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Lessons · Phen-Hypo Passage, Paragraph 2 (Late Heavy Bombardment)

seroujsg241

Sunday, Aug 04 2024

Low Res

Hypo 1 - Cataclysm and Solar system

Hypo 2 - /Cataclysm and Solar system

Hypo 3 - Cataclysm and /Solar system

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PrepTests ·

PT150.S3.Q22

seroujsg241

Tuesday, Jul 30 2024

The author is saying that lately Roehmer is questioning/challenging the motives of her adversaries. Challenging the motives of your adversaries is a source attack and is a flawed way to argue. The author is saying that source attacks alienate the adversaries, and creates a bigger divide, he says "it is a guaranteed way NOT to change the minds of your adversaries". So if your goal is to persuade someone to change their minds, don't attack their motives/character.

Right after saying this, the author throws shade at Roehmer, and says that she does not care about having a valid argument, because she's only trying to please her loyal followers. Which is in itself, an attack on Roehmer's character/motives as a person.

He committed the same flaw he was criticizing Roehmer for committing. By basically calling Roehmer a kiss up to her followers, he alienated Roehmer and guaranteed not to change her mind about fixing her mistakes and not attacking her adversaries' motives.

In regards to your example about Johnny, it's not that the people Johnny was shouting to don't care about getting yelled at. Johnny is the one who doesn't care about making a valid argument to persuade those people of his opinion. All Johnny cares about is pleasing his friends that are hyping him up during the argument/fight.

The author in this instance, would say Johnny is a kiss up to his friends, all he cares about is pleasing his friends.

This is not a persuasive argument, the author is only attacking Johnny's character.

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Study Groups · LSAT Studying Discord

seroujsg241

Friday, Jul 26 2024

I am interested

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PrepTests ·

PT151.S3.Q4

seroujsg241

Monday, Jul 22 2024

I have a question regarding Conjunction and Dis-junction when they're present in the sufficient and/or necessary condition.

I know "and" does not split in the sufficient condition and does split in the necessary condition.

Does that mean if a statement says "A and B -> C" that we need both A and B to be present to trigger the necessary condition? Or only 1 of them would be enough to trigger.

Conversely, if it said "A -> B and C", does A being present mean both B and C must be present together as a consequence? Or one can be present without the other?

#feedback

#Help

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PrepTests ·

PT151.S2.Q15

seroujsg241

Sunday, Jul 21 2024

I think knowing how much is a "significant amount" was important on this question. I created a scenario in my head where a street has:

10 old house. And we know there are 2x as many apartments as old houses, so based on this scenario, the apartments cannot exceed 20.

So we have 10 old houses and 20 apartments. And the conclusion is that most of the old houses have more than 1 apartment. The flawed assumption is that EVERY old house has an apartment AND that the distribution of apartments is equal, but we have no reason to believe that. What if one house has all 20 apartments and the others have none? that is extreme, but could be a possibility.

What answer E does is it tells us a significant number of house have more than 3 apartments, which exposes a vulnerability in the author's argument. If we assume 4 old houses is a significant amount, and we assign 5 apartments to each of those 4 houses, we get 20 apartments. We can then have the other remaining 6 houses have 0 apartments. Because the author did not account for this possibility, his argument that "most houses have more than 1 apartment" is under threat. Anyone can look at his conclusion and make a counter argument like the one above.

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PrepTests ·

PT150.S3.Q22

seroujsg241

Monday, Jul 15 2024

The commentator is criticizing Roehmer - for attacking her opponents' motives/character (source attack) - and saying that source attacks are not a good way or arguing because they will alienate those at whom the attack is pointed instead of changing their minds through persuasion.

Right after, the commentator attacks Roehmer's motives saying she's just worried about pleasing her loyal readers. The commentator committed the same flaw he criticized Roehmer for.

I think "someone criticizes an idea and also employs this idea" is accurate, without the "but we cannot conclude that this idea is incorrect" part.

The commentator is being a hypocrite, and the answer choice is pretty much defining what hypocrisy is.

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Lessons · You Try - Criticism and Change

seroujsg241

Thursday, Jun 13 2024

Answer E is wrong because there is no refutation in the argument. The counselor is not refuting an argument and saying that the refuted argument's conclusion is false. It is descriptively inaccurate.

If on the other hand, a critique attacked the counselor's argument and said "no counselor, harsh criticism is not unpleasant" and from that concluded that the counselor's conclusion (Only harsh criticism will the cause the person ... to change) is false, then answer E would be correct.

