I see the difference like this:

In NA questions, we are being asked to identify how the author got to this point, with the argument as is. Ask yourself, "What is absolutely necessary to have gotten to this point?"

In SA questions, we are being asked to take the argument to the next level by adding to it something that would make it logically valid. Ask yourself, "What can we add to this to make it better?" so to speak

Dang, I was between (A) and (C) and picked the wrong one

Isn't "no" a negate necessary trigger? How do we know to skip that and just do the negate sufficient for "without"?

#help

@ do you mind sharing which tutor you used off of Wyzant?

Thank you to everyone who left encouraging words, I really appreciate it. I am not seeing an option to reply to comments individually, so I am going to try to respond to everyone in this comment via tagging.

@ Thank you for sharing your friends' story! I'm so glad they persevered and ended up with the score they wanted. Hoping my story will be similar. Good luck to you whenever you end up testing!

@ Thank you so much for the kind words! I will do my best to keep that mindset going forward.

@.getup560 It's not that 163 is a "bad" score per say, it is just lower than I usually perform and low for the schools I will be applying to, so I am hoping to do better next time

@ I have as well! It is a bit discouraging, but hopefully that means if I can manage to improve a couple more points on practice tests that I will hit my goal on the October exam.

@ and @ K. Sounds like we are all in the same boat! All we can do is keep drilling and trying to improve. Best of luck to you lades in October! We can do this!

@ I studied using mostly 7 Sage. Started with the core curriculum and tried to make sure I understood everything well before moving on to the logical reasoning and reading comp lessons. Often times throughout the logical reasoning lessons I found myself going back to the core curriculum to brush up on those lessons. It helps a lot because once you get to logical reasoning you will see how important all of the core lessons are, and it gives you something concrete to apply them to. I often did 7sage drills on my weaker areas. Once I was about half way through the LR lessons, I started taking one practice test per week through LawHub. After each practice test, I would review every single question, whether I got it right or wrong. If I got it right I would try to remember the reason i picked that answer and reinforce that reasoning in my brain, if i got it wrong I would watch the explanation videos on 7sage to understand why. I also keep a wrong answer journal, so when I would get a question wrong, I would print it out and write down why the answer I picked was wrong AND why the correct answer is right. When choosing an answer, focus first on eliminating the ones you know are wrong and then assess the answers that are left. Sometimes it's easier to spot answer choices you know for sure are incorrect than to spot the correct one right away.

Good luck in your studies!

Congrats! I scored 5 points lower than my average PT. I'm pretty sad about it. I will be retaking in October. As far as if you should retake, I would decide based on the schools you are applying to. If 168 is close to the median, I'd say don't chance it by taking another test. The earlier you can apply, LSAT score included, the better.

I am crushing this section but am still pretty terrible at weakening questions. Any idea why or how to fix this? #help

C is wrong because it doesn't mention how far away from earth the object is. The rule in the stim says "for anything that far away (referent to how far from earth quasars are) to appear as quasars do, it would have to burn steadily at a rate that produces more light than 90 billion suns can produce"

So in order for the rule about the burn rate to kick in, it would have to be at least as far away from earth as the quasars are. Answer choice C just says "anything". Well what if its much closer to earth? The rule wouldn't apply then.

D is wrong for a similar reason, it doesn't mention burn rate. The rule in the stim about burn rate is, if something burns at a rate that produces that much light (referent to light more than 90 billions suns), it cannot exist for more than 100 million years.

But again, that's only at if its burning at the specified burn rate. Answer choice D says "nothing," however it is totally possible there is something out there as far away as quasars but burning at a lesser rate, and therefore potentially survive longer than 100 million years. The stim doesn't address any objects not burning at the specified burn rate, so we can't say "nothing" the way that answer choice D does.

for Q28, just because it "affects virtually all of a faculty member's intellectual production" does not equal rare production. It can affect the production in the sense that they do not own the product, but who is to say that means they "rarely produce" it.

Also, where does it say anything about "degree" of ownership?? the ownership itself will vary case-by-case, but the degree of ownership is not mentioned! It simply says they will "assert a claim" in certain cases. My understanding is if "significant" use of university resources, university owns. If not "significant" use of university resources, university does not own. Where is the varying degree?? To me, a varying degree of ownership is referencing portion of ownership, not whether they claim it or not.

