Admissions profile

LSAT

Not provided

CAS GPA

Not provided

1L START YEAR

Not provided

Discussions

Study Groups · Study Buddy for LSAT August!

sfbunting1731

Saturday, Mar 13 2021

Interested as well!

PrepTests ·

PT107.S1.Q15

sfbunting1731

Monday, Mar 08 2021

The only reason that I was able to choose A over E is the inclusion of "without any special treatment." This statement includes the possibility that most people recover from no treatment, but also that maybe they recover due to ordinary treatment. It seems that LSAC is hoping to trick test takers here by having them potentially equate 'no special treatment' with 'no treatment whatsoever.'

PrepTests ·

PT126.S4.Q19

sfbunting1731

Thursday, Mar 04 2021

What a cruelly written and disingenuous question. I chose the correct answer (C) for this question but have a significant objection to the inclusion of "in societies that protect" in answer choice C. The inclusion of this information is clearly to obfuscate the point, so much so that it endangers the answer choice in being reasonably interpreted as outside the scope. A more equitable and less ambiguous answer choice would be "When thinkers are granted freedom of thought, they invariably lack intellectual discipline." This removes any considerations about society, which was not at all discussed in the prompt, while still accomplishing what the actual answer choice communicates as well as what it sought to communicate. This is another example of a question where the meaning of the answer choice employs such tortured language that the only way to confidently select is after eliminating the other answer choices or making assumptions which border on the dangerous.

PrepTests ·

PT109.S1.Q21

sfbunting1731

Tuesday, Feb 02 2021

My main problem with Answer Choice C is that the inclusion of "every" creates a terrible sense of weakness in the principle as well as ambiguity in terms of what that sentence even means.

For example: Let us suppose that X and Y are debating, and X wants to confront Y's arguments. Y has 3 arguments in total (1a, 2a, 3a.) Let us then suppose X uses a valid debate technique which confronts argument 1a & 2a but not 3a. Under the principle of answer choice C, X should not use this valid debate technique, because it did not confront "every" (1a,2a, & 3a) argument. What reinforced my dissatisfaction with C is that in the actual question stem, the opponent's argument is referred to in the singular but in Answer Choice C, the 'every' aspect suddenly introduces the idea of plural arguments and which felt unrelated in determining how the correct principle would need to conform with the prompt. This made answer choice C feel further outside the scope.

IMO, If 'every' were replaced by 'any' then answer choice C would obviously be correct. However, 'every' and 'any' are by no means synonymous, and I do not believe it is reasonable of the test writers to assume test takers would perceive them as synonymous.

#help Can someone please explain to me what role "every" plays in this sentence that is different from my understanding above? Or, can someone help me reconcile my understanding of how 'every' impacted answer choice C with the notion that C is correct?

LSAT · Reading RC Questions Before The Passage: A Viable Strategy for the LSAT FLEX

sfbunting1731

Wednesday, Jan 27 2021

Good question and I certainly see the value in discussing that. On average my RC score would be in the -3 to -1 range, but I have hit -0 a fair number of times. That said, I will still occasionally have an off day in the -6 to -4 range. My goal in trying out this strategy (which admittedly is still on a trial period) is to eliminate those off days and get my score range tightly in a -1 to -0 average. I have only used this strategy for a whole RC passage once so far, and that yielded a -0. While it is totally possible that this was an anomaly/fluke, I felt a strong sense of confidence throughout the entire RC passage and even skipped my typical blind review because I strongly believed each question had been answered correctly. I would attribute extra confidence to the benefits of the strategy (better understanding of which subjects in each passage were important prior to reading the passage itself.) I look forward to putting it to the test again soon.

LSAT

•

Tuesday, Jan 26 2021

sfbunting1731

Reading RC Questions Before The Passage: A Viable Strategy for the LSAT FLEX

The purpose of this post is to share what I believe to be a helpful tip/strategy in the context of RC within the LSAT FLEX.

It can be tried by those who are looking to improve their RC scores or improve the consistency of their RC performance through a new strategy. I am certain it will not work for all, but I am equally confident that it is likely to be helpful to some. I would like to know the thoughts of test takers who have done (or give it a try after reading this) and to hear their feedback. Thanks!

