@afk Thank you so much for this comment! I will definitely give it a shot. Appreciate the advice

@AdelinaI Yes! I plan on continuing to go over it. At this point it's less kind of the actual material in it and more the mental tricks that led me astray most of the times. Will continue to try that!

@SaniqueRowe Hi there Sanique! We corresponded in the email, luckily the issue has stopped happening to me. But its seems @tanyab and @ulysses are having a similar issue so perhaps they could provide some of the data you needed for this issue to be resolved!

@NitinP Hi Nitin! I was having a bit of trouble with the proposed explanation as well, but I think there is an easier way of looking at it, but I'm open to hearing your thoughts on it.

We get 2 ways of defending judicial candor. We get the (1) prudential defense and the (2) moral defense. I think this answer plays to defense #1, the prudential defense. The prudential defense is a pragmatic, sort of cost/benefit type of approach. He says "If it can be shown that following a general rule favoring sincerity produces the most prudential outcomes—whatever those happen to be—then the rule is justified."

He opens this sentence with "If," leaving open the possibility that perhaps there are scenarios in which not following a rule of judicial candor, or a lack of judicial candor, could in theory provide the most prudential outcomes, and thus have positive benefits.

I think a critique of this explanation is maybe someone would say that the author of Passage A denies defense 1 in favor of defense 2, but not in totality. He never argues defense 1 fails for this specific reason, so I think it is fair to utilize this explanation if one found it convincing as proposed.

Yeah idk I think this one is just super annoying from the LSAT writers. I genuinely and have never assumed this of any other LSAT question, I think anyone who took the exam with this in it should appeal. I can provide a simple reason why I think E is wrong.

Assume Roehmer had used a tactic of argumentation that we can 100% agree is logically valid and does not have negative stigma around it. Our commentator then disagrees with its use and then utilizes it himself. That would in no way make his final argument fallacious for the reasons E outlines even though for some reason it works here.

We've had questions where someone declares a conclusion is false because the person advancing it is simply using hypocrisy as a premise. Here we have someone using an argument and then we are in the position of someone declaring his argument is weak because he's a hypocrite. It really not only in my opinion is a bad question but even contradicts some of the LSAT's own logic.

@PeaceInLogic I 1000% agree, I made the same criticism. I think a perfect way to illustrate it is the following.

Assume that our commentator objected to a perfectly valid form of reasoning. Then he did the same thing. E would still be descriptively accurate, but would it then still be fallacious? The answer does not suggest the argument is fallacious because it uses fallacious reasoning - it says the argument is fallacious because he criticized X and then did X - that is hypocrisy, and the LSAT has made it a point to constantly suggest that hypocrisy is not a valid move.

Idk, I'm 100% of the opinion that LSAT questions are 100% right and I just have not found the kill for them the writers had in mind, this is the first I genuinely think whoever took this exam needs to appeal this. If nothing else, one of the most sloppy questions I've seen, really weird.

Im really confused about this one. I get why A in theory does resolve - but we don't even know what time period we're in for A to resolve. What if it's currently 1971? Fine, B-E present no better alternative. But reading C, is there not a grammatically correct reading of the stim which suggests "even though hunters kill no fewer deer today" means individual hunters? And to be honest, I don't think such a reading is very clearly discouraged by the stimulus. In which case C isn't just good, but would indeed be a slam dunk. So my question would be what to do in cases like this? Is it just a wager? Or are ACs that require ambiguous readings take a back-seat to more clear cut answers like A even if they are extremely weak.

Is it typical for us to be strengthening the conclusion directly or by our own kind of argument chain and premises rather than working with the premises provided?

Hi, interested!

@mosheelish94 I thought the same thing at first but I believe the reason it does in fact work is because these rules are mutually exclusive and I think that's where they tried to trick us. By having the price rule second you think ah ok, so we need to 1) have a majority share and then 2) command the highest price based on that. But that isn't the case. As E says, if we sell StateRail as is, we can get like $100 for it. But if we add this restriction, we now violate the highest price it can command rule. The stimulus says the highest price it can COMMAND, which the last sentence establishes it can command (not the highest bidder after the fact). Interested on your thoughts on this as I shared similar concerns!

@ahuang I'm not positive this is correct, but I believe the reasoning is as so:

1) Yes, you are correct, we have established vacuum tubes maximum current capacity does NOT equal semiconductors

2) The answer says that for those components whose resistance to heat is greater than that of semiconductors: (preferable --> comparable AND higher heat resistance)

3) So /higher heat resistance OR /comparable --> /preferable, and as you said, we are /comparable

4) The issue and "twist" lies in the fact that the rule we stated in 2 and 3 is ONLY applicable to (any component whose resistance to heat is greater than that of semiconductors). We only know that to be true of Small Experimental Vacuum tubes, so does this rule even apply to vacuum tubes? Thats the problem I think

Assuming E is descriptively accurate, why would this not be fallacious? The author's final sentence which I believe E is playing on would be read as saying that if we get a 100,000$ budget increase, we should spend it wholly on music instead of counseling since we spend enough on Counseling (proved by the survey) and we can't use this money in multiple places. That is a flaw but so is this idea we can't spend money in more than one place?

@ConnerKline I'm having a bit of a hard time with this explanation. Some of the explanations utilized for this answer emphasize the difference between the initial sentence and the author's position. Taken on it's face, and truly utilizing a strict reading of the text, where does the author even endorse the initial sentence. In fact, could it not be viewed as simply context to introduce the Carbon Deposit Group? Then, he comes in and says, woah guys, it can't be carbon deposits because there are biomarkers indicating past or present life. On its face, of course this is a terrible explanation haha, because...ok? So? We seem to need another premise explaining why this means anything for petroleum and why it refutes their argument. So for me, I was looking for an answer choice capitalizing on THIS gap.

As it stands, Answer D doesn't seem to weaken the argument at all! If anything, it is wholly consistent with what the author states: "But their theory is refuted by the presence in petroleum of biomarkers, molecules indicating the past or present existence of a living organism." Now we see that there are those living organisms! Or are we not supposed to take bacteria as living organisms? Again, why? Because of sentence 1? Again, we don't know what the geologist considers living?

I understand this is a "most weaken" and no other arguments really weaken but to me D actually strengthens the author's argument so I am just a bit lost. I know D is right so I'm just really trying to wrap my brain around why.

Would love some clarification on the use of "Whatever" and its impact on question A. Had Answer Choice B said "Whatever is a voluntary action cannot have a chemical explanation" would it be too broad as well? A would obviously seem to be way broader because we haven't limited it to even the subsection of voluntary action, but this isn't a question type where one is "better" - the assumption needs to be 100% necessary, right? So for B, had it led with "Whatever" or a variation of that, I'm curious if this would have automatically disqualified it as well and the LSAT writers would have had to put another right answer!

Hello sorry, I accidentally submitted before I could finish my question. Here is what I intended to ask: A bit confused about Answer choice D. Had this been framed as "Original works tend to be suppressed whenever they are released," why would this be wrong? Assuming Premise: Existing works refer to other works we dont have THUS The existing works are not the most original, wouldn't knowing that Original works were suppressed by nature of being original bridge this gap? So in other words:

original works --> suppressed

/suppressed --> /original work

existing work --> / suppressed

suppressed --> /existing work

Thus,

existing work --> /suppressed --> /original work

I guess the issue with that though is it completely ignores the premise? Im just a bit all tangled up with this one.

Hi! I would love to have a session if you are doing this, even just for 15/30 mins!

Im interested!