This question is a great reminder to always read through all the AC on a harder LR question. I think more people, including myself, could have gotten this one right if we took the time to consider E. I saw D, thought that it was more or less spot on, and went onto the next question. The reason why D is totally incorrect is well explained by JY. Overlooking E has as much to do with poor test-taking techniques as it does with understanding logic.

This type of question – high car accident rates, unwarranted causation conclusions – appear so often on the LSAT, and they often try to trick you into making bad assumptions. I made a bad assumption here, and I think it is an important lesson for solving these type of LRs in the future.

I mistakenly assumed that cars were driving above the speed limit before the regulation. But that is not said in the stimulus at all, quite intentionally. All we know is that over a period of time, the accident rate was increasing, then a law was passed, and then the accident rate contracted.

Of course, it’s easy to see the corr/cause mistake. What is harder though, is to see that the law could be totally irrelevant. What if all cars were driving at 25mph before and after the law? That is totally consistent with the stimulus. That is why I thought AC C was compelling – if you made this bad assumption like I did. AC C tries to bait you into thinking that the speed limit was reduced and actually had an effect on the speed of cars.

C would, therefore, weaken the argument that the law caused a speed reduction (by saying, look, actually people don’t follow the law and drive faster than it). But C does nothing to weaken the argument about the accident rate. That is why D is the correct AC.

D simply gives us an alternative cause for the decline. Of course, there is a minor assumption: that controlling cars in dangerous situations would lead to a reduction in car accidents – which I think is a realistic assumption to make.

AC C requires an even bigger assumption: that people actually drove above the 55mph before the law, and that following the law the people driving able the limit get into accidents.

A question like this really shows how people with backgrounds in economics have an advantage taking the LSAT. I pre-phrased the right AC because I was expecting an AC that would directly contradict the idea that busier days are also shorter days (and thus more productive). (This stimulus is based on a common study in econ, too, and there is a bunch of interesting research vis-a-vis Uber in the topic.)

Alright, Cookie Cutter NA question - but harder than most I think because it uses complex grammar and words.

AC E jumped out at me after I read the Stim 2-3 times trying to parse the complexity of it. E is the obvious answer choice because you can see how the argument is trying to make its conclusion: that it is wrong to think that the poem’s meaning is whatever the poet intends to communicate.

Why? Look at Premise 1 - because a poet would never intend to communicate contradictory ideas. Add that to the other premise – sometimes readers believes a poem expresses contradictory ideas. Boom! See that logical gap? It has to be assumed that if a reader believes a poem expresses a contradictory idea then it is part of the meaning of the poem. Otherwise, the first sentence has no relevance to the argument.

Don’t get distracted by the wrong answer choices. I quickly scanned to see which AC picked up on this gap, looking for the words ‘reader’ and ‘meaning’. I knew that the AC had to have a ‘If…then’ construction because we have to link a premise to a conclusion, the premise being the If and the conclusion being the then.

I had trouble with this question during the timed test, but after BRing it I now see how simple it is. We're told that P's traveled from Siberia to North America across a land mass that is now gone. We also read that Archeologists discovered spearheads made by P's in Siberia. Therefore, they argue, these spearheads were not invested in Noth America.

How to strengthen?....

Well, if you really think about what invent implies, you can see how A is perfect: If all of these spearheads were older than ANY found in North America, then it is extremely unlikely that they were invented in North America. Put another way, invent implies a chronology where the origin of an invention will always be older than its reproductions.Of course, there is one assumption: that there are no potential artifacts in North America that have been undiscovered. But this is a strengthen question.

Now, B – which is what I chose – appears to strengthen the argument if you assume that the Bering bridge was the ONLY route P's could take. If that was included in the premise, then I think it would strengthen the argument. That additional premise is needed because there is no relation between the invention of the spearheads and the migration of the P's, information that is required if we're to claim that the disappearance of the bridge prevented P's from migrating to and from Siberia to North America.

Cookie Cutter False Dichotomy NA question.

An analogous argument might look like this:

You should apply to ten law schools, there is no reason why you should apply to more than ten or less than ten. If you apply to more than ten, then you will have to pay a bunch of application fees and spend a ton of time writing applications. If you apply to less than ten, then you take a huge risk of not getting accpeted at all.

Another way to think about why AC (C) is wrong is that it gives us an absolute amount (little) whereas we only need a relative amount (less). This difference is critical because one of them has to be true, but the other doesn't. Why? Becuase the stimulus only tells us that sales have increased, which is a relative amount. So the only thing that we can infer from this is that at least some purchases have also increased, but not if there are many more of them. That is unknown. Maybe there are only two more additional transactions due to the free computers. That is a possibility. and that is why AC C is wrong: we simply can't conclude that without the cpu's, sales would be little.

Very cookie cutter question – by the time you get to PT 79, you've likely experienced many of these weaken -causation/corr type questions.