In this example I chose an example that attacked the premise directly, but remember that on the LSAT, we almost always attack the support structure to weaken an argument, not the premises. Also, we are not trying to show that a conclusion is false, only that it is unsupported by the current premises.

I hope this helps you a bit.

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Lessons · You Try - Predicting a Recession

seroujsg241

Tuesday, Jun 04 2024

The economist's prediction that the country's economy would soon go into a recession had a condition to it, and that condition was the current economic policies not changing. In other words, current economic policies not changing is the sufficient assumption. That is the world the economist set up where his prediction was based on.

The critic took the economist's conditional prediction and tried using it against him by attempting to show that the prediction was not accurate, since the economy was stronger, not in a recession. What the critic overlooked was the condition the economist set up.

If the economic policies were changed, then it does not matter what the economist predicted will happen to the economy. Think of it like negating the sufficient assumption. When we do that, we lose the "bridge", we cannot get anywhere anymore.

So by telling the critic that his (the economist's) forecast convinced the country's leaders into changing the economic policies, he is weakening the critics conclusion, that the economist's forecast was "bumbling", "mistaken", "wrong".

Answer choice A states that the economist responds to the critic by "indicating that the state of affairs on which the economist’s prediction was conditioned did not obtain."

Economic policies is part of a country's State of Affairs. Did not obtain means it did not happen.

In other words, the economist responds to the critic by indicating that the condition upon which his prediction was based on/conditioned on (if economic policies do not change) did not happen. He never predicted what would happen to the economy if the leaders did change the policies. He only spoke of what would happen if they did not.

Also remember that the economist's argument is not 100% bulletproof, but it is stronger than the critic's.

Hope this helps!

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Lessons · You Try - Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals

seroujsg241

Monday, May 20 2024

Here is my take on it.

If you negate the AC (C) you will get something like this:

"If the DNA of Homo Sapiens was significantly more similar to Neanderthals, than the similarity of DNA between contemporary humans and Neanderthals", the entire argument falls apart.

Another way of looking at it is the following:

"If the similarity of DNA between Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals is 20%, and the similarity of DNA between contemporary humans and Neanderthals is 5%" you destroyed the entire argument. But Why??

Because you need to assume that in order for two species to have similar DNA, they have to interbreed.

You also need to assume that the contemporary human's DNA is analogous to their Homo Sapien ancestors. Because it is by using this analogy that we can use the premise to explain the conclusion. To preserve this analogy, it is okay for us to state their DNA compared to the Neanderthal's DNA is either:

1) The same (so if modern humans vs Neanderthals was 5% similar, then Old Homo Sapiens vs Neanderthals was also 5%)

2) Old Homo Sapiens is only slightly more similar (Maybe 6% for Homo Sapiens, and 5% for modern humans)

3) Old Homo Sapiens is wayyy less similar (Maybe Old Homo Sapiens is 1% similarity, and modern is 5% similarity)

What is not okay, is for Old Homo Sapiens to have significantly more similar DNA to Neanderthals than contemporary humans do, because that destroys the analogy that our DNA is similar to our ancestors' DNA. And it subsequently renders the premise that modern humans have significantly different DNA than that of Neanderthals irrelevant to the conclusion. We can no longer use the premise to support the conclusion, because the conclusion is talking about prehistoric homo sapiens, and we destroyed the link between modern humans and prehistoric humans.

It is a bit confusing at first, but if you really slow down and think about it, you should start seeing why it is necessary.

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Lessons · Lesson 2 - Meyer's PhD is Revoked (PSAr)

seroujsg241

Wednesday, Apr 17 2024

Whether or not the university found that Meyer also falsified data in his Doctoral thesis would not have changed the outcome/conclusion (revoking his PhD). In either case they were going to revoke his PhD because he committed scientific fraud while working for some other employer.

The question wants us to find a rule from the answer choices that most justifies the conclusion. In other words, which rule from the answer choices if it had the facts/premises applied to it, would most justify revoking Meyer's PhD?

Answer choice D does that by saying "Anyone who holds a PhD from UW, and is found to have committed scientific fraud, will have their PhD revoked". So when we apply the facts to this rule, we know that Meyer did have his PhD from UW, and he did commit scientific fraud (where he committed it does not matter), which is why he had his PhD revoked.

Even if you did not ignore the third premise, you would still choose answer D, because in the other answer choices, you could not apply the facts to the rules. In Answer B for example, it talks about "admitting a student to UW", but the facts/premises in the stimulus do not trigger that rule, because Meyer has already graduated, and is not applying to get admitted in the university.

