Discussions

nikhilbamal502

Joined: Apr 2025
Subscription: Free

nikhilbamal502

Monday, Sep 30 2024

I know a very popular approach to solving RRE questions is to first come up with your own resolution and then check the answer choices—this seems to be your strategy as well. I’ve tried that too, but it never really worked for me. I use a simpler pre-phrase for these types of questions: If there is a world where X is true, what is the one thing that will ensure Y is also true in the same world?

I’ve accepted the fact that I’m not a subject-matter expert on 99.99% of the topics the RRE stimuli present, and guessing feels like a waste of time. Instead, I’d rather spend that time eliminating one really bad answer choice. If I’m analyzing an answer choice and come across something confusing (which happens more than I’d like to admit), I just remind myself of my pre-phrase: I’m looking for something that explains how X and Y can coexist in the same world.

PrepTests ·

PT149.S1.Q10

nikhilbamal502

Wednesday, Aug 28 2024

#help

Sure, E is ~~wrong~~ incomplete insofar as it only provides an explanation for 12 hours a day (give or take a few). But answer choice C requires an assumption from us that I don't think is so small and reasonable that we should be supplying it here. C requires us to think that how animals/predators perceive the black-and-white pattern is to their disadvantage and not to their advantage. Are we really to assume that when LSAT writers say "perceive differently", they mean that the camouflage is effective? Can't we just as easily assume the exact opposite—that the black-and-white pattern sticks out even more to the predators than it does to humans?

Study Groups · Study Buddy in Toronto

nikhilbamal502

Wednesday, Jun 26 2024

Hi! I am also based out of Toronto. How do we start? Is there a group where all of us can coordinate?

Study Groups · April-Jun 2024 lsat Study Group!Discord?

nikhilbamal502

Monday, Feb 26 2024

Interested!

Study Groups · January 2024 LSAT

nikhilbamal502

Saturday, Aug 26 2023

Interested

PrepTests ·

PT141.S2.Q13

nikhilbamal502

Friday, Nov 24 2023

I was having a difficult time explaining to myself as to why C is wrong so I mapped out some scenarios where crime ratio could have "not reduced significantly" and where prison population percentage could have increased. For the former, I came up with two instances where the population would have increased and still the ratio would have complied with the conditions in the stimulus. For the latter, I could think of an instance where population (being the denominator) increased and still the overall percentage increased. After this exercise, I came to the conclusion that while dealing with claims about ratios or percentages going up or down or going nowhere, it is reasonable to assume that the author checked for a mix of scenarios which includes the numerator and the denominator going up, staying the same and going down. Therefore, in these situations, any AC that says author has failed to consider an increase or decrease in either the numerator or the denominator can not be right.

PrepTests ·

PT148.S3.Q18

nikhilbamal502

Friday, Nov 24 2023

#help

Confused by B. Lesson on dramamine on cruise ship said "a self-selected group isn't representative of the population at large. That's true by definition.". This is also referred as volunteer bias. Could someone please explain as to how volunteer bias/ self-selection bias is not an issue here?

PrepTests ·

PT155.S4.Q20

nikhilbamal502

Thursday, May 23 2024

#feedback

For AC E, I feel the explanation is wrong. If A->B and B->C&D&E&F, then every time we get a A, we also get B, C, D, E & F. That's formal logic. How is that a flaw?

PrepTests ·

PT155.S4.Q14

nikhilbamal502

Thursday, May 23 2024

Analysis

"Understanding starts from refusing to accept the world as it looks and inquiring into the world's reality, and the reality of the world is not in its images but in its functions."

To understand, we need to inquire into the world's reality, which can be achieved by looking at its functions and not by accepting the world as it appears. Another way to say the same thing is this: To understand, you definitely need to inquire into the world's realities. But what are those realities? You can't just look at something and say, "Oh, from now on I will take this to be true." That is not understanding. You must look into the functions. Basically, ask how and why.

"Functioning takes place in time and must be explained in time; only that which narrates can enable us to understand."

The concept of functioning is temporal. It can only be explained in time, not in a paused instance of reality. For example, you can't look at the sun's position at noon and say, "Okay, so the sun is always here." You need to look at it "in time" and ask questions and be curious to understand how it functions. All of this is to say that only a narrative explanation can help us understand the world.