Recently I have begun reading RC questions before getting into the passage as a new strategy to see how it would effect performance. In my so far experience, it has yielded positive results, including -0 scores in RC. Afterwards I searched online for general advice and to my surprise most sources recommended against this on the basis that "it is difficult for most people to remember multiple questions while reading through an RC passage." I believe this premise may no longer be true for the following reasons.

1.) Reading the questions first can prime your memory for what is important in the RC and help you read through 'fluff' faster.

2.) Total memorization isn't necessary. Partial, functional memorization can be helpful, and could be possible for many.

3.) Most sources that I found arguing against reading the RC Questions first predate the LSAT Flex. We now have the ability to do something that analog test takers could not. Use "Ctrl + F" to search for the key terms from the questions in the passage. Do it and quickly highlight them before reading the passage. For anyone unaware, using "Ctrl +F" is allowed by LSAC and is possible to do on official PTs and on the LSAT Flex itself.

I find that the above strategy can be quite helpful especially in denser passages. It to helps you focus on what is and is not important to pay attention to. To qualify what I mean by reading the questions first, I mean skimming them quickly looking for key terms/excerpts that they will ask you to either define, explore the relationship of, or make an inference about. Since you can use "Ctrl+F" to find these terms in the passage, you could highlight them right away and trust that the text in relation to these terms may be highly relevant. From there, you can speed through the passage and understand the general message for big picture questions, and spend more time on the areas that you have marked and that you know shall be helpful in ascertaining correct answers.

PrepTests ·

PT111.S2.P2.Q10

sfbunting1731

Friday, Jan 15 2021

Q10 #help This is the only RC question I got wrong on this passage, and I honestly believe it is due to answer choice A being too highly defensible, and answer choice B being somewhat undermined specifically by the presence of the word "political", preceded by what a reasonable reader would interpret as a mutually inclusive 'or.'

The only reason I did not select B was the inclusion of "or political." To preference this hastily written tirade, I must say that I interpret the phrase "move beyond the usual 'protest paintings' of the period" as to creating significantly ambiguity about whether or not Bearden's work could be classified as a protest painting at all, or (as the testwriters seem to be assuming as given) that it implies that Bearden's works were protest paintings with an extra selling point (included color reflective of human emotion.)

While the argument could be that the following excerpt, "colors also served as symbols of the psychological effects of debilitating social processes" could be stretched into conforming with answer choice B, there is nothing to suggest that Bearden had/believed in/was considering a political agenda throughout the entirety of passage. However! His works are directly compared to "protest paintings", which one should infer have a political agenda in relation to art through the use of 'protest.' We are not given Bearden's thoughts on protest paintings. His works are deemed superior (while this does not confirm with certainty that his works are not political, it does have the direct effect of casting doubt on his work being related to politics, as any further general relation to art and politics is not further mentioned in the passage, and part of what likely could be a contributing factor to the superiority of his work to be its focus on psychology and emotion, not politics.)

Alternatively, since this is an inference question, the following section earlier in the passage should reasonably be considered support for answer choice A ""Bearden suggested some of the ways in which commonplace subjects could be forced to undergo a metamorphosis when filtered through the techniques available to the resourceful artist." This is wholly related to exactly what is said by answer choice A. In light of this, the only real argument that can be made in defense of answer choice B being superior to A is that A's recommendation might be said to assume that Bearden 'transformed' said mundane objects with the purpose of highlighting his techniques. Whether or not this is true (or even important) seems to ignore the fact that painting mundane objects showcases artistic technique in this case is true, and is mentioned at length by the author. The degree of emphasis that the author puts on this implies that his artistic technique would not be as readily apparent if he had chosen 'poetic' or 'non-prosaic' subject matter, as it wouldn't go through the transformative process of unremarkable objective --> object made remarkable through painting process, as the 'non-prosaic' object was already remarkable in a sense!

Normally I strive to simply accept when I was wrong in the eyes of LSAC because I want to get the best score I can and adopt the sense of reasoning required to do so. However, including answer choices such as A which are highly defensible and claiming that B is somehow 'more' correct appears to be an exercise in subjectivity that undermines the validity of the question being scored at all.