that the current funding is not enough with the evidence provided, we are thinking about finding a statement that explains why, despite the increase in funding, the current funding might still be insufficient. This approach is wrong.

A tells us why despite the increase in funding, the funding is not enough. Why? mismanagement of funds. This means that even if there's more money, it's not being used properly. This could explain why more money is needed; because the money we have isn't being spent effectively.

Similarly, B tell us that despite increase in funding, and despite the fact that inflation is accounted for, there is another factor has not been accounted for. what is it? increase in scientist salaries working on these preservation at a rate higher than the inflation. If salaries of scientists employed for wetland preservation have increased at a rate higher than inflation, then a significant portion of the increased funds could be going towards these increased salaries, rather than direct preservation activities. So, that’s why the increase in funding is not enough.

But both of these answers rely on the assumption that there is a conflict between increased funding and the conclusion that the funding is not enough. No such conflict exists because we don’t what the baseline funding was 10 years ago.

How's your LR section untimed?

What's another reason why C is wrong beside B being right? If we had no other options, would C be right?