This one is ridiculous. There's no reason to believe E should be more strongly supported than D. "Will be likely to split apart" is completely different from "more likely to split apart". We are given no information on how likely it is for an atom to split apart. For all we know, fusions greatly exceed the minimum threshold of energy every 999/1000 times, but the rate of atoms splitting back apart is only 5 out of those 999 times. In that instance, you can infer that it's clearly unlikely that any "excess of energy" will cause an atom to split. Hence E is entirely unsupported.

D obviously asks us to take a massive leap and assume that there's little excess energy being produced in a fusion that has not greatly exceeded the threshold. But I don't see how that's any more of a leap than E. Both responses are possible, though weakly supported. How can you choose one over the other?

This is probably the first question I've seen that I genuinely think should be removed. Maybe I'm missing something here, but this is just insane to me.

@hellim so relatable. this shit is why people say lawyers don't have hearts LMAO the lsat is literally training us not to

Here's what trips me up with this question. D immediately stuck out to me as a possible answer, but I second-guessed myself because of the fact in the stimulus that "the city's budget cannot be increased." Taking this into account, isn't it irrelevant that the savings would pay for the budget increase? If we take it at face-value that the budget cannot be increased for any reason, then it doesn't matter what cost-saving effect can "counteract" the budget. The budget cannot be increased. They have x amount of money for the budget, and don't have a cent more to pay for anything else.

Let's say I have 5 gumballs in my pocket to trade Julia for a candy bar. There's "no way to increase" the amount of gumballs I have. And Julia says to me "hey if you give me 8 I'll be able to get you a second candy bar in a week." Well, tough luck, Julia, that'd be a great deal if I had a way of getting three more gumballs, but I don't.

In hindsight, the rest of the answer choices aren't even close to being valid or relevant, so I suppose I'm reading too much into this. But I feel like it's a reasonable thought process to have.

@CaraPridemore This one's tricky because you have to think a bit outside the box, and dig a bit beyond the surface-level facts of choice C.

If the chess team requires members to have a high GPA, then the children had an incentive, separate from the program, to do better in school. This could lead us to wonder... what if they simply studied for their math exam harder than they normally would've in order to raise their GPAs for the team; or maybe they went to extra help for history; or started seeing a tutor for spanish class; the list goes on.

These are the implications hidden within C, and they are what you need to uncover in order to understand that C successfully provides an alternative explanation: Perhaps the increases in their schoolwork achievement levels did not come from the skills learned during the chess program, but from simply working harder in school so that they could get onto the chess team.

@dh2303 see this is where my brain just can't process the info. i got this question right because it felt right, but I can't fully wrap my head around why.

I've been struggling with many of the strengthen/weaken questions, but for some reason this one was immediately apparent to me. To me the premise of the anti-inflammatory drug stuck out like a sore thumb because, left alone, it doesn't seem to relate to the argument at ALL, so it was clear to me that it was essential to strengthen that premise.

I've now reached the point in my studying where I've been hoodwinked by so many trap answers that I am now second-guessing no-brainer questions like this lol

Gahhh D is so easy if you read carefully. I glossed over the fact that Pat didn't adhere to the Member rules! It truly is essential to make sure you understand everything being said.

Generally good, although from time to time I'll encounter a question that I just can't sort out in my head, and there isn't really a strong explanation, it just says something like "A is most supported, because insert premise from stim" but it doesn't break down the logic behind it.

Question 2 was really hard for me. It seems to me that C and D are both unsupported, but C is simply less likely to be a possibility than D. Or am I missing something?

@vicdrucker I see what you're saying but I believe it just comes down to the phrasing. Ex. if you read "Sir Arthur convened the knights of the Round Table" you wouldn't think the object is the round table. So the "of" is the important difference. If the passage said "territorial America" then of course America would be the object.