@AlexandraFriestman These tips are fantastic! Thanks!

(A): Clarissa agrees, Myungsook is silent on the matter.

Note: M is disagreeing with the second sentence of C's statement ("No observation is worth...").

(B): C has no opinion. M disagrees.

(C): Neither state an opinion on this.

(D): C disagrees, M agrees.

C: "An observation is not worth careful consideration unless it can be quantified."

M: "...can be done only when the observation has been thoroughly explored."

(E): C agrees. M doesn't have an opinion.

Thus, (D) is correct.

First step: Highlight EXCEPT in the stem.

Next, break down each claim in the stim:

• European music (EM) has had a strong influence throughout the world.

• EM is not defined by its original function.

• EM's original function has, over time, become an aspect of each genre.

• EM contains sufficient coherence such that the only defining force of EM is EM itself.

• As such, each EM song can stand independently of its original function.

I was immediately drawn to (D) because the term "unintelligible" spoke to me, but I went through PoE anyway:

(A): Eliminated.

Stim says EM has had a strong influence, not the strongest influence.

(B): Eliminated.

Stim says "one reason" EM has had a strong influence, so expansionism could totally be another reason.

(C): Eliminated.

The stim tells us nothing about Chinese music, and the AC tells us nothing about EM.

(D): Substitute "unintelligible" with synonym "incoherent" to better match the stim, and we get:

Music that is incoherent when presented independently of its original function tends to be the most sophisticated music.

Why is this incompatible with the stim?

Because the stim says that "each composition has so much internal coherence that the music depends only on itself." Earlier in the stim, we're told that music which isn't defined by its original function is a sophisticated achievement.

(E): Eliminated.

This could be true. "Some works of art" is so, so vague compared to the stim, which only discusses EM.

Thus, the answer is (D).

First, we do an analysis/summary of the stim:

Premise 1: Direct-mail ads cause millions to buy products via phone or online.

Premise 2: If such products are bought in physical stores instead, it causes pollution [due to driving to the store].

Conclusion: Direct-mail ads are not bad for the environment.

Let's go through PoE next:

(A): This is a weakener, which states that direct mail also encourages in-store shopping. Eliminated.

(B): Hmm. This one has potential. If people were going to buy the products regardless of the method (in person, online, or phone), it bolsters the claim that without direct mail, there would be more pollution. This is because people would be left with only one option: Driving to the store, which causes pollution. I like it, but let's put a pin in it after a review of the other ACs.

(C): What do magazines have to do with anything? Eliminated.

(D): I don't care why the company sends out direct-mail ads. Eliminated.

(E): I also don't care about the proportion of people that buy from direct-mail ads vs. people who don't. Furthermore, it's possible that the direct-mail ads are causing people to buy stuff in-store more frequently. This tells me nothing about the effect direct-mail ads have on the environment. Eliminated.

I've eliminated all except (B), so that must be the one!

I whiffed this one because I was focused on the conclusion also referencing beliefs. I definitely would've chosen (A) if it read something like "...so a belief in unicorns is false." But alas.

Paid too much attention to the structure and not enough attention to the flaw itself.

@babachanianaren905 Written languages are, in fact, a form of technology. The definition of technology is the application of knowledge to solve problems or make life easier or get around limitations.

Problem: Human memory is limited and oral histories are unreliable.

Solution: Invent a system where older information can be easily referenced.

Spoken language isn't considered technology because it's an instinct for humans, but written language was invented.

Think of it like a programming language. Coding languages are widely regarded as a form of technology -- but programming languages are just another form of written language.

I got totally thrown off by the stim mentioning comparing programs, meaning two computers and two programs, and so I went with (D).

I also parsed "a chess-playing program" as referring to any hypothetical chess-playing program, not the same chess-playing program.

Got it on BR, though, but I didn't choose it because of the above - I liked it because it wasn't as strong as some of the others ("in general").

How can I do better next time? Ensure I haven't miscounted when a stim discusses pluralities.

@Cathyyyy The assumption isn't "people whose willingness to pay more shows they really need goods." The assumption that the economists make is that "people who really need goods are willing to pay more."

If we negate that statement - people who really need goods are unwilling to pay more - then the economists' argument falls apart.

My immediate reaction was "The answer is (E) because it's phrased stupidly and is difficult to parse."

