I am really bad at Point at Issue and Flaw questions. I have drilled them over and over again, and yet they are the questions I consistently miss every time. I have familiarized myself with an exhaustive list of flaw types. But I just cannot seem to pick out the right flaw, or match it to the answer choices. With Point at Issue, I just never am able to choose between 2-3 ACs that look pretty close. Any advice?? How do you reliably approach these problems?
Didn't catch this the first time around, but in hindsight, the LSAT writers do cover themselves by defining what "better at investing is." They provide that the only relevant metric is attaining a better return. I ignored that and simply assumed that being better at investing means being better at understanding reports and making decisions.
Dana says: "All children should always get personalized learning."
Pat says: "All children should sometimes/never (negation of always) be adaptable."
B: Dana disagrees, Pat agrees.
E: Dana agrees (because always implies sometimes), Pat agrees.
I chose C at first because I immediately saw the could/cause distinction. Then during BR, I chose B because Y's arg is that joyriding is MORE dangerous. He could concede A's arg and say, "Sure, computer crimes also cause physical harm but you don't prove MORE physical harm." That's a flaw at the response level. Then the could/cause distinction is an additional flaw at the content level. How should I know which flaw they're looking for? #help
Another way to differentiate between D and B/E: The stimulus says the thick crust is a necessary condition for a big volcano (BV → TC). D says Mars has a big volcano (from stimulus) and therefore, we know the crust is thicker. Whereas B and E say that thickest/thicker crust is enough to conclude highest/larger volanoes - classic sufficient/necessity confusion. This is basically JY's explanation but not in the same words.
Another defense of AC D: There is no ambiguity as to which duty we're talking about. The conclusion is "should fulfill her duty to report." That's the conclusion, that's all you have to prove. If anything, the duty to her patient is extraneous information, but also it is a PSA question. The stem says "most closely conforms" so it didn't have to be perfect/valid anyways. So we clearly have no evidence of disasterous consequences (dreams are not evidence) and we correctly conclude that she should fulfill her duty to report.
I'm not saying A is worse, but it certainly isn't better.
Could someone elaborate more on #19. I feel like JY's attempt at explaining how C is egregious or crazy relies way more on his feelings/assumption/intuition than any kind of actual textual support. He began to explain the sufficient/necessary distinction which, I think, is the right key to the question - does anyone understand it enough to explain it further? #help
I think JY's first reason for choosing C makes no sense. Both B and C are comparative statements bc they use the words "more likely" which is a comparative adjective. The second object of comparison is implied in B and explicitly stated in C, but that doesn't mean that the comparison just doesn't exist in B (just add "than not" at the end). So the whole 2 to 3% willing arg is not unique to C.
The only reason I can find for why B is better than C is in the generating vs. participating.
The quizlet link would be super helpful if you could share it! Certain question types consistently give me the most trouble on LR, so any new material that could give me that breakthrough piece of advice would be amazing!
I see why, after JY's explanation, it is a correlation/causation confusion. But I originally thought this was a sufficient/necessary confusion. A causes B, we have B, and therefore we must have had A. Is this not also an accurate reading? #help
Why doesn't AC D trigger the premise from the stimulus? Why does the AC have to include the words reasonably expected?
Moreover, AC A imo doesn't trigger the premise. It simply says "if one could reasonably expect..." We still don't know if Sandstrom could have expected so we still don't know if she should pay, who cares what the Medels claim.
#help #help
I really dislike this question but I'll give a shot at trying to understand the testmakers' logic. I think C and E could easily be the answer, but B is definitely better than both of them.
(A) Wrong bc of “any”. If not a single Athenian experienced a common Ebola symptom, that seriously weakens.
(B) If C and E and both close to being the answer, B is definitely better because it literally just restates what is in the passage. The passage says “hiccups experienced by many victims” which = “not all…are afflicted with hiccups.” Does not weaken (or strengthen for that matter).