If you don't get distracted by AC's A-D, E will jump out as the right AC: it's a perfect way to weaken the argument because it calls out the flawed assumption the argument makes – that Homo causes Alz. What if it was the other way around – that A causes high levels of Homo?

Well, then the argument's conclusion, that increasing Vitamin B, and Folic Acid to decrease Homo will reduce the chance of Alz is totally wrecked.

But why is A – a tricky AC choice wrong?

(A) simply states that some people with Alz have normal levels of homo. You might assume that if high homo causes alz then this would weaken the argument. But that assumption is exactly why this argument is flawed: it assumes that homo levels cause alz.

AC A would be right if it said something like:

"Asserting that a lack of evidence for a view is proof that another view is correct."

@ said:

Yes. Only because you're an URM. Congrats

This a rude and misleading thing to say. I personally believe that 7Sage should remove shallow comments like these because it contributes nothing to the discussion. This candidate is a person with a compelling background and strong academic record. I am confident that his shot at a T14 is totally reasonable and likely because of that –and not his URM status.

Hi - this is a great question and one that I've personally thought about. I understand the desire to explain both, but also the need to keep things succinct.

I think you should hit on both in your essay. You can't understand the importance of one without the other; race informs your class status (and how you negotiate it), and vice-verca.

Addressing both will provide a fuller sense of who you are and what sets you apart from the rest. This is key.

Wrong ACs:

A: Congress is very dysfunctional. They haven’t passed a bill in twenty years and barely meet to draft legislation. Therefore, they out to be more functional.

C: Dennis claims that saving money is vital for a good retirement. But Dennis has inherited a ton a money from his wealthy grand uncle and has never had to save in his life. Therefore, Dennis is wrong.

D: Scientists hypothesize that the gamma-ray neuron caused the great extinction 20,000 years ago. But there is no evidence that suggests that their theory is valid. Therefore they are wrong.

E: Smoking ten packs a day causes dandruff. Therefore, smoking ten packs a day has dandruff (?).

@ said:

@ This is what I know. A friend of mine who used to attend said she didn't like how cut throat the school and the people were, and had the distinct impression from one of her classes that it wasn't very friendly to POCs.

Not sure if this is the same as what others have heard about CLS. @-1 @

I visited and was left with a poor impression of the school compared with my experiences from other campus visits. Specifically:

The campus building is small and worn down; it doesn't feel inspiring and comes across of claustrophobic. I simply have a hard time imagining myself feeling good showing up to class day in and day out.

The students I met were not friendly at all. Maybe it was a poor selection on the given day, but my interactions were so brusque and 'I don't want to talk...' that I was left very disappointed and slightly upset. This was soo different from my experience just walking abound HLS and Chicago on a random day and speaking with law students.

the admissions people were also very unwelcoming. I came to the admissions office expecting to schedule a one-on-one meeting and speak at length about the program and logistics. They were not into that for some reason and could only offer me some time with a gal working the front desk at admissions –not the right person I want to speak with.

Morningside Heights is an odd hood in Manhattan. As if Columbia invented a neighborhood so as to not classify itself as located in Harlem. Stark inequity between rich (students) and poor (most everyone else in the neighborhood). I would feel uncomfortable living in that environment.

....

@ said:

Doesn't Columbia have a rep for placing lots of people into Big Law? I personally would keep working on the LSAT, bank your 170 and look around. With that score, your GPA, and URM, you might just score one of the Top 3. Good Luck.

Thank you, I will try my best come this Sept. Should I write Why X's? essays to HYS?

@ said:

Have you visited Columbia? I’ve heard a lot of people who visit don't like it. With that gpa and a 170 score you would have great chances + a lot of merit scholarship money at any top school. Even with a 160s score you might still have a shot. Why would you ED?

Yes –I visited Columbia and had a pretty negative experience. I thought that the 'experience' might change as a student (perhaps naively). Interesting to hear that I'm not alone in this judgement.

My thinking behind ED to CLS is that it would improve my chances most at a top school. I thought my chances are pretty much zero for HYS with a lowish gpa, but perhaps not?

Okay thanks –these are great comments. I will take your feedback and likely not ED to Columbia.

It is so easy to overlook B as the right AC. I think most hard weaken play off of the difficulty of connecting seemingly minor/irrelevant/subtle ideas with the argument structure (premise to conclusion). I think a good strategy is to single out the premises and conclusion and analyze where the gap is – there is always a gap.

If I had done that, AC B would have jumped out as the right AC.

Why?

Becuase the conclusion makes a huge jump saying the CO2 must have been higher where the only evidence is that GHGs must have been higher. We are told that CO2 and methane are both GHGs, but the conclusion just claims CO2 was higher. Methane could have been higher than CO2... In retrospect, it's so obvious that this is the flaw in the argument and why AC B is right.

