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paulfan2011115
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General · Test Day Logistics
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paulfan2011115
Friday, Oct 04 2013

Hi JY, that actually happened to some guy in my test center last time.

And about the experimental section, don't let it ruin your confidence if you think you screwed up on one section. Assume that it is the experimental. Always assume that you did well and try not to think about past sections.

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General · Did well on PT 69.. set for this Saturday? Is it indicative of a decent score?
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paulfan2011115
Friday, Oct 04 2013

hey, you got to the 170s, K. Congrats. Seems like you surpassed me. I have been struggling to remain in the 170s, but preptests post 60 has been killing my confidence. I have no idea how I am going to do tomorrow. Best of luck to everyone whose taking the test tomorrow.

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LSAT · The realness of BURNOUT
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paulfan2011115
Saturday, Sep 21 2013

In fairness, the newer LSATs (60+) are much harder. So it might not all be burnout.

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General · 1L Grades are IMPORTANT
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paulfan2011115
Wednesday, Aug 28 2013

One question. Do you have to be in Law School already to sign up?

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General · How to Prepare for Newer Logic Games
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paulfan2011115
Saturday, Aug 24 2013

I agree with Jason, I really don't see much difference other than the fact that the recent ones are feature fewer games that cannot be categorized. If anything, games seems to get easier and RC harder.

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General · Question Regarding the Blind Review Method
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paulfan2011115
Saturday, Aug 24 2013

Yea, that's right, you simply do not have time on the real test to be 100% with your answer. Sometimes, you don't even have to read all the answer choices if you are confident of the one you picked, though doing that greatly increases your risk of falling into the cleverly designed traps. So I would only recommend doing that on certain types of questions, such as sufficient or necessary assumption questions, Must be Trues, and any questions involving formal logic.

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General · PT31.S2.Q21 - band deposits credited on date of transaction
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paulfan2011115
Thursday, Aug 15 2013

You do realize that the question asks you to parallel BOTH flaws right?

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LSAT · Logic Games on two pages, how to practice...
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paulfan2011115
Friday, Aug 09 2013

No you don't need to flip the page.

And the reason they are having two pages now is because LSAT takers are complaining about the artificial space difficulties.

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LSAT · Logic Games on two pages, how to practice...
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paulfan2011115
Thursday, Aug 08 2013

You should get a copy of the newer lsats from amazon. The format are reproduced exactly like the real test. It't hard to describe exactly what it's like.

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LSAT · PT50.S2.Q21- illness caused by bacteria in seafood
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paulfan2011115
Wednesday, Aug 07 2013

Ah, I remember JS and I discussing this question.

Here is my understanding of this question, reproduced from my email to JS:

Sufficient condition: one pesticide should be legal and another illegal.

Necessary condition: the legal pesticide is less harmful to the environment than the illegal pesticide.

Premise: the legal pesticide is NOT less harmful to the environment than the illegal pesticide. (it's actually more harmful)

Necessary condition fails, negate sufficient.

Conclusion: it is not the case that one pesticide should be legal and another illegal.

This is logically equivalent to the conclusion of the stimulus.

Given two products T (TSX-400) and EZ (Envirochem and Zanar) either one could be legal or illegal, but not both.

There are four possible arrangements:

1.)T legal EZ legal

2.)T legal EZ illegal

3.)T illegal EZ legal

4.)T illegal EZ illegal

It is not the case that one pesticide should be legal and another illegal eliminates 2 and 3, leaving 1 and 4.

Now to the actual conclusion. (If these studies are accurate, then either Envirochem and Zanar should be banned or TSX-400 should be legalized) Currently, T is illegal and EZ is legal, and the conclusion suggests two mutually exclusive solutions.

1.) We ban EZ. T illegal EZ illegal (arrangement 4)

OR

2.) We legalize T. T legal EZ legal (arrangement 1)

You can see that answer choice D and the actual conclusion is logically equivalent.

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LSAT · PT49.S2.Q18 - nature evolves organically and nonlinearly
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paulfan2011115
Wednesday, Aug 07 2013

Another cleverly worded wrong answer choice. I actually have a different interpretation that does not focus on the word STRUCTURE and CHARACTERISTIC.

Two things are being compared in the stimulus, a phenomenon (nature) and the reasoning used to understand that phenomenon. The argument falsely claims that the method we use to understand a phenomenon must be the same as the characteristic of the phenomenon itself. The method to understand a phenomenon and the characteristic of the phenomenon has nothing to do with each other.

Now look closely on what is being compared in answer choice B: the overall structure of the phenomenon and PEOPLE'S reasoning of the phenomenon. The argument is focused on what is the best way to understand a phenomenon, not about what are the people's current method of understanding.

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General · The secret to do tough Weaken/strengthen question
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paulfan2011115
Wednesday, Aug 07 2013

Great stuff. I just want to add that the presumptions that exist in LR questions are key to most types of questions. There are only 3 things that makes up an argument, the premise, conclusion, and assumption, an unstated premise. In most cases, you are asked to evaluate the argument, and assumptions, the crucial link between the premise and conclusion, determines the strength of support. Recall from JY's lessons that you rarely gets to attack the premise or the conclusion, your only focus should be on the assumptions.

