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turts

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PT134.S3.Q22

turts

Friday, Oct 31

I first eliminated C because I thought it seemed to be doing a negated sufficient negated necessary flaw trap: if less narrow sample, then scientists would have a lower success rate. However, the stim was pointing out that the scientist have a high success rate because it is out of an unrepresentative sample, cherry picking the problems that they have a way to solve.

The "probably" in C is doing a lot of heavy lifting because it's saying that if the sample was less biased, then it's likely that the success rate would be not as high. Without it, it would have been the negated sufficient negated necessary flaw. Wish I caught that word sooner, but idk if that would have really helped because I didn't catch the issue of there being an unrepresentative sample in the stim too :(

PrepTests ·

PT119.S2.Q19

turts

Thursday, Oct 30

Something that helped me eliminate A was to focus on the conclusion where it talked about how people are probably predisposed to liking these sounds. My simple definition of predisposed is that it is something someone is naturally born with. A is not helpful to the argument because while it seems tempting by adding another piece of information that aligns, it does nothing to add to the reason why people are predisposed.

The argument already covered that 6 month babies show signs of it being predisposed. Talking about people who are older showing the same signs is not going to strengthen the idea that this is something people are naturally born to be inclined with.

Another possible strengthen answer choice might be: there's another study conducted with 5 month old babies and they show the same signs too. This is helpful because it gets closer to the time people are born to get to the idea that this is something people are naturally predisposed to. A does nothing to support the argument because it is showing something that is much later than what the evidence of the stim already covered.

Study Groups · Study Groupchat!

turts

Wednesday, Jul 23

I'm down too!

Study Groups · Study Group for MOTIVATED individuals

turts

Wednesday, Jul 23

I'm planning for one in September, and I'd love to join!

PrepTests ·

PT141.S4.Q26

turts

Monday, Oct 20

Took some time to really dig into B because I was stuck between this A and B on my first go.

B says that wildlife that was harmed are likely to recover if amount of insecticide is reduced even slightly. However, no where in the stim does it say they would actually reduce insecticide when they switch out to GMO crops. Yes, they do not NEED insecticide, but that does not necessarily mean that they WILL stop using it. In other words, I don't think it would contradict the stim to say that they continue to use insecticide in combination of GMOs (even though they don't need to). In that case, you don't know if you even get to trigger the sufficient condition of B, so it reads as an irrelevant rule.

Give it the benefit of the doubt and say that farmers do decide to reasonably stop using insecticide though, and trigger the sufficient condition of B, reducing the use of insecticide even a tiny bit. Does it HAVE to be just a tiny bit to cause wildlife to recover? Stim said it was the excessive spraying that cause harm. Reducing the use of insecticide by even one drop would technically trigger the sufficient condition in B, and I'm not sure if the necessary condition would even follow.

If it were a necessary assumption, it should pass the MBT test, but there seems to be a lack of support from the stim to let it pass, even with some leniency.

Meanwhile A says that GMO when replacing insecticide will cause less harm to wildlife. This is great cause it actually relates to the use of GMOs as mentioned in the conclusion. And try negating it, GMO when replacing insecticide will cause equal or more harm to wildlife. This would directly hurt the conclusion because the stim concluded that with GMOs, the wildlife would recover.

TLDR: I had two reasons to eliminate B as a necessary assumption. 1. the rule is not really relevant to the argument because the sufficient condition is never triggered. 2. Even if we give it the benefit of the doubt to trigger the sufficient condition, there is nothing in the stim to give support that the necessary condition will even follow. Thus, B fails the MBT test. Meanwhile, A works really well with the negation test.

PrepTests ·

PT130.S4.Q17

turts

Wednesday, Oct 15

I struggled with this question timed but it finally clicked to me during BR. Here's my thought process:

Stim summary:

P1: Modern literature -> /tragedy EXCEPT when noble protagonists endures calamaties

P2: People /believe in fate

C: Modern literature -> /tragedy

Stim analysis:

The conclusion restates a rule. However, the stim gives an exception to when the rule might not be true. I have to eliminate the exception. Because they gave me a second premise, I'll probably need to use that to make the exception rule go away.

Answers:

A- Whether or not a work of literature is a tragedy should not depend on characteristics of its audience

If anything, the characteristics of the audience that they don't believe in fate anymore should be something that defines whether the work of literature is a tragedy or not, so this is going in the opposite direction.

B- The belief that human endeavors are governed by fate is false

This is again going in the opposite direction. This is trying to say that P2 is wrong. However, I used P2 in my prephrase.

