How do I join?

I'd like to join the club!

My bias (fear against a heart attack) tricked me up on this.

I thought, "well, I don't want to die of a heart attack after being diagnosed as not having a heart attack" in a sense that a false positive is better than not being diagnosed having a heart attack.

But that's not true if I get immediately hospitalized with a false positive and later left with a huge hospital bill that was completely unnecessary. In such a case, the computer's false positive will give me a real heart attack, so not great.

If we look at the entire conditional chain spatially, it is more clear to understand.

We first have this clearly sequential chain between the three trees, and most of the Sycamores overlap with Tulips, and there also must be some Sycamores that are not as old as than the youngest Tulips (see where "es" falls in the diagram below).

Tulips | Maples | Dogwoods

Sycamores

(the tail end of Sycamores is not determined)

And C is saying, "Some Sycamores are not as old as the oldest Dogwoods" but this doesn't have to be true, as we can see from the diagram above. Sure, you can have a diagram like the following:

Tulips | Maples | Dogwoods

Sycam o r e s

Here, "s" falls in the age that is "not as old as the oldest Dogwoods."

but does this have to be true? No, because again, the tail end of Sycamores is not determined.

It took me a while to figure out this diagram, and I got it wrong during the timed session.

I hope this makes sense!

The "without" used here isn't a logical indicator.

It is more like saying one can X without Y (X and /Y)

So the trick here is the use of the word "can" which is not a logical indicator.

When there is a "probability indicator (can, could, may, etc.)" and a familiar logical indicator, be careful not to confuse it as a logical indicator.

The premise CGOB & /C

----------------------------------------------------

The conclusion I & /C

Necessary Assumption is then CGOB → I

Didn't understand what "the outcome of the study" meant by Engle.

I mistakenly interpreted "the outcome of the study" to be "failure or success of the study = can the study be performed or not?" instead of "drug effective or not"

Because to me, confusing the drug's effectiveness with the side effect is so unreasonable, and couldn't even imagine someone would actually do that.

Now I know the people in LSAT questions could be super unreasonable and anything is possible.

DO NOT CONFUSE SA for NA

Something Could happen /= something Must happen.

Sufficiency and Necessacity confusion often means someone made a mistake taking a necessary condition as a sufficient condition.

When a necessary condition is confused as a sufficient condition, we are in the territory of the arguer neglecting a possibility that it Can be "N" And Not "S"

Penguin → Bird

A creature (i.e. crow) can be a bird And Not be a penguin.

Me before: oh, sufficiency necessity confusion! (blindly looking for the AC exactly saying this and confused when I don't see one. panic. can't process words in my head. get's the answer wrong.).

Me now: oh, sufficiency necessity confusion! you idiot is neglecting the case that it Can be Necessary And Not be Sufficient! (but still gets the answer wrong for not reading carefully)

Mechanically removed B because of "some".

Never do that.

Ahh, I thought K can't vote for M because K and M have zero disagreement, and my focus was on "at least 1 disagreement." My thought was that K doesn't have any disagreement with M so she can't vote for M.

But K can vote for M because the principle is that she can vote for the candidate who has the least number of disagreement, and zero disagreement is less than 1 (L & M).

Acceptable to vote for this candidate → Disagree less with this candidate than any other candidates

But this question sucks.

It may seem I'm spamming this comment section. But bear me out.

When it comes to % and # combination in LSAT, there seem to be these 4 situations:

% and # moving in the opposite direction - I'd call this BreakUp (you can call it whatever).

1. % Up & # Down

2. % Down & # Up

% and # moving in the same direction - I'd call this NeverGonnaGiveYouUp (you can call it whatever).

3. % Up & # Up

4. % Down & # Down

In the BreakUp situation, the total size moves in the same direction as the # changes of the item. The total size CANNOT stay the same.

In the NeverGonnaGiveYouUp situation, the total size NEVER moves in the opposite direction as the # changes of the item. The total size CAN stay the same.

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There can also be the following situations but they are not very interesting because it is just common sense (probably too simple to be used for an LSAT question - but let me know if you have spotted them):

% stays the same but # changes - I'd call this NumberChange (you can call it whatever).

5. % Same & # Up/Down

# stays the same but % changes - I'd call this PercentChange (you can call it whatever).

6. # Same & % Up/Down

In the NumberChange situation, it means the total size moves in the same direction as the # changes of the item. The total size CANNOT stay the same.

In the PercentChange situation, it means the total size moves in the opposite direction as the % changes of the item. The total size CANNOT stay the same.

Correction.

%Change and #Change move in the opposite direction.

# of at least one of the other item(s) changed in a larger % in the same direction than the item in focus (Region K in our case).

Also

%Up & #Up => Pie Didn't get smaller. (pie can be the same or larger)

%Down & #Down => Pie Didn't get larger (pie can be the same or smaller)

So this is a recurring theme in LSAT testing our ability to understand the changes in share (%) and hard number. A question can have 2 items (i.e. Standard vs. Non-standard method - PrepTest 19 - Section 2 - Question 18), 3 items (just like this question), or even more (but haven't seen more than 3 yet).