But instead of going with my gut, I went through PoE like a good lil LSAT student.

(A): Maybe? I don't think it's an alternate explanation though. We'll put a pin in this one and come back later.

(B): The conclusion is the last sentence of the stim, so this claim is definitely not the overall conclusion. Eliminated.

(C): The advocate doesn't dispute this claim at all - he's the one who makes the claim. Eliminated.

(D): Same as above - the author makes this claim, he doesn't dispute it.

(E): I'm still leaning towards this one purely based on vibes, but let's break it down into its components:

• "It"

  • What does "it" refer to? The author's statement in the question stem ("willingness to pay is not proportional to need.")

• "denies a claim"

  • What claim is being denied? The economists' claim that if a person is willing to pay more for a thing, it proves that they really need that thing.

• "that the argument takes to be assumed in the reasoning it rejects."

  • What is doing the rejecting? The author's argument.

  • What reasoning does the author's argument reject? The economists' logic behind their position that price gouging = cool.

  • What is the economists' logic? Gouging is efficient because people who pay more for goods really need those goods.

  • What is the assumption made in the economists' logic? People who really need goods ARE willing to pay more. If the negation is true, then the economists' reasoning falls apart. And that is exactly what the author is trying to do.

• Strung together, we have: [The author's statement] denies [the economists' claim] that [the author] takes to be assumed in [the economists' logic], which [the author] rejects.

• Plain(er) English: The author noticed an assumption that the economists' made in their logic, and the author's statement says that this assumption is false.

Vibes were right!

Note: While parsing out (E) sucks and is annoying, this is literally how to read dense legalese. I frequently need to separate paragraph-long sentences into phrases and clauses, removing parentheticals or unnecessary info between commas, replacing overly-long descriptors with generic terms (like kicking things up), etc. Being able to parse bizarrely-phrased ACs like this one is a critical skill for anyone in the legal field.

I knew immediately I was looking for an AC which had reasoning along the lines of "correlation =/= causation, because reverse could be true."

First, we go into a shallow dive of the ACs and whenever something just... doesn't feel right, it gets eliminated.

So (B), (C), and (E) were eliminated based on vibes a shallow dive.

(B) doesn't deal with reversal of correlation/causation.

(C) doesn't really deal with correlation/causation at all.

(E) Still no reversal of correlation/causation here.

I'm now stuck between (A) and (D). I started by rephrasing (A) in the same structure as the stim.

(A) can be restructured as:

The fact that habitual readers tend to be verbally skilled doesn't prove that reading produces verbal skill, for having strong verbal skills encourages people to read more.

Stim vs. restructured (A):

Stim: X and Y often correlate, but that isn't proof that X causes Y, because Y could also cause X.

(A): X (reading) and Y (strong verbal skills) tend to correlate, but that doesn't prove that X causes Y, because Y causes X.

Upon closer examination of (D), I see that it adds a third factor of "play more frequently." So it's not that one. Thus, (A) is correct.

I started by eliminating (A) and (B), because the stim doesn't mention how difficult Beethoven found composing while deaf, nor does it mention poor/high quality (it only mentions an introspective quality).

(C) was eliminated next. If Beethoven was not deaf, he still could've become more introspective over time due to other reasons, such as age, reading a certain book, finding religion, etc. [After review, I also see that I missed the music vs. personality quality! I still think my initial reasoning for eliminating (C) is also appropriate here, however.]

I initially liked (D), as the stim said that the hearing loss continued gradually. However! The last sentence of the stim says "complete hearing loss ... gave [Beethoven's] later music an introspective quality." Okay, so since the conclusion refers to complete deafness, then (D) is not correct either.

(E) is the only one left that I like. It's not too strong ("probably" instead of "definitely"), and it's not overly specific about how his music would be different.

First, I eliminated (C) because it's irrelevant.

Second, I did a shallow dive into the ACs. (D) was interesting upon first read, but the negation is:

The proposed legislation as it is framed was meant to satisfy the right and/or the left.

Gut instinct: Not this one. It doesn't address how "too specific" and "too vague" are mutually exclusive. A thing can be too specific in some places and too vague in other places. Moving on.

Oh hey, (E) addresses the exact thing that (D) does not! Negation of (E):

The proposed legislation is made up of some overly specific and some overly vague statements.

