This problem forces you to define "efficiency" as strictly economic. Can something be more environmentally efficient (less fuel burned) or fewer chemicals released and still be more expensive? If you believe so, this question will screw you since it hinges on you equating efficiency with cost/profit.

I agree with some of the comments below that E is not such an easy dismissal. By casting judgment on contemporary art, one could infer that Rachel believes she can correctly assess art in the present. Now, one could say that claiming it is in decline due to a particular factor (lack of constraints) isn't exactly correctly assessing it.

In these cases, it's best to focus on which one is clearly correct. Clearly, Rachel believes contemporary art is in decline and James says she is mistaken (A).

7 Sage dismisses C as "so what", but I felt like question C supported one of the premises, in some way: not only are they wrong that peer review polices their discipline effectively, but it's impossible to do so using the method.

It's peer review vs other safeguards, and you need other safeguards since peer review is so fallible.

The moral is when faced between an answer that strengthens a premise or one that strengthens a conclusion the latter is best.

Since lots of folks chose E.

A couple of things are wrong with E's "Knowledge of the emotions of everyday life cannot be acquired by merely observing and analyzing life".

1. Semantics: "knowledge of everyday life" does not necessarily equate to "intuitive grasp of emotions of everyday life" as the argument tells us. The argument says novelists need to have an intuitive grasp earned by living within it, not crusty professorial "knowledge".

1.b. "Merely observing and analyzing life"- this confuses you because it sounds like what professors do. Hence, if professors were observing and analyzing life, the condition that they are not able to become great novelists by doing so is necessary. Except, that nowhere in the passage are we told that professors actually observe and analyze life. We are merely told that they have powers of observation and analysis.

2. Structure of the Argument

Leaving behind semantics, choice D is a more direct, and elegant solution. The argument being: If novelists are great > great intuition of emotions of everyday life

//great intuition of emotions > //great novelist

If novelists could be great without this intuition, then why not professors since they are also lacking this intuition? Suddenly, without D, the argument goes out the window.

of all the LSAT questions ever, I resent this one the most. I have glossed over it time and time again and I never quite agree with B over A. I think you could well make a case that the phenomenon is explained by the overall conclusion. Moreover, how could it be a premise that supports the conclusion if the conclusion doesn't even explain it? I see why B is solid. I just don't agree that A isn't there. Besides, I have seen the LSAT use the term subsidiary conclusion so they are violating their own language customs.

Thank you so much! This is very helpful. I appreciate your efforts in trying to figure this out!

Same here!

Like a lot of the hard questions, you really need to tunnel-focus on the conclusion here. The conclusion is not that these new salmon are genetically different, so much so that they cannot interbreed. The conclusion is that their genetic difference was caused by adaptation to habitat. I had to continuously remind myself of thi.

In other words, you are looking to strengthen this by ruling out any chance that they branched away from each other due to other factors, such as, for example, some salmon were infected by a virus that caused genetic mutations, some salmon ate a kind of algae, some were picked up by fishermen and given gene-altering hormones, or in this case, that one of the new populations reproduced with native salmon.

This would severely weaken the conclusion, and so, ruling it out strengthens it.

(B) is problematic because it doesn't address the "environmental adaptation part". These two species could have very well lived in the shallow water. Also, we don't know anything about these former native species.

This question is hard because I think we all assume that environmental adaptation is synonymous with evolution. The text exploits this.

Here's my .50'cents for those of you who are struggling:

This question is tough on two counts:

- it's easy to forget what the actual conclusion is, or to mistake it for the subconclusion.

- Partly, because the figurine premise is hard to grasp, which makes you focus on it to try and decipher a picture of what exactly this totem thing looks like. However, in the scheme of the argument, where the mouth is on the head, etc. is actually irrelevant.

The conclusion is not that the archeologists are wrong, but that this thing is a communal object used for speaking. Therefore, we are looking to weaken the last bridge to this conclusion. In this case, B casts doubt on this being a communal object.

As for E, it even without fully deciphering what it means, it clearly takes issue with the intermediate conclusion (that the archeologists are wrong), and furthermore, it doesn't address the fact that the object is still too small to be a weapon of war. Remember, his refutation of the archeologists was held by two premises: small + symbol of speech. It's easy to forget about the small part because we're naturally inclined to confer importance on the convoluted premise, which hoards more space.

Hello, could someone specify the law hub item on this list? I logged in and it only gives me the option to take PT 90 and 73. Is there a way to have more of them? Thank you.

I agree this is a messy argument. I got this correct timed and incorrect on BR (C) which I only remember happening once before. I think this is a sloppy argument for three reasons:

1. A lot of equivocation in the argument: it starts with intrinsic works of art that deserve attention, onto directly presented and our experience of them, and ends at relevance. So attention and relevance and intrinsic and directly presented/experienced are used interchangeably. I'm sure you could convince folks that is a loophole, for one.

2. Not only is the conclusion unclear (both the first and last sentences make sense if you chain up the argument) but there are two conclusions in the last sentence: one, that asserts that what is aesthetically relevant is not symbolic, and another one that asserts that what is directly presented to experience is relevant.

You need two different SAs to validate this whole phrase. You need to fix the equivocation on the relevance side, and you need to tie up the leap from symbolic to extrinsic on the other. On my second read, I was inclined to do the former since the argument seems to use the negation of the symbolic to posit the other as relevant. So, I agree that it's messy.

Yep, this is one of the harder ones. In my opinion, harder that many others the system considers hardest. The reason I disliked D, was that I think it's reasonable to think that comets don't need to be "contained" by a planetary system to strike planets within that system. What if a planet "contains" no comets but neighboring planetary systems contain many and often they stray? This is one of those questions that just isn't very logically elegant. Pretty far out on the arbitrary spectrum.

At least, the other answers are VERY wrong. So that does it.