I was SO close to choosing AC B. From our perspective as shrewd LSAT students, indeed, there is no evidence that the quality of plumbing instruction has decreased! But that's because after doing a lot of these questions, I intuitively know they're citing bad evidence. It’s not because the argument itself treated lack of evidence as conclusive evidence. The LSAT writers are so good at what they do... -_-

I crossed out A because in flaw questions, I think of "fails to acknowledge" and "overlooks the possibility" as phrases which introduce considerations that could potentially weaken the argument. So let's say, as A suggests, that the nuclear power industry might now believe nuclear power plants to be unsafe, after the plant closed. That wouldn't have any impact on the manager's argument about why the plants were originally closed.

I saw E and thought, “Great! Maybe the biomarkers in the petroleum are from the fossilized remains of plants, which then became carbon deposits. So both groups of scientists are partially right.” But that reasoning actually further refutes the renegade scientists’ argument, by suggesting that living material → carbon deposits → petroleum. The renegade scientists explicitly hold that petroleum was NOT formed by living material. This AC is suggesting that it could have been. Moreover, if we look at the renegade argument closely, they’re saying that petroleum formed from carbon deposits that date from the formation of the earth, long before plants existed. So either way, AC E is out of scope. It’s referring to carbon deposits that the renegade scientists are not.

I had the same issue with [C]! I think it does require an assumption that stress in rats contributes to heart problems. I just thought that [A] was way worse because it's flat out irrelevant to the issue of heart problems.

[A] is saying that small rats are more likely to get FATAL diseases that tend to occur before heart problems, implying that they're dying before the heart problems even happen. What does that have to do with the correlation between size and heart problems? What if these fatal diseases are neurological or digestive, and have nothing to do with heart problems?

D is so tricky! It would be right if you just used "takes for granted" instead of "overlooks the possibility."

C was tempting, but after a closer reading it's descriptively inaccurate. The stimulus is not taking other people's argument for granted as true. It's saying "IF" their statements are true, then this would happen.

This is how I reached the correct answer:

Anita's conclusion: Traditional journalistic ethics (TJE) is not clear, adequate, and essentially correct for most ethical dilemmas.

Anita's premise: TJE doesn't provide guidance for situations where a journalist is not sure whether or not the information is newsworthy.

Analysis: I originally thought, what if Anita's premise is true, but these situations only make up a very small portion of ethical dilemmas? Then we can't say that her conclusion follows for most ethical dilemmas. The correct answer got at a different issue.

[A] is right because:

Marcus supports his claim by referencing what TJE would say about newsworthy information. Then Anita comes in and says, "what about information that isn't necessarily newsworthy?" But from Marcus's claim, we only know about applying TJE to newsworthy information. What if non-newsworthy information isn't even eligible for consideration under journalistic ethics? Anita is assuming that her example is a counterexample against TJE being clear/adequate/correct for most dilemmas. But what if her example doesn't even count as a dilemma? Then it's irrelevant and out of scope for the claim about TJE. For her claim to follow, we have to assume that her example is a relevant dilemma for TJE to address.

[D] is wrong because it doesn't have to be true for Anita's conclusion to follow. What if there is a possible system of ethics that accounts for every possible ethical dilemma? Could Anita's claim about TJE still follow? Yes.

[E] is too strong. Maybe there is an adequate system of journalistic ethics that does provide guidance for every case. But Anita is saying that TJE specifically isn't clear/adequate/correct for most dilemmas. But the "professional decision" part is certainly also a red flag, because what does that even mean...?

Agreed... this also gave me pause... but I chose it because all of the other ACs seemed worse. Sometimes the right answer seems a bit "off," but the answer you're comparing it to is just less supported

All of the answer choices seemed shitty because none of them resembled my prephrase. This question showed me that even when you prephrase, you still have to approach these questions through POE. This is how I'd do it next time:

[A]: Discusses laws that prohibit or permit actions. This is out of scope!

[B]: Hmm... this is devaluing overly lenient punishment, which is kind of what our stimulus is warning against... keep for now.

[C]: Out of scope: we're not discussing legal permissibility of anything

[D]: Out of scope: the question of using motives as a mitigating factor is not a policy question. We're not dreaming up a new law.

[E]: I could see how a mitigating punishment based on motives could be construed as a "legal system," but the stimulus isn't saying anything about "disastrous consequences" resulting.

So I guess I'd go with B! It's the least BAD.

Didn't realize that 22(A) simply switched "front-to-back" to "top-to-bottom." The testmakers are nefarioussss for that trick!!! >:(

Claim: High household debt was not the cause of the recession

Premises:

-Debt was high, assets were high before the recession.

-If most of the debt were owned by low-income households and assets were owned by high-income households, then debt could have been the cause.

-But low-income households couldn’t have owed the debt.

Loophole: Couldn’t the high-income households have owed debt and thus decreased their spending? The argument is assuming they didn't. We just have to find an answer saying that even if low-income households didn't owe the debt, high household debt could have caused the recession.

A is the only answer that does this!

