I feel like it's better to read all the answer choices for the newer LSATs...

Hi. What you're saying makes sense. However, the problem is that it's not in the answer choice. If there was an answer choice the specified what you said, I think it'll make for a valid argument.

The language completely screwed me over here. In my country, when we say "apartment" we mean the whole building. So in some sense, homes/houses are inside the apartment.

The main argument is that the scientists are hypothesizing that it is the BURROWING ACTIVITIES of these termites that's causing the circles.

The possibility of using contrapositives ultimately relies on whether the sentences are using logical indicators proper. Those universal quantifiers. It's not recommended to use them with causation logic (it sometimes work, but it's not necessary). Contrapositives, when they are viable, are ALWAYS appropriate and fair game for LSAT. It took me some practice tests to notice this. It's hard in the beginning when and when not to use lawgic or contrapositives, but just ask yourself whether the sentences you are reading are universal quantifiers. If they're NOT, for these parallel flaw questions, you need to match them as precisely as possible, as in, not change them in any way using contrapositives. As a result, using diagrams can be easier.

Okay. So what screwed me over the most, other than imagining that two plates were on top of each other as opposed to on a single line, was how they played with "high/low" levels and "shallow/deep" subductions. They apparently are the same. Huge earthquakes had, traditionally, "high" or "deep" subductions, understandably. Not knowing much about this, I imagined something snapping as they were pushing into each other. However, "low/shallow" subductions provide earthquakes that are more frequent, because they "grind" for a longer period of time. They're not as powerful, but they occur more frequently (q26).

Still not convinced... Why can't the SQ last for only an hour? There's nothing telling us that the SQ will last past 7PM. We have to assume that it will last for more than an hour.

#help

Is there a way to drill questions like this? I always mess up these questions, no matter how "easy" they are.

Wow... how in the world did I convince myself that the correct answer was A...

I hate these passages on political crimes. It takes me forever to figure out what in the world they are talking about.

Ah I thought this was an MP question. %@#!$!@#

#help

For #3, how can we know that the passage is describing a "novel" method of addressing a problem? Not knowing when John Rawls formulated his theory, the only thing we can know for sure is that it is "novel" compared to what came before it, which is tautological. I felt like for the AC B to make sense, we needed something that indicates the "novel"ness of the theory. As it is, the passage seems more interested discussing how Rawls's theory addressed certain issues with utilitarianism. There's nothing "novel" about it unless we are given a timeframe. :(

Note to self: UQ-bordering conclusions require UQ-bordering answer choices in S/W Questions.

Reflecting on some of my common mistakes in RC, I should pay more attention to the first paragraph.

I had to wrestle myself with this, but I think it comes down to the generality of the language. It's like saying, "X's cooking inspired the next generation of 20th century french cuisine chefs." No matter how you look at it, you can't deny the fact that X contributed to the development of french cuisine, be it 20th or 21th century in whatever branch of french cuisine.

An alarm goes off in my head whenever I see the word "average." It rarely tells you anything.

Let's say the average number of children in large families reduced from 10 to 3, and in these countries the incidence of allergies in children has increased. But we are not told whether the increased incidence happened to large or small families. For the average to be 3, we can have some families having 5 babies and another having 1. The AC A doesn't say which of those families are experiencing increased incidence of allergies.

The third sentence is screwed up.

I had to spend some minutes to figure out why E was wrong. E's wrong because there isn't a comparative. It would have been a better answer had it said something like, "An electronic keyboard may be cheaper to buy, but the money needed to fix it would be more than the money we save in buying it." Or something like that. Bottom line, we don't know whether the price saved < repair cost.

I got this question wrong, but I think I can help out why E is incorrect. My argument sort of goes against JY's so take it with a grain of salt!

The stimulus states, "every COMPLAINT filed about a PLUMBER'S WORK was..." It's clear that that the complaints are "dissatisfied" people regarding "Moore's work." So it's not even a weakening AC. I would like to go a step further and say that it's descriptively inaccurate in stating that it fails to do what it already did.

If Moore was the only plumber in town, then it must follow that all complaints of plumbing are directed at Moore. It doesn't mean that Moore is a bad plumber. Say you're a doctor in a hospital. Patients complain to you, since you're the only doctor. It doesn't make you a bad doctor.

I have no idea why I was having such a hard time using the negate tactics to cross out A. But it just suddenly clicked. If we negate A it becomes, "some or ONE person wants his or her estate to go to someone he or she has never met." This does nothing to the argument, because 99999 other people may still want to distribute their wealth to someone they know.

To make A the correct answer, we need it to say something very similar to D. To use the language in A, it becomes: "Some people don't want their estate to go to someone they have never met." It's absolutely necessary that we have at least one person who cares.

Trying to negate this hypothetical answer, it becomes: "No one doesn't want his or her estate to go to someone he or she has never met". If we make this more readable by crossing out the double negatives, "Everyone wants his or her estate to go to someone he or she has never met." which wrecks the argument.

Many of those who study for the LSAT assume most people are academics haha. Failed to see that E focused too heavily on only the academics, instead of the Internet community as a whole.

I think it'll be clearer if we substitute SA and F with something simpler and actually write it out.

Not all cats are furry = Some cats are NOT furry.

vs.

Not all cats are not furry = Some cats ARE furry

So if we take out the Not from both, it's "all cats are furry" vs "all cats are not furry." We can see that the two sentences are making completely different statements.

Basically, the stimulus is assuming that left-sided steering wheel is an obstacle. B supports this perfectly.

Not sure if this makes sense, but I was able to get rid of D by focusing on the "therefore, one OBSTACLE to reducing the automative trade imbalance will be removed if..."

If we negate D, it reads something like, "blah blah, most Japanese would NOT choose the North American model." But what they choose has little to do with whether an obstacle was removed. Japanese people not choosing NA models doesn't mean that the obstacle wasn't removed. Even if we change the "most" to a "some" or "one" -- as JY does -- it still wouldn't be correct. People's preference has no bearing on whether an "obstacle" has been removed.

+ I'm aware of the some not negation, but JY seems to be flexible where he uses it. I've seen cases where using it messes up the checking process.

I found this question difficult because I automatically assumed that "continuous maintenance" entailed regular check ups. I mean, regular maintenance are suppose to lack urgency. That's the whole point of doing it. To avoid urgency. You're suppose to provide maintenance before problems arise. Otherwise, you would just call it a repair. With this in my head, E didn't make any goddamn sense.