C- Most plays once classified as tragedies were misclassified

This is out of scope because it's talking about plays. The stim only talked about literature

D- Those whose endeavors are not regarded as governed by fate will not be seen as possessing noblility.

This is great! Translating it would be: /believe in fate -> /nobility.

It uses P2 in the sufficient condition to trigger something that would make the exception rule not trigger. The exception to the rule in P1 was that the noble character endures calamities. However, if you are no longer noble, you fall out of the exception rule. This would then force you in the realm of the first rule that modern literature -> /tragedies, which is what the stim concludes.

E- If an ignoble character in a work of literature endures though a series of misfortunes, that work of lit is not a tragedy

Translating this would get: /noble that suffers -> /tragedy. I don't have anything that would trigger /noble that suffers because i don't know anything about /noble characters. This might push you back to D because I could see E actually needing D to work too.

TLDR: RECOGNIZE THE STRUCTURE OF THE ARGUMENT! Recognizing the structure that it is a rule with an exception, but concluding the rule, is half the battle, and I would argue is the most difficult part. I wish I could have caught that structure earlier on, though breaking down the rest of the answer choices are less trappy than some other difficult questions. But still, recognizing the structure of the argument made understanding this question so much easier!

PrepTests ·

PT106.S2.Q19

turts

Tuesday, Oct 14

Alright. Here's my thought process after getting this question wrong multiple times. I think I finally got it ;-;

Stim breakdown:

Correctly addressed -m-> delivered by 2 days

Correctly addressed and 2+ days -> damaged

Problem: mail -m-> 2+ days

Stim analysis:

An interesting phenomenon is that most of the mail delivered takes more than 2 days. It can't be a majority of all mail to be correctly addressed, even if they are damaged because of the first rule that said most of the correctly addressed mail has to be delivered by 2 days.

That forces us to consider /correctly address mail. What must be true of them?

Answer choices:

A- A large proportion of the mail that is correctly addressed is damaged

This is triggering the necessary condition of the second rule. So what if most of the packages that are correctly addressed are damaged. This leads us nowhere.

B- No incorrectly addressed mail arrives within 2 days.

This can be translated to: /correctly addressed -> /2 days (2+ days).

This is kinda interesting but it is not a MBT. Let's try negating it to see if it really is a MBT. If the argument is fine after negating it, then it is not a MBT. Negating this answer, you get: /correctly addressed <-s-> 2 days. To make it easier, I'll use numbers.

Ex: 9 out of 10 of incorrectly addressed mail takes longer than 2 days (not all), and 2 of 10 of correctly addressed mail takes longer than 2 days. This makes 11 out of 20 mail (most) mail to arrive longer than 2 days (making the argument okay).

This is showing a case when it does not have to be the case that ALL incorrectly addressed mail take longer than 2 days. In other words, this answer choice is wrong because it is too extreme. It is a good CBT, but NOT a MBT.

C- Most mail arrives within 2 days is correctly addressed.

This can be translated to: 2 days -m-> correctly addressed.

This is difficult because you can't contrapose it, and just flipping the first rule around. Giving it a benefit of the doubt, let's see what it looks like with numbers.

Ex: 10 mail was sent within 2 days. 6 of it was correctly addressed and 4 was not.

But then what? We don't have any information of how long it takes for incorrectly addressed mail to be sent. Any guesses of how long they would take from any rules from the stim would be invalid because that would be attempting to negate a sufficient condition.

D- A large proportion of mail is incorrectly addressed

This is correct. If it was negated (not a MBT), then the argument would fall apart. Let's see it in action

Ex: A small proportion of mail is incorrectly addressed. Aka: There is more correctly addressed mail. Of all mail, 3 is incorrectly addressed. 7 is correctly addressed. Being generous, 6 of the correctly addressed are sent within 2 days.

This then hurts the argument because we can no longer conclude that most of the mail overall is sent later than 2 days. Even though I have no idea how long it takes for incorrectly addressed mail to be sent, even being generous to say that it takes longer than two days, the fact that there is less of them to counteract the known effect of correctly addressed mail taking 2 days or less, this AC MBT.

E- More mail arrives within 2 days of being sent than those arriving between 2 and 3 days.

This could be true or not. It makes no difference. Even if it is true, that there's 3 pieces of mail arriving within 2 days vs 1 piece of mail that arrived between 2 and 3 days, it does nothing for the argument of the total number of mail that arrived later than 3 days.