#help

I was approved for accommodations because of my ADHD and when I arrived to Prometric to test in-person, they already had my accommodations on file. They will confirm your accommodations during the check in process.

I picked (A) because I mis-identified the conclusion as being sentence 1 when the conclusion is really sentence 2. In hindsight it seems obvious, but under time pressure (A) got me.

"important to us" is what made me eliminate (D). How do we know it's important to us? Is it because the stim says if we "have an interest" in?

Anyone have another explanation as to why C is a better answer choice? What J.Y says does not help me understand.

J.Y. literally says it’s possible the decline in profits happened before the surveys, but that thinking is exactly how I got the wrong answer:

I thought if “some of the businesses included in the study did not analyze the results of the surveys” (which can only be the subset of businesses that actually gave the surveys) then it wouldn’t matter if they gave surveys because their profit was already declining before the study and they are not analyzing them at all

I think I may have brought some outside knowledge and bias against the correct answer because I work in customer service. Just because there is a customer complaint that does not mean 1) that it can’t be fixed and 2) that they won’t spend money in your establishment, and the whole experiment is about increase and decrease in profit

Maybe they administered the survey after a customer complaint was addressed by someone in an attempt to resolve it, and the survey was about how well the complaint was resolved.

Or if on the flip side, the survey was bad because of the complaint, perhaps they used that feedback to improve. If they want me to assume complaints = decrease in profit, it is just as plausible to assume improvement = possible increase in profits. Either way, answer choice C leaves the door open.

For Q6 I chose B because it says: “it is impossible in practice for people to be ignorant of their stations in life, abilities, and tastes.”

I thought if those things are impossible, then being in the “original position is impossible” which definitely calls into question that “anyone in the original position would agree that everyone should get at least a minimum amount of these primary goods”

if one cannot be in the original position, then how would we know what someone in the original position would do?

I contemplated C but wasn’t sure if the “some people” it references are in the “original position”

also “risking a complete loss” doesn’t necessarily mean they WILL lose it, or that they don’t believe everyone should “get” a minimum amount of primary goods. Maybe they “get” them and give them away. Who says they have to keep it?

The right answer hinges on understanding what a thought experiment is, which I did not know was literally confined to imagination until I googled it just now.

sigh

I got this question correct pretty quickly through POE and this was my thought process in case it helps anyone:

a) Stim says nothing about young children, we are talking about teenagers in high school

b) If sleepy teens are tardy for school that starts at 8am, that means they are on the road after 8am. If being on the road after 8am is still causing sleepy teens to get in accidents, the conclusion about reducing accidents if school started at 8:30 falls apart.

c) wrong for same reason as A, we are not talking about teens who work day jobs, just teens in high school. Even if it's true that they drive more, what time are they driving? Are they sleepy? It just doesn't tell us anything.

d) Again, stim is only discussing "car accidents of teenagers driving to school" in the morning. Evening car accidents don't weaken nor strengthen the support her premises give to her conclusion

e) shows an instance of her conclusion being effective. Starting school later in Granville did reduce car accidents of teenagers driving to school is in Granville. Even if it said in the neighboring region they stayed the same, it still shows strengthens the support her premises give to her conclusion.

Yes, you have to assume that the neighboring regions also have teens that go to high school, and you have to assume the neighboring region did not implement the later start time. It is still the only answer choice that if true strengthens her argument

The word dramatic immediately made me eliminate D. Only Sarah even mentions drama, and not even as a descriptor for violence the way that the answer choice does. How do we know that the movies Liang is referencing contain "dramatic" depictions of violence?

D seems like it was baiting me to conflate their view points.

In PAI Disagree/Agree we talk a lot about eliminating answer choices that one of the speakers does not have an opinion on. If Liang doesn't mention an opinion on dramatic depictions of violence, only people who use violence to resolve a problem, how can answer choice D be right?

Am I supposed to infer that she thinks that characters in movies who use violence to resolve a problem are dramatic for doing so?

Was between D & E and eliminated E because it lacks the word "entirely"

The whole point is that there is a compromise between faithfulness to meaning and faithfulness to style

This means you can be faithful to both, just not entirely faithful to both.

Took me a minute to pick D because I was scared of "any translation" instead of "any literary translation" but I suppose the word "text" implies translation of words. Not to mention it provides the missing link between compromise and flaw.