You have a set of items (in this case, regions), and they each occupy a share % (usually unknown) of the total (always 100%). Then, one of the items' share changes (Up or Down) while the hard number belong to the item changes in the opposite direction. On the surface, it looks like a paradox, but it isn't.

(It is possible that the % stays the same but the hard number changes - meaning the whole pie got smaller/bigger OR the hard number stays the same while the % changes - meaning the share between the items has changed.)

Say we have an entity A consists of X, Y, Z items.

Case 1. share of X Up & hard number of X Down

The whole pie got smaller. The share of at least one of the other items (but can be both) must have decreased because we still need to make it 100% in total. Someone's gotta give up the share for X. How one gives up the share? by losing even more than X in terms of hard number.

Case 2. share of X Down & hard number of X Up (as presented in this question.)

The whole pie got larger. The share of at least one of the other items (but can be both) must have increased because we still need to make it 100% in total. Someone's gotta take the share from X. How one increases the share? by gaining even more than X in terms of hard number.

TL;DR

%Change and #Change move in the opposite direction.

# of at least one of the other item(s) moved more in the same direction than the item in focus (Region K in our case).

%Up & #Down => Pie got smaller

%Down & #Up => Pie got larger

SOME can be read REVERSLY.

Solid explanation.

An analogy makes the problem a little more to understand.

The world

I have a Good Dog (GD) and a Bad Dog (BD). I spend money on their food.

Phenomenon

Over the past decade, a decreasing percentage of the money was spent on feeding the Good Dog while an increasing percentage of the money was spent on feeding the Bad Dog.

Conclusion

Therefore, I'm spending less money on the GD's food than a decade ago.

The Missing Assumption

The total amount of money spent on Dog Food has not increased.

Explanation

We don't know how much I spent on the food for each dog. Let's say I spent $950 for GD and $50 for BD a decade ago. My budget was $1,000. 95% for GD and 5% for BD. The conclusion is valid if my budge had stayed the same or shrunken.

But if my budget for dog food is now $10,000, and now I'm spending $5,000 (50%) for GD and $5,000 for BD (50%). Now we can see the percentage has changed from 95% to 10%, the amount of money spent on GD's food has increased $4,050, which makes the conclusion invalid.

Remember, the task is to find an assumption that makes the argument Valid.

P1: Phenomenon

- the association of medieval canon lawyers didn't enforce standards of conduct.

P2: Hypothesis

- 1. These canon lawyers were scrupulous (didn't violate the standards much)

- 2. Violations were common and went unpunished.

P3: Support for Hypothesis 2

- church court was not efficient at disciplining the lawyers (compare to the civil court)

P4: Additional support for Hypothesis 2

- there is historic evidence for the inefficiency.

P5: Consequence

- criticism mentioned in P4 induced self-defense of the canon lawyers.

Correlation allows outliers.

For Q7, I chose D over E because I thought E could be bating me to assume "new immigrants? they must lower the average age!" of course it isn't but I thought it could be the trap especially given that it is attributing a change in the average age of the country's population to a change in the number of births, which will lower the average (like my LSAT score could lower the average LSAT score). But it wasn't about that. It's an analogy question, so "structure" is of utmost importance. Don't overthink.

Now, D is incorrect because it lacks a component. It only has TWO components: 1 input (number of false crime reports) and 1 output (average annual number of crimes). However, the original text requires THREE components: 2 inputs (volcanic eruption and El Nino) and 1 output (temperature change). That's why it's incorrect. On the other hand, E matches the structure for having 2 inputs (ages of new immigrants & a change in the number of births) and 1 output (change in the average age of the country's population).

It would have been very helpful if I knew what opinions and transcripts meant in the legal context. I find Law topic more difficult than other topics.

If you imagine a 3-D object shaped like an iPhone, then the volume of the iPhone is width x length x height (or imagine XYZ axis), whereas the thickness of the same object is one of the dimensions (pick any). If the volume stays the same when one of the dimensions decreases (let's say on the Z-axis or height), then at least one of the other dimensions should increase. Hope this explanation makes sense to you.

According to the stimulus, "stars that are too cool to burn hydrogen" are the definition of Brown Dwarfs.

So if you eliminate AC B for seeing "hydrogen" alone, that would be a mistake.

If B is restated, it would be "Most brown dwarfs are too cool to destroy lithium completely"

What if there are some BD that still contain lithium? Our stimulus tells us only the coolest of the BD doesn't contain lithium. The argument still stands.

This is not a necessary assumption the argument requires, and that's why it is not a correct AC.

I was torn between C and E.

Got the wrong answer C.

Teaching is different from setting curricula!

If it was said "Academics are not capable of settings curricula suitable for relevant management training," it would have been a correct answer choice.

Again, CAREFUL READING, and DETAIL MATTERS.