@ You don't have to pay if you attend live. You have to attend live though, or pay for access through their course/website if you want to access the material.

I am interested as well. Feel free to invite me in the study buddy section! :)

@ @ You can still do 4 section PT's as @ and @ are doing, but then convert your score to 3-section using the tool: https://classic.7sage.com/lsat-flex-score-converter/

Remember whatever section you do 2 of, choose the worst of the 2 to properly simulate worst possible score/conditions.

And as others have said, be sure to take a 10 minute break (mandatory) halfway through (between sections 2 and 3 of 4 total).

I got this question right under timed conditions thank god, but didn't fully understand it until reviewing it with tutor and in blind review. This question hinges on the ability to understand the second sentence in the stimulus, which is actually saying that some breeds of dogs are more closely related to wolves than these same dogs are to most other breeds of dogs. And this supposedly shows that some dogs are descended from wolves that were domesticated much more recently than others. Why?

Answer choice (A) seems very appealing (trap answer choice) at first glance. But then it's wrong because it gets this comparison (in the second sentence) wrong in its justification. It's justifying the conclusion based on one breed of dog being more closely related to wolves than other breeds of dog are to wolves. But, from the analysis above, this is not what the stimulus is saying.

Answer choice (B) is actually correct because it's justifying the conclusion based on the correct comparative statement. If one breed of dog is more closely related to wolves than that breed is to other breeds of dog, then that breed of dog (that is more closely related to wolves than other dogs) has more recent undomesticated wolf ancestors than the unrelated dog. This now justifies the conclusion perfectly. And based on the intro to the video, this is also being supported/underlying as the principle in the stimulus as well that the conclusion is hinging upon/assuming.

Also worth noting from the video that this is a strange question stem, that the support goes both from the stimulus to the answer choice (principle type), and from the answer choice to the stimulus (pseudo sufficient assumption type).

I got this one wrong under timed conditions. Although I got it right in blind review, I'm writing out this explanation here in hopes of clarifying my understanding.

Question Type: Argument Part

Stimulus Notes:

It's a claim acting as the conclusion of the argument. All other statements in the argument are used to support this claim. An example is given following the claim showing that the only way to prove a given political structure causes a cultural phenomenon is by exclusion in comparing it to many other societies, thus "proving" the claim.

(A) It doesn't describe a problem. It is a claim that is proven by the statements following it.

(B) Definitely not a premise. This isn't supporting anything else; this is the claim being supported by everything else in the argument.

(C) This is the ac I chose under timed pressure. The problem is it isn't inherently showing that there is a causal relationship between political structures and environmental conditions. It's showing what would be REQUIRED to prove a causal relationship between these two.

(D) It is not a dilemma, and is not a difficulty that social scientists face. I'd say this is more accurate of the premises than this particular claim.

(E) Exactly. It is a claim that the philosopher attempts to justify through the example given, that justifies by appeal to the requirements (necessities) for establishing the existence of a causal relationship between a political structure and a cultural phenomenon.

This is kind of weird because the correct answer choice combines like an argument part answer choice and a method of reasoning answer choice. And the correct answer choice (E) distinguishes from the incorrect answer choice (C) in that the incorrect answer choice just describes the method of reasoning the wrong way, and the correct answer choice describes it the right way. Unusual question, Definitely difficult.

Under timed conditions I understood the underlying logic, but wrongfully thought that answer choice (D) was correct because if the plaintiff had a right to an attorney then the defendants should also have a right to an attorney. But that's not what this answer choice says, either. And also, answer choice (B) is better because it just succinctly fills in the gap in the argument. This is closer to a pseudo-sufficient assumption or SA style answer choice. If the codefendants have a right to have their OWN legal counsel present at questioning, then it does in fact follow that the judge cannot grant this request (that the codefendant legal counsel not be present at questioning) from the plaintiff, because we already know (and accept the premise) that the judge won't order any codefendant to find new legal counsel.

Wasn't 100% sure of my elimination of answer choice (E) in blind review, so I'm summarizing now why (E) is incorrect and (C) is correct. I'll also give my take on why (B) is incorrect.

(B) This is talking about the genetic differences between individuals in a population though, whereas the stimulus is talking about the genetic differences between populations as a whole. So this doesn't really help us explain the discrepancy here.

(E) This leaves more questions though. Are they breeding out here? If they are, then they again should be genetically indistinguishable. If they aren't, then are they breeding at home? This would just deepen the paradox either way, so this doesn't really help.

(C) Exactly. If they migrate back to their home before breeding, like salmon, then they would not be able to interbreed and become genetically indistinguishable as it would initially appear in the stimulus.

Totally didn't understand the stimulus even under blind review, so I'm going to attempt to write out a decent explanation here.

Question Type: Parallel Flawed Method of Reasoning - need to abstract/extrapolate out the logic

Stimulus:

A crime has happened and we're looking for evidence. And really the only evidence we have points to Mr. Tannisch. But then the inspector assumes that it's not Mr. Tannisch, and then points to someone else and how they did it supposedly accounting for the lack of evidence.