PrepTests ·

PT138.S2.Q12

turts

Monday, Aug 11

I'm seeing why B is wrong that it claims that the flaw is assuming they would be "unable to fairly weigh the evidence" when the real flaw is more about someone who might have personal reasons could still make valid and legit claims.

However, I eliminated D because the stim said this employee "PROBABLY has personal reasons to deny" while D just straight up said that "someone who HAS personal reasons". Thought that the AC was too extreme and crossed it out, though I should have realized it is still the best option out of all the others :(

PrepTests ·

PT138.S2.Q11

turts

Monday, Aug 11

Ngl, I eliminated C because I thought this was a better match for the second half of the sentence right after what the question is asking for, "but education in the sophisticated use of maps is almost nonexistent". It's starting to grow on me why C is still applicable to the first half of the sentence too, but could anyone verify with me that the second half of the sentence is also a distinction to support the conclusion too, especially with the "but"?

#help

LSAT

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Sunday, Aug 10

turts

🙃 Confused

Analytics: Priorities using data only from PTs?

Are the analytics that prioritize by tags made only from data from PTs, not including drills or sections? I think it would be nice to see the analytics that include how I did at least in timed sections if not timed drills in addition to the PTs cause I don't really want to be taking a PT all the time to see which areas I should try to focus more of my attention on.

If these are really only made with solely PT data, I feel like the lack of PTs I've taken so far is skewing my analytics. However, I don't want to be blazing through all of the PTs and burn out mentally to get a better sample of how I'm doing.

The analytics feature is super cool and useful for sure, but I think it would be a nice feature to at least add a filter where I could toggle to add more data into these analytics with questions from drills/sections if I wanted to!

Lessons · Weaken, Strengthen, or Evaluate Question (Late Heavy Bombardment)

turts

Friday, Aug 08

crying sobbing throwing up dying live laugh loving rn

PrepTests ·

PT103.S2.Q15

turts

Edited Friday, Nov 07

Sobbing. I took "respect" in C way too literally and eliminated it because I could not find "respect" anywhere in the stim. Feeling realllly stupid right now.

PrepTests ·

PT103.S3.Q24

turts

Saturday, Sep 06

I think I fell for the trap of A for assuming something that E seems to explain more directly. I assumed that if the household income increases, then the household would be able to afford a more expensive car, which would explain the reason why the car value is higher than the INDIVIDUAL'S income. However, this would need to rely on the assumption that the household would purchase a more expenive car together. After all, it is also just as reasonable to assume that each individual from the household would buy two cars from their own income they earned.

Lesson learned to not make an assumption for an AC when you can just as reasonably make another assumption that can just as easily hurt it.

PrepTests ·

PT129.S2.Q25

turts

Tuesday, Nov 04

Oh boy I was struggling with understanding C for a while but I think I finally got it.

The rules we got from the stim was:

(/resident AND /former resident AND $100+) -> register
Those who donated to B's campaign were residents or former residents.

Because of rule 2, you know that you fall out of scope of the 1st rule (negating the first two sufficient conditions of rule 1), so the rule of registering DOES NOT HAVE to follow. They COULD if they want to, but they DO NOT NEED TO, matching the language of C, "No contributions to Brimley's campaign NEEDED to be registered with the city council."

I first eliminated C during my timed and got really frustrated because I intially thought that C read as a negated sufficient and negated necessary flaw. I misread it thinking that C said that if you fall out of scope, then you did not register. However, the word needed gives a lot of wiggle room because it really means that they could register if they want to, but they do not have to because it is not a necessary condition for them.

As for all of the other ACs:

A- "No nonresident of Weston contributed in excess of $100 to Brimley's campaign"

/resident -> /over $100.

CBT. This could have been a former resident who donated over $100.

B- "Some contributions to Brimley's campaign in excess of $100 were registered with the city council."

$100 <-s-> registered.

CBT. Residents and former residents, although they do not NEED to, the COULD register.

D- "All contributions to Brimley's campaign that were registered with the city council were in excess of $100."

registered -> $100.

CBT. I don't know what happens after triggering the registered part of the rule anyways because it is a necessary condition. Anything CBT

E- "Brimley's campaign did not register any contributions with the city council."

contributions -> /register.

CBT. All of B's contribution were from residents or former residents, so they could or could not have registered. There is no rule that they had to, nor is there a rule for them to do so either.

Lessons · Skill Builder - Causal or Non-Causal?

turts

Monday, Aug 04

Omg this was so helpful! I just finished the LR section and was going back through the foundations in hopes to find something about causal language. I kept struggling to recognize causal language vs conditional, and this practice set is just what I needed <3