Functioning -> explained in time (as opposed to still photographs)

enable to understand the world -> narrative explanation OR /narrative explanation -> /enable to understand the world

Conclusion: "The art of still photography cannot enable us to understand the world. ": ASP -> /enable to understand the world

Why is the wrong answer wrong?

(B) "The functioning of the world cannot be captured on film." is wrong because it says "film." The negation would give us "The functioning of the world can be captured on film." But what if the photo is taken digitally? Now you are creating two situations. One where the photo is on film and can help us understand the world and the other is where photos are digital. These are still in trouble because they still can't capture the functioning of the world.

WHAT IF (B) had said "The functioning of the world cannot be captured in a photograph"? I humbly disagree with J.Y. here.

In my opinion, it would become a necessary assumption in that case because when you say that the functioning of the world can be captured in a photograph, you are declaring it capable of explaining a temporal sequence of events (which the premises have called a narration). The support for the conclusion that still photography cannot enable us to understand the world would be sapped away.

Why is the right answer right?

(C)"The art of still photography is not narrative." is right because it hooks up these two essential components. negating this destroys the argument.

General · Frustration with LG removal from CCv2

nikhilbamal502

Monday, Oct 23 2023

I was almost done with the LG section on V2 and now I suddenly have hours of material left if I pick it up from the same point in V1. This completely messed up my planned schedule. Shouldn't we have been put to notice before removing LG from V2?

General · Still studying for the LSAT at 28

nikhilbamal502

Thursday, Aug 15 2024

32 and 1 year into this journey and will be 33 when I start law school. I have spoken to a bunch of lawyers and law students about this and from what I hear the average age of the classroom has been on the rise for a while now. We are not alone!

On a slightly lighter vein, aren't you just happier when you see grey hair on your doctor and lawyer? We will graduate with a clear advantage.

General · Any Ontario Canada applicants here??

nikhilbamal502

Monday, Jul 15 2024

From Toronto here. Already took it in June and planning to take it again in Oct.

LSAT · PT17 S3 Q12 - ad's effect on cigarette smokers

nikhilbamal502

Thursday, Aug 15 2024

@ said:

Maybe people in group A stopped smoking, but people in group B started using snuff. Here, it's not necessarily true that people in group A switched to another product. In fact, if there are two different demographics (A and B), for instance, there could still be another alternative explanation even if AC A is true.

@ thank you for responding! This part! Yes! It makes so much sense now. AC A says that "residents" have not increased their use. But this AC doesn't clarify the members of the set of "residents" it speaks of; could means just 2 guys chilling by the lake who have nothing to do with anything or it could mean literally all of the residents. I assumed it included the people who stopped smoking.

This realization is enough to eliminate AC A. As J.Y. often warns, we need to carefully consider the set of people the answer choice refers to. I missed that detail here.

@ said:

I thought something similar to you, but I think what was helpful for me was understanding that A only works if you also assume that people switched to use another product, but we don't have any evidence in the stim to support this assumption.

@ said:

Also, I know J.Y. says it in the explanation video, but the conclusion is about people who smoke cigarettes. Even if people decreased their usage of other tobacco products, it wouldn't matter if the conclusion in the argument only applies to cigarettes. Hope this helps!

I am still a little unsure about this part though. Before proceeding, I would just clarify that I agree 100% that D is better and use of "residents" is an automatic elimination for AC A. Even if we fix the residents bit in A, D still wins.

I understand that you, J.Y., and others share the view about AC A also being irrelevant because the conclusion in the stimulus is about cigarette smokers but hear me out?

"Residents" is what kills this AC so I am going to request you to replace "residents" with "the people who stopped smoking". If this was a weaken question, an AC that said "The people who stopped smoking increased their use of other tobacco products such as snuff and chewing tobacco since the campaign went into effect." would work in my opinion. A strengthen AC would just deny this.

Let's take an analogy? There is an ad which says stop using fax machines, they are harmful (I know I know, but please don't stop helping). At the time when the ad came out, 100 people were using fax machines. 1 year later, only 97 were; 3 people got off the fax bandwagon. The author concludes from this that the ad -c-> 3 people to stop using wax..