There we go! Answer is (E).

I got this wrong because I missed a goddamn apostrophe and I'm so annoyed.

I should've noticed the difference between "one of the literary critic's beliefs" vs. "one of the literary critics' beliefs".

I thought "one of the literary critics' beliefs..." referred to Critic A disagreeing with Critic B instead of Belief A and Belief B, both beliefs held by the entire group of critics. Since the stim only mentioned one group of critics, I quickly eliminated (D).

Note to self: Pay more attention to apostrophes.

Oh man, that's a mood. I have turbo ADHD and I have to tell myself "learn 2 read idiot" all the time, haha. I generally do well with color-coded organizational tools, so I make extensive use of the highlighter tool.

Sometimes I use it as a visual aid to help break up large paragraphs of text or densely-worded stims. I'll alternate between two colors for premises, and then the conclusion is a third color to make it stand out. I also started highlighting key words in the question stem so I don't mistake an MBT for a MSS, or an NA for a SA question. I highly recommend highlighting words in the stem like "EXCEPT" or "DISAGREE" too. I used to muck up "except" questions because I forgot I was looking for the AC that is inconsistent with the stim/question stem.

I like using the highlighter to pick out key words (which may or may not end up being important) on a shallow dive before really trying to parse out the stim. For example, I will highlight conditional indicators (e.g. "all," "some," "the only"). I also highlight descriptors and qualifiers to make sure I don't conflate different groups of things. For example: Premise 1 refers to "elephants," but Premise 2 refers to "Asian elephants" -- now I know there's a sub/superset aspect to pay attention to, and so I might be looking for whole-to-part flaw or confusing sufficient/necessary to be addressed in the ACs (or a flaw in the stim itself).

Another thing that helped me was taking a break from timed adaptive drills. Instead I do untimed drills of only rank 5 difficulty questions. I just spend as much time as I need on each question, carefully picking them apart, pausing to get some real work done (I definitely don't do LSAT prep when I'm supposed to be doing my day job, nope, certainly not I), then coming back to it later with a fresh mind. It sounds counterintuitive, but consciously practicing deliberate and detailed reading may help you to easily and subconsciously read this way when under timed conditions.

I hope any or all of this helps!

I had it narrowed down to (C) and (E) and I could not parse the difference between the two. I had a gut feeling that there was a sufficient/necessary aspect that I needed to figure out, but I was at a loss.

And then I remembered that:

"The only" = sufficient

"Only" = necessary

aaaaaaaugh ok these ACs are complete opposites but also frustratingly similar.

Stim:

doctorate -> improve-intellect

/interested-money -> /hire

thus

doctorate -> /hire

Alright. What are we missing here? We need to connect doctorate with /interested-money.

Let's insert each remaining AC into the premises.

(C):

/interested-money -> improve-intellect

doctorate -> improve-intellect -> actually nope, I don't need to keep going. This totally reverses what we're looking for. I want to prove that people with doctorates (who universally want to improve intellect) aren't interested in making money. (C) doesn't do that.

(E):

improve-intellect -> /interested-money

doctorate -> improve-intellect -> /interested-money -> /hire

There we go! (E) tells me that people with doctorates aren't interested in making money and completes the logic chain.

I initially eliminated (C), (D), and (E) because of the phrase "historical fact." As far as I could see, there is no historical fact mentioned in the stim. I eliminated (B), because the argument isn't defending people's tastes. I selected (A), but it didn't sit right with me.

Before submitting, it finally clicked that "otherwise photography would have entirely displaced" is a fact stating that a thing did not happen in the past.

With that in mind, I eliminate (A) and unhide (C), (D), and (E). Let's go through PoE:

(C): The historical fact is not explained. Eliminated.

(D): The author's claim is about artistic preferences (people care about more than just realism). He supports his claim with a historical fact and says "well, it must be true because otherwise X would've happened [but X didn't happen]." That is an appeal to the historical fact. Neat. Let's stick a pin in this one and check out (E).

(E): No one's preferences are being defended. Eliminated, and (D) is my final choice.

Initially chose (A). Missed "chance of storms most days" and instead read it as "will be storms most days."

I moved to (C) during BR, but only because I didn't like any of the others.

