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scottchr9452
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LSAT · How to correct for questions I inexplicably get wrong?
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scottchr9452
Thursday, Jan 30 2020

@

Also, mistakes like that have trained me to be less comfortable/more alert while taking the test. Often, the questions I miss during LR aren't ones I flagged, they're the ones where I felt confident in my answer and moved on.

I feel this. I think you're right, though. It just comes down to being extremely disciplined and making sure to ask yourself the right questions on EVERY answer. The wrong answers come when I get mentally lazy and breeze right through a question without thinking about it. I rarely get flagged questions wrong unless I'm truly lost on the question. It's mostly ones I thought I had no problem with but then review later and understand immediately what the right answer was.

0
PrepTests ·
PT141.S2.Q19
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scottchr9452
Monday, Jul 29 2019

You've really got to do mental backflips to make some LSAT answers work. I just fail to see how B makes the conclusion less likely than C does.

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I recently started a wrong answer journal to help pinpoint where I'm going wrong on answers. Most of the time, I find myself making reading errors or approaching an answer the wrong way. Upon further reflection, I can typically recognize my error, describe it to myself on paper, and then I try not to do it again. However, sometimes it genuinely comes down to the fact that the answers just didn't click. I look back at the answers choices and think to myself duh, of course that's the answer. In these situations, I have no reason why I didn't answer correctly other than the fact that I just couldn't find the right answer at the time even though in retrospect it's pretty obvious. It's not timing because sometimes I spend a significant amount of time on them. Maybe just anxiety even in a practice test setting?

Does anyone have any insight on what might be happening here? Or how I can correct for that? I'd like to figure out the error of my ways to continue improving my score! Thank you!

0
PrepTests ·
PT128.S1.P3.Q19
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scottchr9452
Tuesday, Aug 27 2019

I'm curious why having their cultural identities influenced in the past isn't a cultural and historical experience that crosses national borders? I see how one could infer that A is the correct answer choice, but I just thought that colonialism in both Algeria and India was way more obvious.

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PrepTests ·
PT144.S4.Q21
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scottchr9452
Thursday, Jul 25 2019

I actually read B to mean that the brainier kids - the ones who would have benefited the most from a chess program - were the ones who stuck with the program, while the kids who were less interested in school work were the ones who dropped it. Therefore, the chess program was merely an aid to those kids rather than the reason for their achievement.

It's a stretch and by no means perfect, but no less so than AC C in my opinion.

0
PrepTests ·
PT152.S2.Q4
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scottchr9452
Saturday, May 25 2019

#help

I'm not sure I understand the LSAT's reasoning here. "There is NO excuse that can absolve the person." Isn't that a little strong? The stimulus merely talks about evidence regarding the chief's involvement.

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PrepTests ·
PT121.S2.P2.Q11
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scottchr9452
Tuesday, Dec 24 2019

I'm a little lost of question 12. I was stuck between C and E because I didn't like the word "exemplified" as it was used in C, nor did I like "receptive" as used in E. Ultimately, though, I went with E because there was written evidence in the passage that Latin American poets influenced Spanish poets (see lines 20-25). Am I reading this wrong?

#help (Added by Admin)

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PrepTests ·
PT125.S1.P4.Q23
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scottchr9452
Friday, Aug 23 2019

Question 23 is probably not the best work I've seen from the test writers. First, the correct answer (B) says that there is "strong belief" in the group's decision. And while the passage talks about self-censorship and hiding one's doubts, it never mentions the group members actually believe in the decision. Hiding one's objection =/= believing in the decision.

Second, the answer choices are ambiguous about to whom they are referring. Are they referring to the group, group members, or group think in general? I interpreted answer choice E to say that group members would carefully consider their objections before bringing them up, which is entirely consistent with the passage and, due to my rationale above, the better of two choices.

Thoughts?