(C) Doesn’t really weaken bc trade (pretty reasonable assumption that Athens was not a 100% isolated city)
(D) Wrong bc it asserts that Ebola is definitively and in every instance more contagious than the Athenian epidemic. That definitely weakens.
(E) Doesn’t really weaken bc 1. medicine/hygiene (pretty reasonable assumption imo) and 2. because it says “usually” - who cares if Ebola usually is shorter-lived, the Athens experience could totally be an exception.
On Q12, I chose D over C for 2 reasons. One, the fact that this author is even writing the passage at all means that they probably care somewhat. Two, and more strongly, the author lets Gluck have the first and the last word. The structuring of each paragraph and sentence is "despite what critics say, Gluck reponds" or "even though critics say, Gluck maintains." Letting Gluck refute every argument indicates a subtle preference.
My takeaway: I don't think D helps evaluate the conclusion but it does evaluate the argument and that's a key difference.
Whether MSEs are the same size the hypothetical business tells us nothing about the rankings because we don't know about the state of regulatory compliance.
However, the answer to D does tell us whether you can conclude the rankings will improve based on the premises offered.
#help (Added by Admin)
My thoughts on C over E: The conclusion is that seals start with indiscriminate aversion and learn to ignore "safe" whales. The learned behavior is ignoring. AC C demonstrates the accuracy of the first part of the hypothesis (aversion).
E talks about a seal ignoring and then avoiding (after surviving the attack). I don't think E is inconsistent with the hypothesis (which makes it super tricky) but it certainly doesn't engage with it and doesn't support it.
Takeaway: not being inconsistent does not mean supporting.
I got this question right and it's because I made a distinction (which I think does require science knowledge and cannot be reasonably considered common knowledge but oh well) between microwave the object and microwaves on the electromagnetic spectrum. If you replace the word microwaves in the stimulus and the answer choices with UV waves or gamma waves, it becomes pretty clear the difference between the wave and the heat, and which one causes lysosomes to die. So is it the electromagnetic wave that zaps the enzyme and kills it (idk if this is how it works, just for the sake of mental picture) or heat that causes it to burn and die - that's why E is right. Hope this helps!
AC E requires you to that office workers do not get regular phsyical exercise and it requires you to assume that the exercise for preventing lower back energy is the same as the exercise explained in the stimulus. But the stimulus specifically says laborers do exercise that cause lower back stress.
By analogy, the stimulus is saying that laborers do exercise type A which is bad for your back while the AC is saying exercise is good for your back. AC E cannot conceivably be talking about type A exercise. So we know nothing about how much laborers or office workers do healthy back exercises.
From that alone, AC E is pretty easy to elimate imo. So why is it the answer?
#help (Added by Admin)
#help #help For #17, I think the grammar matters.
"Diverse species adapted to today's climatic conditions have had more time to emerge in the tropical regions, which, unlike the temperate and actic zones, have been unaffected by the succession of ice ages."
If which refers to climatic conditions, then E could be right. Because it states that climatic conditions in the tropics are uninterrupted by ice ages. Therefore climate in the arctic/temperate zones are interrupted.
If which refers to species, then sure A is fine.
How do you know what "which" is referring to?
I didn't read carefully enough, the subtle difference between C and E got me. They are the exact same except C says the load increases and E says the operating temperature increases. Noticing that difference, the answer is pretty clearly C.
For this question, I think the correct AC weakens the support between P to C without actually proving the C wrong - which is tricky, because often the correct AC for weakening questions are able to prove the C wrong. Instead, AC B shows that their whole research methodology was inadequate for reaching the conclusion they did. It's like when you get to the right answer in a math problem but use the wrong formula.
It very well could be that ProBit is part of "the others" and KRV is part of "the some" - ultimately, doesn't matter. Point is that if AC B is true, then nothing about the conclusion can be trusted.
I got rid of AC C for a different reason than JY. The stimulus says that it is becuase one thinks about what they HEAR that people used to exercise their imagination. For AC C, while tv viewers might not think about what they SEE, they might still have to think about what they HEAR.