After review, I see what tripped me up.

I got stuck on the fact that the stim uses "most" along with a qualifier to mean "some," so I was looking for an AC that used some/most/all instead of some/some/all.

If the stim said "...because most halogen lamps are on display...," then yes, I would be looking for most. But instead, it says ...because halogen lamps from most major manufacturers..." That means "some halogen lamps," because we don't know the proportion of halogen lamps made by small or mid-ranked manufacturers.

Premise 1:

valid-contract -> legit-offer

[/legit-offer -> /valid-contract]

Premise 2:

believe-jest -> /legit-offer

[legit-offer -> /believe-jest]

Premises strung together:

believe-jest -> /legit-offer -> /valid-contract

or

valid-contract -> legit-offer -> /believe-jest

First, I eliminated (A) and (D), because we don't know what constitutes a valid contract, only an invalid contract.

Next, I eliminated (C) because neither premise has anything to do with whether an offer will be accepted or not.

I now have (B) and (E) left.

(B): I initially chose this one because I missed that we aren't told whether a person would reasonably believe the offer was made in jest, only that the offer was made in jest.

(E): This is the correct answer, phrased as the contrapositive of Premise 1. Mapped out:

/legit-offer -> /valid-contract

(We can leave out the "jest" premise, as the AC explicitly tells us it doesn't matter.)

Correct Answer Journal: I started by breaking down the stim into two premises and the conclusion:

• Tariffs on particular products (TPP) hurt all except industry-workers. I subsequently realized that I don't need to care about this first premise.

• Most people oppose TPP.

  thus

• Reelection more likely if oppose TPP.

I also noted that the author never makes a recommendation. They only say "if politicians do X, then Y is more likely."

Then I started going through PoE.

(A): Brain immediately stopped working. This is wicked irritating to parse out so I'm gonna check the rest and come back to this one.

(B): First we negate:

Politicians never vote according to what is most likely to get them reelected.

Okay, great, don't care. The author is saying what would happen if politicians oppose TPP, not what politicians actually do - so we can eliminate (B).

(C): Immediately eliminated. Stim doesn't tell us anything about other types of tariffs.

(D): Also immediately eliminated. Author never says politicians should do anything.

(E): Negated:

People who would be hurt by tariffs aren't aware that they would be hurt by [tariffs].

Eliminated. Stim explicitly states "...most people oppose such tariffs" and that is all we need to know. Whether people know TPPs are harmful to themselves or not doesn't necessarily impact their support/opposition.

Ugh, okay. I don't like ACs (B) through (E), so let's go back and try to parse out (A).

(A) redux: Let's simplify the language here a bit:

Supporters and opponents of TPPs are equally likely to base their vote on a politician's stand on TPPs.

That's better. Not sure what this has to do with anything, but I'll try a negation:

Supporters of TPPs are way more likely to base their vote on a politician's stand on TPPs than opponents are.

Ohhhhh. I see. If supporters are more likely to back a candidate that votes for TPPs, but opponents don't really care if candidates vote for TPPs or not, then opponents might still vote for the politicians who support TPP if such politicians also have other views the voters agree with.

To make this more concrete, I gave myself a little hypothetical:

• Candidate A supports LGBTQ rights and opposes environmental reform.

• Candidate B opposes LGBTQ rights and supports environmental reform.

• All voters in District X support environmental reform, but most care more about LGBTQ rights.

• Therefore, all else being equal, it's likely that many voters in District X will prefer Candidate A to Candidate B.

Cool - answer must be (A).

Pleased I got this in under my target time. We are given two rules:

• Rule X: State-owned entity (SOE) must be sold for highest price on the open market

• Rule Y: SOE must be owned by a corporation with a F-citizen majority ownership

We are looking for an impossible situation for Country F. What situation would place Country F into a position where they can only do X or Y, and not both?

Prediction: Each incorrect AC will either meet both conditions simultaneously OR will present irrelevant info.

(A): Eliminated. Both conditions can be met.

X: ✔ ("highest bid received...")

Y: ✔ ("owned entirely by citizens of Country F...")

(B): Eliminated. Condition Y met. Condition X not addressed. Where sales take place is irrelevant.

(C): This AC addresses a company that made one of the highest offers. I do not care about any offers other than the highest. Eliminated.