To weaken this argument, we can literally pick any one of the 1000 alternate explanations of why those three might have stopped using the fax machine. AC A swoops in and says "the three people who stopped using the fax machine increased their usage of text messages and emails since the ad went into effect." This works for me because even though the stimulus says nothing about emails and text messages, we must, on the LSAT, make reasonable assumptions every now and then. Text messages and emails are different beings from a fax but what they have in common is their purpose of delivering a message. It is very reasonable to assume here that it wasn't the ad, that was asking them to stop using fax, that made them stop; it was this increased usage of emails and texts. (No causal explanations proves our point 100%, remember the dead dolphins/ whales example?).

In a stimulus where the conclusion is about fax users, why does AC A matter when all it talks about is emails and texts? In my opinion, it is because the stimulus is a causal explanation of what got those 3 people to stop using the fax machines. It’s not about whether the new method (emails or texts) is the same as the old one (fax machines), but about whether this new factor could have led to the observed effect. I get what you are saying in that these are two different groups but that would be a different question type; in a question where the stimulus makes a case that people, who use fax machines, are cool. Here, an AC that talks about people who use email is irrelevant. But that's not the kind of stimulus we have.

Similarly, I would argue that although smoking cigarettes and chewing tobacco or snuff are different concepts, they do have something in common: they are all methods to consume tobacco. And an AC that provides an alternate causal explanation in a way of telling us that their usage of other forms of tobacco has increased does weaken the likelihood of the offered causal hypothesis.

In case the analogy with fax and emails sound weird, I asked AI to come up with more examples of different things that share the same fundamental usage. Some other examples to consider: car and motorcycle, smartphone and landline, hard copies and audiobooks, vacuum cleaner and broom.

Thanks again for your insights, I was struggling so much with this for some reason—would totally understand if you need to take a coffee break before and after tackling this wall of text! 😄

LSAT

•

Wednesday, Aug 14 2024

nikhilbamal502

PT17 S3 Q12 - ad's effect on cigarette smokers

Hey! I am having trouble understanding why A is incorrect. I do see how and why D works but I can't understand why A doesn't.

Here, we are given a correlation between the ad, price increase and drop in smoking. From the correlation, we get a causation that the ad is what caused the drop in smoking.

The flaw here is that the author overlooks all other alternate causes of the drop in smoking. In a strengthen question, an AC that denies an alternate causal explanation wins. For example, an AC that says or implies that X, an alternate cause for the drop in smoking, did not actually happen or that it can't be the cause will be the correct AC. And any AC that knocks out an alternate explanation for a given phenomenon automatically strengthens the proposed explanation.

Coming to AC A which says that the residents did not increase use of other forms of tobacco. Here, X i.e. the alternate cause, is given as people's increased use of other forms of tobacco. AC A denies this alternate cause.

The explanation that the 3% decrease in smoking happened because people switched over to other forms of tobacco seems like a valid alternate cause for the drop in number of smokers. (Cause: people switched to other forms of tobacco; effect: drop in smoking) It is such a small percentage and it is entirely reasonable that people switched how they wanted their tobacco kick. So, "3% people stopped smoking because they had switched over to other forms of tobacco instead" is a wonderful alternate causal explanation. Denying this alternate explanation increases the likelihood of ad causing the drop being true.

I get that D is better because it deals with the alternate explanation mentioned right there in the stimulus but how is A irrelevant?

TIA!

PrepTests ·

PT111.S4.Q23

nikhilbamal502

Wednesday, Nov 08 2023

#help

I am missing something huge and feel dumb for asking this but here it goes. Why is everyone happy assuming that the correlation in the stimulus is a positive one? Altitude is measured from the mean sea level. (Please assume that the air pressure at sea level is 1000 hPa). If I climb 1000 m, the air pressure drops aka air becomes thinner (for the lack of physics knowledge, let's say it drops to 950 hPa). I climb 2000m, pressure falls down further to 900 hPa. Isn't this a negative correlation? One value keeps going up, another keeps coming down. On the other hand, A and D both have positive correlations. A = Higher age, more wise. B = Higher age, more rings.

Study Groups · Downtown Toronto Area-- Looking for a study group for the September 2024 LSAT, folks aiming for 170+

nikhilbamal502

Sunday, Jul 07 2024

Hey, would love to connect with everyone here. How can one join?