A is also wrong because of a term shift: non-QWERTY keyboards, the term used in the AC, is not the same as the term in the premise 'keyboard configurations more efficient..." We would have to assume that all non-QWERTY keyboards are designed for more efficient use, which was never stated in the premise.

Wrong ACs example arguments:

A: Some people claim that next month will be rainy and cold because last month was rainy, but their argument is wrong, the fact that last month was rainy suggests that the following month, like trends in previous years, will be warm and sunny.

C: Some people claim that birds fly west when the wind blows east, therefore birds are driven by the direction of the wind. They are wrong. If birds follow such pattern of flight, then they would be incapable of flying to any destination other than where he wind takes them, a truly impossible situation.

D: Many people think that weight loss is a matter of calorie intake and restricting one’s daily calorie intake will cause weight reduction. But this is really a theory and has not been clinically proven.

E: If I predict that I will brush my teeth tonight, the fact that I have made this prediction guarantees that I have actually already ready brushed my teeth tonight….

Here's an analogous argument:

Baseball critics claimed that criterion to judge the greatest baseball players is the number of runs he scores in his career. But this criterion changed in the 2010s when faster pitching made scoring runs much more difficult, causing baseball players to focus more on single base hits. Since these baseball players are talented but their skills do not fulfill the criterion set by earlier baseball critics, there can be no complete criterion to judge baseball talent.

A is not necessary because it can be the case that fishing for trout is the same level of easiness all year round despite changes in water temp.

Whereas E absolutely must be the case otherwise the argument – that fishermen should fish near the surface in shallow water (since trout are close to the surface in winter temps) – requires that the turnover has not occurred.

I really like how JY explains this question. A common idea with 7sage for LR is the importance of distilling the conclusion and its support and analyzing their relationship. This method seems simple but is so crucial for getting harder questions like this one correct. This method makes it easier to see where the weakness is in the argument: it is in the comparison between data, really the source of the data. The main premise is that one data set is more conclusive than the other; so the weakness in this argument–given the other premises and conlusion–must be in the data sets themselves.

We're told Three conditions that are necessary for getting a refund for a watch :

1. You buy it at a dept. store, and

2. You use it only in the way it was intended to be used, and

3. That it stops working the next day.

Next, we're told that, by this standard (the key phrase in the argument), the consumer should get a refund. Well, what's necessary for a refund:

1. You buy it at a dept. store, and

2. You use it only in the way it was intended to be used, and

3. That it stops working the next day.

But it wasn't purchased at a dept. store but it stopped working the next day. To carry this logic above into the consumer's argument, we must assume that he satisfies the second necessary condition – which is AC D.

The other answers are wrong either because they carry normative descriptions E and A, or make a statement that is unnecessary: BC.

POE can definitely get you AC B, but AC B just jumped out at me as a clear reason why the argument is vulnerable to criticism.

Why?

Well, we're told in the conclusion that OPA is wrong: the belief that political candidates may compromise their views for financial support is false.

The support in the premise is quite weak: the wealthy are dispersed proportionally amongst political parties within the population. (The clear implication is that with such even distribution, there would be no reason for a candidate to compromise their views in order to curry favor from a wealthy donor. Since donors are evenly dispersed among parties, all candidate will receive financial backing in equal proportion, regardless of their views.)

But wait....

This reasoning assumes that a candidates views align 100% with their party. Which is what AC B picks up on. Say you have two parties with equal distribution of donors. You have candidate A, say Sernie Banders, who believes in X, Y, and Z. But to get support from wealthy donors, he must join the party Fiesta 2016, and party Fiesta 2016 only supports views X and Y. Sernie Banders would have to comprise his views to get financial backing. The argument is wrecked.

You can think about this Stim in binaries in this way:

1. There are new and old car washes and there are new cars with easily scratchable finishes and old cars with less scratchable finishes. This is information presented as premises in the stimulus.

Now, we can infer a few things right off the bat.

We're told that since new car washes are less likely to scratch new cars, we can reasonably conclude that new car washes are even less likely to scratch old cars (why? because compared to new cars, they have tougher finishes). See how you can make that conclusion by connecting these comparative statements? Of course, it's not 100% but this is an MSS, not MBT.

And given that, no other AC offers a more compelling (less assumption making) statement.

Why?

Well, A and E are easily eliminated because they introduce real 'hard' numbers: "more cars today..." and "more cars on the road....". These are wrong because, given the info in the stimulus, we have no way of knowing the relative number of cars. Therefore we cant make any conclusion about whether there is less or more of a certain type.

B is wrong because we have no idea why something was introduced based off of the stimulus. Easily eliminated.,

D is wrong like most MSS wrong AC's because we can't determine if something is more effective than an alternative unless that is pretty much explicitly stated in the stimulus.