B - has nothing to do with determining the cause of the recession.

C - the fact that low income houses reduced their spending doesn't indicate that debt could have been the cause of the recession.

D - we're discussing the cause of the recession, not what happened DURING the recession.

E - strengthens the argument.

Claim: Music lovers who swear they can hear differences in quality between the best VT and SS amps are imagining things.

Why: Engineers affirm that the best VT and SS amps are indistinguishable when it comes to characteristics used to measure sound quality.

The argument is saying that these two things can’t be compatible:

1. Music lovers noticing differences in what they call sound quality

2. Engineers saying that they’re indistinguishable when it comes to characteristics used to measure sound quality

Our task is to reconcile those two phenomena.

[A] - This is one point for the engineers. It doesn’t address the music lovers’ claim.

[B] - For this to weaken, we have to assume that the variation in sound quality is a reason why music lovers would claim that “music sounds better” on vacuum amps. But we don’t know that.

[C]- This allows for both phenomena to coexist. The music lovers are just saying that the music sounds better. Maybe they’re picking up on something that the engineers, in their focus on “characteristics used to measure sound quality,” don’t notice.

[D]- We’re talking about sound quality, not other measures of performance.

[E]- First of all, we’re talking about the “best of the best” of amps. Secondly, doesn’t explain why music lovers would claim to hear differences that engineers don’t pick up on.

Phenomenon: Akabe people drink small amounts of this herb at dawn.

Claim: This is because its high caffeine levels indicate that drinking a lot of it would interfere with their daily tasks.

So let's either introduce another explanation for the phenomenon or indicate an issue with the evidence behind this reason.

[A] the drink is full of nutrients — okay, this makes me wonder why they wouldn’t drink more of it. It doesn’t indicate an issue with this reasoning, or introduce another reason for NOT drinking more of it at dawn.

[B]- This is a question type that’s asking us to weaken or replace an explanation about their drinking habits at DAWN, not nighttime.

[C]-If it contains a soluble narcotic, then how can we say that caffeine would have any effect on their tasks? Couldn’t the narcotic cancel it out?

[D]- This only intensifies the mystery behind the phenomenon: the adults drink small amounts, and the kids drink weakened tea. It doesn’t explain it. The anthropologists could just say that the kids drink weakened tea because otherwise they'd be unable to focus on helping their parents with tasks or whatever.

[E]- Are they celebrating at dawn? Idk. And even if they are, the anthropologists could say that their explanation holds because they’re drinking the tea to get hyped.

Here’s how I thought about it. Many weaken questions are asking you to reconcile two premises. This question is a great example.

The author is saying that that the economists are wrong. Why? Because the survey evidence seemingly refutes the economists’ assertion. To weaken the argument, you just need to find an AC which shows how the survey evidence could be compatible with the economists’ statements.

C does this. If jobs that pay the same salary have different financial benefits (free food, quarterly bonuses, stock options) then people surveyed might not name salary itself as the most desirable feature of a job, but could be motivated by the total financial reward (which includes salary as well as those other rewards).

B doesn’t reconcile the two statements. In many surveys, people say they prefer a higher wage job. Okay? That doesn’t reconcile the two premises that the author says are incompatible.

You can probably find study sets of LSAT words that other students have made on Quizlet!

How I simplified it in my wrong answer journal...

If A causes B, then B ->C. But C didn’t happen this one time, so therefore A NEVER causes B.

But what if there are multiple causes of B? And what if in this instance we observed, A wasn’t the cause? Couldn’t A then be the cause for other instances that we haven't observed yet? There can be multiple causes for the same effect, and each of those causes might have its own necessary conditions.

SA: every instance of effect B happening is because of one cause. Then, we know that there isn’t this possibility that A is the cause for some instances while X is the cause for the instances where B happened but C didn’t.

Hi! Just so I understand you correctly, you mean that we can safely assume that the "medical treatment the patient is receiving" applies to alternative medicine just because the alternative medicine could be a form of medical treatment that a patient receives?

In choosing D, were you thinking about it this way: "A patient's belief in the medical treatment they're receiving can have these bodily effects. Alternative medicine is a form of medical treatment. So if a patient believes in the alternative medicine they're receiving, then the natural painkillers/allergic reactions/healing can result, and therefore alternative medicine could have an effect."

Thank you for your thorough response!

#help

I was stuck between C and D, but I ultimately eliminated D because it didn’t specifically connect alternative medicine to the bodily effects of a patient believing in their treatment. For D to be right, I’d have to assume that the “medical treatment” the patient believes in is alternative medicine, and not orthodox medicine. The question stem doesn’t indicate that the medical treatment is indeed alternative medicine, so I thought this was an unwarranted assumption. C, on the other hand, explicitly connects alternative medicine to an “effect,” even if that effect is something less tangible like hope. When I’m choosing between two answers, I’ve learned from 7Sage's curriculum to choose the answer that requires me to make fewer assumptions and leaps. But this question is making me question that entire strategy. Should I have just assumed that the “medical treatment” in answer choice was alternative medicine?