I think everything you are accounting for is totally valid. But I think it is important to remember that you are simply trying to weaken the conclusion, not fully prove it wrong. All that AC C is doing is providing a point that makes the argument in the stimulus seem less airtight. The stimulus claims wood burning stoves are more dangerous, and supports that with explaining creosote in the chimney and why it is so dangerous. But AC C says that an open flame is dangerous too. That makes the reasoning in the stimulus weak, and whoever is arguing their position needs to find new evidence/reasoning to have a better argument.

In my mind, a similar example would be if I was arguing that small cars are more dangerous than big cars. This is because smaller cars have less safety features because of their size.

And then someone comes and says "have you thought about the fact that bigger cars pose danger as well because the safety features only apply when they crash on a residential road?"

Who is to say which is more dangerous? We just know that my argument needs more work in order to beat out the counter-argument brought in.

I originally ruled out D because the stimulus said that "Only two types of theories of criminal sentencing can be acceptable." I took this as the stimulus to be telling us that these are the only acceptable theories, and it didn't seem like this allowed for another theory, even if it followed that principle. The stimulus was working overtime talking about rehab vs retributivist, so bringing another theory into the argument altogether just doesn't make sense as an inference.

I just found this video that outlines common flaws really well!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK6rurhc_5M

It is called Famous Flaws | LSAT Logical Reasoning on the LSAT Lab channel

Here are the ones that I gathered through the lessons. I could be missing a few...

- Part to whole flaw

- Circular Reasoning

- Sufficiency/Necessary Confusion

- Straw Manning

- Steel/Stone Manning

- Sample bias

- Causal Logic

- Source Attack

- Change in meaning of words

I don't remember how it was classified, but another is the distinction between attacking somebody's argument and proving that their conclusion is true or false.

I think for this question, you need to take the preference idea at face value. You are right about the preference not meaning you will actually do something, but in this case where the only information we get is that they prefer someone with experience and they picked someone without, we need to just assume that they were going to pick someone more experienced.

JY has also said before that multiple answer choices could be correct, but we have to pick the one that MOST helps to account for the discrepancy. E doesn't fully cover that. It seems to me that we have to make more assumptions to make it work. If I said I preferred chocolate ice cream but chose vanilla ice cream at the shop, AC D would say "Chocolate wasn't available." AC E would say "Oftentimes vanilla is just as good as chocolate." But if I love chocolate, why wouldn't I get chocolate? It's totally viable that I could still choose vanilla, but there would be a lot more questions I would need to field to explain why I chose that over chocolate. If someone knows you well and you randomly go against what you always choose, they're going to wonder why. And if you said there just wasn't chocolate, then chances are they would totally get it. Otherwise, if you said, sometimes I want vanilla, they could ask if you now hate chocolate, or if you just weren't feeling it that day, or did you change vanilla to be your preference now? There are just too many things to explain away, which is why AC D is correct

I think the point of bringing up unity is to say that while there are different LR question types, the reasoning you use in each of them is very similar. I think it is meant to be encouraging, so that you don't feel like you have to learn different things for EVERY question type. That is to say, that if you feel confident doing something in one question type, you may find that applies to others. They have to categorize the questions in my opinion... how else would we know how to approach each question? Because you do approach PSA, SA and NA questions differently.

While I was much better at PSA and SA, I can see why NA is similar but also different. They are all doing the same thing. They are all asking you to validate an argument. Necessary assumption is just the bare minimum. It is saying, take away everything that you could add as extra reasoning, and focus on only what is given in the stimulus. If the stimulus is true, what is the most basic thing that needs to be acknowledged to validate the argument in the stimulus?

There can only be so much differentiation between the three assumption types, because yes, they are very similar. I think JY does a great job at pointing out how we would have answered these questions had it been an SA or PSA question. The argument isn't supposed to be strong, it just needs to be able to hold against basic reasoning. It is supposed to be strong, untouchable even in SA. Slightly less so in PSA, far less in NA. That is your true difference. It is a small nuance, one that is definitely something I am still trying to learn.

I would personally keep going through the program and do a drill set every day of MBT questions. There might be things in future lessons that help you get better at MBT questions.

I could be totally wrong, but this is what I think it is:

/benefits -> (vagueness -> /presume)

/benefits + vagueness -> /presume

If I'm reading your question right, you are saying that we determined the answer based on this chain: S -> /A -> /R -> B

You're right that you shouldn't go backwards. If you look at the contrapositive though, you can then follow the chain when it said that Rob was killed: /B -> R -> A -> /S

following this chain, we know A and /S as a conclusion.

Hope this helps!

The two main concepts are survive and written down. The only is written first in this case, and you are right that it is a necessary indicator. The rule is that the idea immediately following the indicator is the necessary condition. The idea that directly follows the only is survive, followed by written, which would be the sufficient.

So it translates to

survive -> written