Answer E talks about "hiring someone", but nowhere in the stimulus do we see a fact/premise talking about Meyer wanting to work at the university.

Answer C talks about dismissing someone as a consequence to academic fraud, but as a graduate, Meyer cannot be dismissed as he does not even attend the university.

I hope this clarifies it a bit.

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Lessons · Skill Builder - Negation 1

seroujsg241

Tuesday, Jan 30 2024

Hey Mag1069,

I posted a comment earlier, maybe it will help you as well

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Lessons · Skill Builder - Negation 1

seroujsg241

Tuesday, Jan 30 2024

The contra-positive is logically equivalent to the main statement, it is not a negation.

If it is a cat, then it is an animal (C → A)

and its contra-positive

If it is not an animal, then it is not a cat (/A → /C)

These two sentences are logically equivalent, they mean exactly the same thing, just stated differently. So while you could find the contra-positive of #3, that is not what is being asked in this exercise.

When you negate a statement, you are denying/breaking the relationship between the relata (The two sides of the arrow, in this case the relationship between cats and animals), a contra-positive does not deny that relationship.

The correct negation would be:

1. No, it is not the case that cats are animals (C → /A) (Group 4 "No" Negate Necessary)

2. Something can be a cat, and not be an animal (C and /A)

3. All cats are not animals (C → /A)

Knowing the difference between "Universal Quantifiers" and "Existential Quantifiers" could help clarify some things as well.

Remember that unlike Universal Quantifiers (The 4 Groups, like "all", "no"statements), Existential Quantifiers do not have contra-positives. Those are statements that include "some", "most", and "few".

Hope this helps

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Lessons · Bi-Conditionals

seroujsg241

Sunday, Jan 07 2024

Biconditionals can be separated into two categories.

1. Always together, never apart

2. Never together, always apart

Or...but not both is part of the 2nd category.

Here is an example:

Alan or Bob plays basketball, but not both

This sentence is just a lazy way of stating two sentences in one. The two sentences are:

a) Alan or Bob plays basketball (Lawgic = /A → B) (Contrapositive = /B → A)

and

b) Alan and Bob cannot both play basketball (Lawgic = A → /B) (Contrapositive = B → /A)

Notice how /A goes to B in sentence "a", and also notice how B goes to /A in sentence "b". They end up pointing back to each other, and it's an endless cycle.

You can write this down as /A ↔ B.

Also notice how /B goes to A in sentence "a", and A goes to /B in sentence "b". Again pointing back to each other.

You can write this down as A ↔ /B

Now notice how /A ↔ B and A ↔ /B are just contrapositives of one another.

If you go to the home page of 7Sage and switch to V.1 there's a detailed explanation of bi-conditionals that I believe would answer all of your questions.

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Lessons · [OPTIONAL] For, since, because

seroujsg241

Saturday, Dec 02 2023

Think of it in the context of support. Would Poseidon being furious support the fact that his temple was desecrated? Or would his temple being destroyed support the fact that Poseidon is furious. The second statement makes more sense.

Ask yourself, "Why should I believe the temple was desecrated?" because "Poseidon is furious"

versus

"Why should I believe Poseidon is furious?" because "his temple was desecrated."

The second statement seems stronger and more reasonable. Just like Maryannmntg33 mentioned.

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Lessons · Quiz on Logical Reasoning Question Stems First Half

seroujsg241

Saturday, Oct 28 2023

Must be true you hold the Answer Choices suspect. So based on the stimulus you need to find an answer choice that Cannot be false. If you find an answer choice that cannot be false, that is the answer you are looking for.

NA questions you are trying to find an Answer Choice that without it the argument will fall apart. If you negate the correct NA answer choice, the argument in the stimulus will be destroyed. For example, suppose the argument says "I am the best Basketball player because I won 4 awards; I play in the NBA; I scored the most points" The correct NA answer will say something like "I know how to dribble the ball." If you negate that answer, in other words, if you say "I do not know how to dribble a ball" then the entire argument falls apart because knowing how to dribble is necessary to be the best basketball player. NA answers do not add a lot of support to the conclusion, but they are still necessary for the conclusion to be true. Sufficient assumptions add support, but sufficient assumptions are not necessary. In our example, if I won 3 awards instead of 4, would that destroy my argument that I am the best player in the world? Maybe, maybe not.

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Conjunction vs Disjunction in Conditional Statements

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