I chose E and then changed my answer in BR because I feel it can be interpreted one of two ways. I understand now why E is wrong and why D is right so if you had the same confusion maybe this will help:

"Planes were first equipped with low power circuitry around the same time portable electronic devices became popular"

Interpretation 1:

"Planes were first equipped with low power circuitry around the same time portable electronic devices became popular" because they didn't realize the portable electronics could interfere with the low power circuitry

OR

Interpretation 2:

"Planes were first equipped with low power circuitry around the same time portable electronic devices became popular" and the engineers had tested this and decided the "risk" (as the conclusion states) of installing this low power circuitry, even if passengers have portable electronics, was irrelevant

if you go with interpretation 2, it feels like it doesn't strengthen the argument that "modern navigation systems are being put at risk" but really, if even the risk is minimal, it is still a risk.

I didn't like D because it requires quite a few assumptions:

1) the stim does not mention electromagnetic radiation, so we have to assume that electromagnetic radiation=interference

2) Have to assume that the passengers sitting within 4-8 meters of the navigation systems are the ones using the portable electronic devices doing the interfering

3) Have to assume that just because electromagnetic radiation "can" travel up to 8 meters that it actually will travel anywhere from 4-8 meters

if you assume all of those things, D does strengthen the argument

The key is that in strengthen questions we always have to take the answer choices as TRUE, meaning the assumptions for answer choice D are justifiable

This was an easy one that I fumbled because I overthought it.

I thought what Kendra said meant stopping to use the wifi could turn into something illegal, such as loitering or harassment, but not that the act of using the wifi itself was illegal.

I chose A. I was thinking maybe the polarizing climate of national politics is what is caused the change in her column, instead of her column causing the polarization of politics.

I considered E but eliminated it because I couldn't quite pinpoint the tactic in question. Dang.

Q26- I was very hesitant to pick D because of the word "substantial"

If it had just said "to show that philosophical anarchists are subject to moral obligations" I would have picked it right away.

I suppose that is just being too picky because it is still a better answer choice than the others.

Got this wrong under timed conditions because it didn't seem to me like exercising was an unintended benefit for knee surgery, seems more directly related than renovation of one building increasing surrounding rents.

Exercise regularly again implies he was able to exercise regularly before his knee injury, and so in order to be able to exercise regularly again, he has to fix his knee. It would be a direct intention of the surgery whereas it seems that renovating a building does not have a direct intention of raising rents in surrounding buildings.

But I suppose that was just an unwarranted real-world assumption on my part.

My problem with this is that you have to assume more hired police = more deterrence of violent crime. Are they even present to deter? It just says they were hired. Do these violent crime offenders somehow know there are more cops being hired? So many gaps here. I feel it's more reasonable to believe that more cops= more apprehension of violent crime offenders. The violent crime can only be counted as a statistic if it is caught.

This question sucks. Even after this explanation video, I could never see myself choosing E on my own.

I hate this question.

Went back and forth with D and E and even now I can argue for D but I can see why E is better. J.Y. doesn't mention this in his explanation of D but maybe thinking about it this way will help someone the way it helped me:

The simplest reason D is wrong is because it does not add anything new to the argument, it is simply a restatement of what is already said/implied. In strengthen answers, we always need to bring in something new as support.

"thus even well-intentioned attempts to solve the marital problems of friends are usually unjustified."

thus, even if one has good intentions, those intentions don't matter, they are IRRELEVANT to deciding if it is justified or not.

The stim leaves room open by saying "usually" meaning there are times when it could be justified, but the thing justifying it certainly won't be the intentions.

This is where E comes in, it says its not the intention, but rather successful results which would be the unusual exception of a justifiable attempt to solve your friend's marital problems.

My picking (C) actually wasn't out of disregard for there being a self portrait. My thinking was that, if it is not uncommon for live models to be used, then perhaps "Leo" modeled for the battle painting but still painted his own self-portrait. This leads to it being possible that he did not paint both, even though he is featured in both.

I see now why the amended version of (C) J.Y. proposes better says this, but that was originally how I arrived at (C).

As far as (D) goes, I thought "well just because it would've been a violation of etiquette, that doesn't mean the painter would not do it. Maybe he was willing to violate etiquette."

It's hard to see the line between "ok, so what?" and "I guess that slightly weakens"