Felt weird because premises are supposed to support the conclusion. In this case, these premises seem to fly in the face of this conclusion.

I guess the real flaw, pre-phrasing, is that there could have been a million other explanations for the missing diamonds with the evidence given; the guest could have lost the diamonds, Mr. T could have actually stolen the diamonds as we suspect, etc.

It attributes the cause of not finding additional fingerprints to the wearing of gloves.

This would be like a false

This is almost like a cherry-picking fallacy.

(A) So this actually analogizes back to the argument.

1 - We're trying to figure out why the campers became ill in this analogy, kind of how we're trying to figure out how the diamonds went missing in the stimulus.

2 - We're similarly presented with some clue as to how the campers got ill: In this case, they ate food from the cafeteria; in the stimulus argument the fingerprints belonged to Mr. T.

3 - Then, they completely disregard this information/evidence presented in the conclusion: here, they must not have gotten sick from food they ate; in the stimulus it must not have been Mr. T that stole the diamonds. Yeah, perfect. They ignored the information.

(B) So this passes the first test. There's something we're trying to figure out. Why did the second prototype fail? Or fail harder than the first one did? We don't have a clue. They just jump right into the conclusion. So this guy is out.

(C) This answer choice makes a different error: it wrongly assumes that because each swimmer has more losses than wins, that nobody will win a particular swim meet, when at least one person must win this swim meet. This is necessarily true for most athletes of most sports -- hell, this is even true of my Battlefield history. But that doesn't mean that I won't win the next game.

(D) Okay, we're given something again that is consistent with 1. We have a situation that needs explaining. Why are all of the cavities on the left side? Then we're just given a single piece of evidence as a conclusion. There is a support structure going on. It isn't inherently flawed. And it doesn't match the stimulus argument.

(E) Okay, we're again given something consistent with point 1. We have a question we're trying to answer. Why did the tomato plants grow twice as big as they were last year? But then it concludes something totally off in left base, not relevant to the evidence (1) or throwing the evidence out (3). This is just a bad argument.

I really struggle with these analogy (parallel method of reasoning) type questions so it's important for me to write out a full explanation for this question.

Question Type: Parallel Method of Reasoning (Principle) - it's important to push the analogy back to the stimulus argument to be sure it actually parallels.

Stimulus (Principle): When confronted with some unknown, err on the side of being overly cautious.

unknown --> extend benefit of the doubt

(A) This is perfect. There's a questionable situation. Did you repay her or didn't you? So you have an unknown. And then the response is erring on the side of caution -- repaying her anyways. This conforms to the principle stated above.

(B) There is again a questionable situation - do all owners know if their vehicle is being recalled or not? The conclusion is that we should expect some vehicles to not be returned. If we drew this back to the stimulus, this would be like saying we should expect some people to eat seafood. This isn't conforming to the principle stated. There's no benefit of the doubt sort of response to the questionable situation.

(C) There is no unknown/questionable situation here, so there is no chance to apply the principle as they did in the stimulus, so this is inaccurate.

(D) The questionable situation here is whether or not the computer system will lead to new contracts. But instead of assuming they won't, the argument proceeds to say that we should charge the customer if it doesn't. This isn't really the benefit of the doubt type conclusion that we'd need to show that the principle applied here.

(E) There is no questionable situation here. The conclusion is not based on the principle at all, so this is not supported by the principle given in the stimulus either.

Definitions:

prima facie - based on the first impression; accepted as correct until proven otherwise; on the first impression (in context of passage B).

Q19 Explanation:

This question first needs to be pre-phrased by drawing back to what is considered illegal blackmail in both passages.

In passage A, if an act combines (1) requesting payment, and (2) speech that is harmful, then it is blackmail and blackmail is illegal.

In passage B, any speech that harms is illegal, and it may be made legal if it meets all of the exceptions given in paragraph 3 (truthful, legit reason, public benefit). Anything that is speech that harms is presumptively unlawful.

(E) I thought this answer choice was correct during timed conditions. I had previously eliminated all other answer choices on surface level issues, and was left with this one; wasted too much time so chose this and moved on. This answer choice is wrong because if we push the analogy back we get something like: "Common law makes blackmail illegal; Roman law permits blackmail but penalizes citizens who commit blackmail illegally more than regular citizens." This just isn't true. Roman law makes disclosure of information illegal, and this isn't properly analogized in the second part of this. And it doesn't "penalize" certain people more than others, we have no idea what penalties are assigned. So this is just unsupported.