(D): Eliminated. Both conditions can be met. Last sentence is entirely irrelevant.

X: ✔ ("the highest bid received...")

Y: ✔ ("citizens of Country F have majority ownership...")

(E): And we have a winner!

X: ❌ In order to meet Condition X, the government must sell to a noncitizen-owned company.

Y: ❌ In order to meet Condition Y, the government cannot receive the highest price possible.

I primarily find value in the note-taking process itself. For me, the WAJ functions as a rubber duck method journal. I explain my process to myself to figure out where I went wrong (or right!). It lets me methodically work through the problem and catch things I missed or misinterpreted, make sure I understand what my exact thought process was, and correct any logical errors/assumptions I made. It's also helpful to incorporate tips and notes from people in the discussion for that question. However, I rarely go back and review my WAJ.

What I would love is an expanded WAJ feature with varied templates that we can tag/sort/prioritize. For example, I'd love to be able to look at all of my WAJ entries for phenom-hypo questions tagged as 5* difficulty. Maybe there are different templates for different types of questions. It's not super helpful to just pull up all my notes to look through, as WAJ entries are not the only things I keep in notes.

My most important request, however, would be implementing a correct answer journal alongside the WAJ. I use my CAJ for very difficult questions (like with a 50% solve rate) that I get correct so I can really digest how exactly I reached the correct answer, whether I missed anything that the official explanations mention, if I accidentally made an assumption, talk myself through the ACs I eliminated, ensure I didn't just guess, and how I can apply my process getting to the right AC to other questions in the future. The CAJ is particularly helpful when I had a question narrowed down to two ACs but I ended up getting it correct.

Here's one where I had narrowed it down to one AC and was still entirely baffled until I had a realization that made me feel simultaneously brilliant and dumb.

Stim, long-form:

well-pub AND establish -> success

Julia -> establish AND success

thus

well-pub

Stim, generic:

X and Y -> Z

A -> Y and Z

thus

X

Immediately eliminated (A), (D), and (E) because there are no flaws. Eliminated (B) because the stim structure has nothing to do with a previous book tour.

Now all I have left is (C). However! This confused me quite badly because I could not wrap my head around how this was correct. It didn't have the same structure as the stim.

(C), long-form:

shade AND 3x/wk -> dead

cactus -> shade AND dead

thus

3x/wk

(C), generic:

X and Y -> Z

A -> X and Z

thus

Y

And then I realized that the order of X and Y can be swapped in both the stim and (C) with no change in meaning since they're both part of the sufficient condition due to the "and" conditional (Conjunction Junction, what's your function?)

Anyway, (C) is correct.

I had it narrowed down to (A) and (B).

(A) because three cars belonging to one dude is a wicked small sample size.

(B) because the stim says "under normal driving conditions."

When I'm waffling between two ACs, I try to think about which one requires the least number of assumptions.

(A) has no assumptions. It is a straight-up fact that this is a dinky sample size.

(B) assumes that the columnist primarily drove in regions that are not normal driving conditions.

(A) requires one fewer assumption than (B), ergo, (A) is correct.

Flipped sufficient and necessary. I thought the stim was telling me what's sufficient for a licensing requirement, and thus the correct AC would tell me that XYZ occupation should be licensed.

Nope, wrong. Correct AC would tell me that XYZ occupation should not be licensed.

Selected (D) first, due to aforementioned mixup.

Moved to (E) in BR because I still wasn't grasping that I'd reversed N and S.

After reading the explanations, I get it now. Most annoying part is that I knew I needed to watch out for confusing N/S but I still flubbed it anyway.

Man, I did this a lot on this section: Changed my answer from the correct one to an incorrect one at the last minute, then got it right on BR. Ugh. I initially chose (A), then selected (E) on BR.

Negation of (A):

None of the lowest-paid employees work for execs that earn 50x the lowest-paid employee.

Not necessary, because:

• Even if there aren't any execs that currently make more than 50x the lowest-paid employee, this law could be implemented to prevent it from ever happening in the future.

• The 50x was merely a suggestion by the economist ("...earning more than, say, 50 times...").

• Conclusion says "many," not "all."

Negation of (E):

If such a law were enacted, all execs would cut their lowest-paid employees' pay and benefits.

And that makes the conclusion fall apart.