1
PrepTests ·
PT112.S1.Q7
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scottchr9452
Monday, Aug 19 2019

Counterevidence: "evidence that contradicts something"

- Merriam-Webster Dictionary

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PrepTests ·
PT143.S3.Q14
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scottchr9452
Saturday, May 18 2019

#help

Anyone know why this isn't confusing a necessary and sufficient condition? Stimulus says:

Moving people out of city → Less pollution in the largest creators of pollution → Less pollution in the country as a whole

Moving people out of the city is sufficient, but it doesn't necessarily reduce pollution.

Similarly, creating a metro system → Creates less pollution per passenger → Low-pollution transportation → (implied) Lower pollution

But again, creating a metro system could lead to lower pollution but it doesn't necessarily.

So, to summarize, both arguments could be true, but they aren't necessarily true.

1
PrepTests ·
PT143.S3.Q5
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scottchr9452
Saturday, May 18 2019

#help

The issue I struggle with most on LR is that some answer choices force you to make assumptions about them while others don't and I have trouble distinguishing between the two.

For instance, if AC A is correct, you must assume that homeowners experiencing this phenomenon live in areas without available jobs. However, it could be that 80% of people in one of these regions only have high school education while most jobs require a college degree. Granted, it is unlikely, but my point is that it's possible, in which case, answer choice A does not explain it.

With that in mind, I chose answer choice E because it makes sense that people buy homes when they are feeling economically secure and then later lose their jobs (think of a coal town after the Green New Deal passes). You could argue that my rationale is unnecessarily reading something into the AC, but I'd say no more so than in AC A.

How do I resolve this reading-too-much-into-answers thing? It's becoming a sort of systemic issue for me.

1
PrepTests ·
PT154.S1.Q20
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scottchr9452
Tuesday, Feb 18 2020

AC B seems to require the assumption that there was a Latin version available to Shakespeare, which is a big no-no from me. Gotta love when the LSAT changes its own rules.

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PrepTests ·
PT140.S3.Q4
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scottchr9452
Saturday, Aug 17 2019

I was so put off by how atrocious this argument was that I got confused trying to connect the answer choices to the stimulus. Darn you LSAT and your tricks.

However, I did learn from this question that sometimes strengthening the study that supports a conclusion can work as a strengthener. I originally read E as a premise-booster, but I guess this is unique because it's bolstering a study rather than any particular premise. Interesting.

3
PrepTests ·
PT114.S2.Q22
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scottchr9452
Friday, Aug 09 2019

#help

So I'm confused about a few things on this question:

1. How can we infer that this refers to all Chlora plants? It doesn't say species, it just says within a plant known as Chlora.

2. From this single observation, how can we infer something about the origin of the entire species?

3. It also only discusses a single nucleomorph within the entire plant. Can we really infer something about a plant just from a single cell?

Genuinely lost here...

5
PrepTests ·
PT149.S4.Q20
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scottchr9452
Wednesday, Nov 06 2019

The way I read it, answer choice C implicitly refers to people with amusia. They meet the definition provided in the stimulus. So I'm not sure it's "too broad."

Also, what is this enlightened understanding of the phrase "track timed sequences of musical tones"? Did JY ever explain it? I honestly had no idea what that meant either.

#help (Added by Admin)

1
PrepTests ·
PT138.S3.Q9
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scottchr9452
Sunday, Aug 04 2019

#help

So I chose D because it could be the case that regular detergents use harmful chemicals in addition to surfactants, while ecologically friendly detergents only harm the environment with surfactants. Seeing that A is correct, is it appropriate to say, as a general principle in weakening questions, that making a potentially weaker but solid point (A) is better than raising an open question (D)?

0
PrepTests ·
PT138.S2.Q24
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scottchr9452
Sunday, Aug 04 2019

#help

So I picked C because I thought the flaw was in the blanket conclusion that crying reduces stress. What if crying actually causes even more stress?

Am I the only one who thought the flaw was about crying?

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PrepTests ·
PT109.S4.Q18
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scottchr9452
Tuesday, Sep 03 2019

I may be alone here, but I'm not sure answer choice B fully captures what they intended for it to say. The coach can accept that the critics say his/her team's behavior is inappropriate and rebut that claim by pointing to the behavior of professional athletes. It's not necessarily true that he's misinterpreting it. Just my two cents.

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