(C) I thought this answer choice was correct in blind review because I was focused on the difference between the two passages being that common law was more restrictive in its definition of blackmail and Roman Law was more lenient in its definition of blackmail. This answer choice is wrong because if we draw the analogy back (push this back) we get something along the lines of... "Roman law legally allows many instances of blackmail; common law legally allows relatively few instances of blackmail" And this is just not the case. All instances of blackmail are illegal under common law; it's on the prosecutor to selectively choose to prosecute certain cases; Roman law doesn't necessarily allow ANY instances of blackmail either, because it is harmful information. There just may be an exception.

(D) I discounted this answer choice in blind review because I had great difficulty analogizing this to the arguments presented in the passage. This answer choice is right because if we draw the analogy, we get the following:

"One country (America) makes it illegal for felons (people requesting payment) to own guns (disclose harmful information)." i.e. The issue is the intersection of felon and owning gun, as in the intersection of people requesting payment and threatening to disclose harmful information.

"Another Country (Rome) has no such ban (the combination of felons owning guns; the combination of harmful speech and requesting income) because it makes gun ownership illegal for everyone (harmful speech is illegal for everyone) with the exception of police and military (exceptions given in paragraph 3, if it is in the public interest). There may be a small carve out for police and military; this perfectly analogizes the second passage's view of blackmail being illegal.

Initially and under blind review I thought answer choice (C) was correct because I misunderstood the stimulus and just had the argument labeled "argument by analogy", and I thought that if I could get the arguments to be more analogous this would make the answer choice "strengthen" the argument.

I thought answer choice (C) did just that. However, the argument actually leaves room for the fact that no system of peer review is completely perfect at preventing scientific fraud. The first sentence uses the undefined term "effectively", which doesn't define how much fraud the system prevents. And the main point/conclusion of the entire argument is that physicists should be doing more to prevent MAJOR incidents of fraud (note in the answer choice it just says fraud, as in any kind of fraud). Not fraud in general. So answer choice (C) effectively does nothing to strengthen that point at all.

Answer choice (A) is actually correct because if I had analyzed the argument properly, I would have seen that the support for the conclusion (directly, at least) lies in the major premise in the sentence before, "preventing further major incidents [of fraud]". So we really need to bridge this specific premise to the conclusion -- that physicists should be doing more to prevent further incidents of MAJOR scientific fraud -- which are currently unconnected. And answer choice (A) does that perfectly. It tell us why these two ideas are connected, strengthening the argument.

Here once again because I got this one wrong under time and under blind review. Hopefully someone else finds my explanation helpful! :)

I chose (E) because I initially thought that if some items were never discarded, then the items in the pit would paint an incomplete picture of the possessions of these people, and the archeologists argument would be strengthened. But we need to throw out this logic because it is incorrect. Answer choice (E) is wrong because even if it would paint an incomplete picture, it could still tell us a lot about the possessions of these people. Think about it. If I never threw away my earphones (one item is still some), but everything else was eventually thrown away, you'd know a freaking lot about me in the future, right? Even if some of my belongings may have eroded. This still doesn't close the gap or strengthen the argument at all. I need to see that next time.

The correct answer choice is (B) because the argument itself leaves open the possibility that there could have been a set of tools that could have survived the erosion, that could tell archeologists about the possessions of these people; answer choice (B) closes this assumption and says no, the scavengers took all of those sorts of items, so the only items in the pits are the non-durable ones which wouldn't survive erosion.

You won't be able to take the digital LSAT on an iPad.

Per LSAC's policies, tablet software is unable to be used on test day. Only a laptop or desktop running genuine (not tablet form of) Windows or Mac is acceptable:

https://www.lsac.org/lsat/frequently-asked-questions-about-lsat#requirements

https://support.proctoru.com/hc/en-us/articles/115011772748-Equipment-Requirements

I'm interested! Thank you so much! :)

#Spoilers

P1

Low Res: Legal Theorists - civil vs. criminal punishment for corps.

Structure: author introduces other people's argument - why civil liability is better than criminal liability as a punishment for corporations for breaking the law

Anticipation: The author may interject their own argument, which may or may not be in favor of civil liability (as legal theorists here are)

P2

Low Res: criminal liability's better deterrant

Structure: author's argument against in favor of using criminal rather than civil liability

Relevance: author takes the stance opposite to that of the legal theorists presented in the first paragraph, against civil liability

P3

Low Res: other LTs - criminal liability for corps on individual persons

Structure: introduces a third viewpoint in the context of information given previously

Relevance: third viewpoint of other legal theorists, differs from viewpoints of previous paragraphs, addresses one of complaints (increased prices) of first legal theorists presented in arg.

P4

Low Res: Safety of individuals, prevention of scapegoats

Structure: Author disagrees with other LTs as well

Relevance: author's opinion interjected to disagree with the second group of LTs presented in the previous paragraph

Main Point: In spite of what some legal theorists currently hold as positions on sanctioning corporations, the best method is the current method of holding corporations themselves criminally liable for their actions.

Author's Tone: Author makes their position very clear through the second and fourth paragraphs. The author thinks the current method of sanctioning using criminal liability is the best method for several reasons given therein.