To use the same examples, in PT 52 S3 Q19, the conclusion is that dinosaurs died from eating this poisonous plant. There are two supporting premises:

Premise 1.) Dinosaurs can die from eating this plant. (They can't taste bitterness and they can't detoxify the poison). But this does not prove that they in fact ate those plants, which is addressed by the second premise.

Premise 2.) The dinosaurs died in contorted positions. But how does dying in contorted position prove that they indeed ate those plants? This is where the assumption comes in.

Assumption: Eating these plants will cause the animals that eat them to die in contorted positions.

Now we can easily weaken the argument by attacking the assumption.

Answer choice A: if animals die in consorted position regardless of consumption of this plant, then it is not the case that dying in consorted position supports the claim that the dinosaurs ate those plants.

Note: In harder questions, the assumptions are really subtle. It is likely that you already made these assumptions, but you have to try really hard not to do that.

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LSAT · PT50.S2.Q21- illness caused by bacteria in seafood
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paulfan2011115
Friday, Aug 02 2013

Yea.

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LSAT · PT50.S2.Q21- illness caused by bacteria in seafood
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paulfan2011115
Thursday, Aug 01 2013

Because they did not eat the dish that has the disease. Say that the restaurant serves several seafood dishes and one of the dishes has the disease. E says only people who eat the contaminated dish got sick.

The stimulus says most people eat seafood at the restaurant, this does not mean most people ate the contaminated dish

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We all know what AP and MP questions are, but I have ran into many harder AP and MP questions where the stimuli does not actually explicitly state the conclusion, making it difficult to label the different roles each sentences play. The conclusion in these questions are instead implied by the structure of the argument. Since I have ran into several questions like this, I have reasons to believe that this is a recurring theme on harder AP questions that we should be familiar with. However, this is only a hypothesis based on my experience, so I am here to ask all of you to pay attention to this type of questions and post it on this thread to confirm or reject this hypothesis.

Here are two questions that I have so far.

Preptest 28 Sec 3 # 14

http://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-28-section-3-question-14/

The conclusion here is that citizens in a democratic country should not neglect to vote.

Preptest 50 Sec 2 # 19

http://classic.7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-50-section-2-question-19/

The conclusion here seems to be that one should not go too far in limiting one's fat intake.

In either case the conclusion is not mentioned in the stimuli.

What are your opinions' on this?

2
PrepTests ·
PT129.S1.Q19
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paulfan2011115
Thursday, Aug 01 2013

it's in one of the AP lessons, I was actually going to start a thread discussing this.

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General · I am terrible at LR...
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paulfan2011115
Thursday, Aug 01 2013

Funny thing. I did the same thing 2 months ago and scored 158. Guess you are not the only idiot.

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General · I am terrible at LR...
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paulfan2011115
Wednesday, Jul 31 2013

So you are aiming 175 and above. Glad to hear that someone is as ambitious as I am.

Out of curiosity, what was your average LR score before this test?

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LSAT · PT50.S2.Q21- illness caused by bacteria in seafood
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paulfan2011115
Wednesday, Jul 31 2013

Well, it is the same thing. The dish is made from seafood.

2
General · I am terrible at LR...
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paulfan2011115
Wednesday, Jul 31 2013

Ok. Sounds like you are regaining your confidence. What probably happened is that you are thrown off by some questions and lost your calm and focus afterwards. I know this is what happened to me on the June 2013 test. LG totally killed me. I believe confidence is a necessary condition for doing well on the LSAT.

Anyway, let me know how it goes, and tell me how you managed to get a -2 on this RC.

0
PrepTests ·
PT129.S1.Q19
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paulfan2011115
Wednesday, Jul 31 2013

Is this another one of those AP questions that the conclusion is implied as opposed to stated?

0
PrepTests ·
PT129.S1.Q17
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paulfan2011115
Wednesday, Jul 31 2013

That is the correct structure. I was wondering the same thing when I was watching the explanation.

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General · I am terrible at LR...
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paulfan2011115
Wednesday, Jul 31 2013

Did you not get JY's basketball analogy? That was so brilliant.

1
PrepTests ·
PT128.S1.P4.Q22
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paulfan2011115
Wednesday, Jul 31 2013

I feel the same way, the RC of recent tests are definitely getting harder.

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General · I am terrible at LR...
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paulfan2011115
Wednesday, Jul 31 2013

I just finished preptest 50. I can see why you are having trouble with LR. The test does feature some unusual questions. Interestingly, the 3 questions you mentioned are not among the unusual questions. Two of the questions has to do with assumptions and the other flaw description. I suggest you review the lessons on sufficient and necessary assumptions. The reasoning in these three questions are actually quite straightforward; I suspect that you might have some flawed approaches to these type of questions that you need to shatter. I can explain further why each question is right, but I think it would be best if you tell me your reasoning for picking the incorrect answer choices first.

Ironically, you did really well on RC where I had a lot of trouble. (I missed 5 on RC and 2 on LR)

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