Hey! I'm hoping to take the LSAT in August but if I don't do as well as planned, I'd be retaking in Nov. I'm also from Ottawa

I'm also from Ottawa and planning on taking it in August

I'm starting to just become skeptical everytime I read the word "believe"

It's because it is not just an assumption. It is an assumption that precludes an alternative hypothesis. If the stimulus was like, you know, after removing the glasses they did vision tests on the barn owls and their vision was identical to that of a mature barn owl who was raised without the glasses, and so we concluded that once auditory systems are developed it doesn't matter if they have vision or not. It would make the argument all the more stronger.

In science, we have the tendency (obviously this is a generalization) to try and go for the simpler answer first (as these are generally easier to rule out). This is similar here, the owls are behaving the way they normally do when they have the lens on, so maybe they're still blind would likely be the first hypothesis that someone would propose without testing it so it's a major oversight to not include it here.

I could cry, I've missed RRE so so much... it was like returning to an old friend with this question

I'm also struggling...

LMAO same!! That's kinda my whole mentality w/ the LSAT tbh

So essentially I think it boils down to the sufficiency-necessity confusion (I think this was mentioned in some of our lessons but) for a very simplified example:

four legs + fur + meows → cat

Ok.... would you say with 100% validity that cat with three legs isn't a cat even though they meet the other two conditions? what about Sphynx (hairless) cats are they not 100% not cats even though they meet the other two conditions? what about feral cats that never learnt to meow into adulthood are they 100% not cats? I don't know if this argument is necessarily analogous but hopefully it captures what I am trying to say

The point i am getting at is one raised earlier in the core lessons, that failure to meet a sufficient condition does not yield any valid conclusions. That means we cannot validly conclude that necessary condition has been met but it still could be by some unstated means. IE what if Officer Penn saved the Mayor's daughter from drowning - the Mayor may consider that to be above and beyond the reasonable expectations of a police officer and give him the award anyways - We just don't know.

What I do is I do a blind review and write down for each answer why I think it is right or wrong. Then I read the explanation. If my explanation for why it is wrong more or less matches up with JY's, then I don't watch the video. If there is a major discrepancy or any answer I can't fully explain why it is incorrect / if I get the whole question incorrect then I watch the video

The second I saw the word EXCEPT I wrote down on my scribble paper "WHICH STRENGTHENS OR DOES NOTHING" and that honestly helped so much to reframe my mind to look for whatever one was kinda irrelevant

If I am very confident in my answer and got it right and can say why I got it right ie why all the other answer choices were wrong, then I do not watch the video but read the text to see if my reasoning was correct. But if I got it right and it was kind of by chance or I'm uncertain about something then I watch the video for a more detailed explanation. Just do what works for you!

I mean the stimulus says that the person who undertook the abridgement did not have a copy of Hamlet, Hamlet is a play so the likely assumption is that a written copy = a script. Therefore, whoever wrote the abridgment probably memorized it. As most spectators would see it once, it is likely an actor who knows it well.

Thats how I reasoned it and it feels very LSAT-like to me

I got this question right, I do have somewhat of a physics and science background but I tried to answer the question same as any other on the LSAT

So E states: "There is no consensus among astronomers on the proper procedures for estimating the universe's total mass." Yet the stimulus says that "many astronomers estimates of the universe's total mass remain virtually unchanged" so as a result, even if they all were using completely different methods as each other, they are all getting relatively the same result, so that is not enough to explain why the mass is unchanged. Surely if they all had different procedures on measuring the mass of the universe and these masses were actually significant at least one astronomer would notice a huge discrepancy, but that is not the case.

Though A doesn't specify who exactly says that assumption we have to presume that it is the astronomers that are thinking it. I think JY mentioned in another question but when a stimulus is not specified, it is generally the assumption that it is not just a random person or third grader saying it but someone knowledgable.

In math there is a concept of negligible weight ie if we were carrying 1kg of bricks and decided to put a single feather on top of the bricks, the weight of the feather is negligible to the bricks. So generally the weight of the feather would be ignored in any equations you were to do further. I think that's the concept that the LSAT writers are gunning for, but I'm not 100% certain

I some how got the answer right and I am writing this comment before the video, but I think my error and confusion (I spent 4min on this question) was due to the fact that I kicked Members of the Video club up to the domain without a second thought. It was only after I encountered Pat, where it didn't specify that they were a member of the club that I was like wait a minute.... The LSAT stays humbling omg

I got this question right and I don't know if this is something that would help other people but whenever I write a rule down I write down what the contrapositive is automatically. For instance:

/comfortable → /well-designed or an easier way to say this is the contrapositive

well-designed --> comfortable

I also used this method and got B! I think it is okay to use because if you go back to the Rule and Exception lesson, it's just another method of doing things that isn't necessarily wrong

I think it's also to help us train our brains to read the question stem first. I found myself getting a bit lazy and just looking at the stim first since I knew what section it was under.

Haha same I was literally reciting that to myself

The sentence that /LSD → /H refers to is "He can make heroin only if he synthesizes LSD." So if you enact the Group 2 Rule for the word "only if" which is that the idea immediately following the conditional indicator is the necessary condition so:

H → LSD. The contrapositive is /LSD→/H.

I think the sentence you are referring to follows the group one rule but the sentence doesn't say "if he synthesizes LSD then he can cook meth" which would be LSD -> M BUT the sentence actually reads (in simplified form) "if LSD, no Meth" or LSD→ /M. The contrapositive would be M → /LSD which we see in the actual question.

Please correct me if I am wrong because I want to make sure I understand this but if I boil down the Kumar example to something easier to wrap my head around:

People can live in New York City only if they are US Citizens.

NYC → US Citizen

/US Citizen → /NYC

(So if you are not a US Citizen then you do not live in NYC)

Kumar is a US Citizen.

That doesn't mean that he lives in NYC. He could live in California, Florida, Texas or even abroad. However by saying,

People can live in New York City if they are US Citizens.

US Citizen --> NYC

/NYC --> /US Citizen

(If you do not live in NYC then you are not a US Citizen)

Kumar is a US Citizen, so he lives in New York City.

#feedback