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PT108.S3.Q23

turts

Saturday, Nov 08 2025

@nnechi95 I didn't see "ensue" vs "increase" to be the words that made a significant difference between B and C because they are still triggered regardless because they are both equally strong in that sense. The significant difference between B and C is that B mentioned the idea of how these ideas are being interpreted to match the OG founder.

Aka, B is capturing the idea of how current political leaders are believed to be matching the interpretations. They do not need to actually have the same beliefs themselves (which is what C is saying).

Putting into example, we don't know what these OG founders actually believe in some modern day problems (like the OG founders don't know about AI problems so we don't know what they would actually believe. This already hurts C because now these modern day political leaders would have to have the same beliefs as the OG founders do (which is nothing).

Meanwhile, B is great because based on what the info we do have of what the OG founders said, we can assume and interpret that they might have a specific view on AI, and then modern political leaders would try to replicate that interpretation.

1

PrepTests ·

PT103.S2.Q15

turts

Edited Friday, Nov 07 2025

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.

1

PrepTests ·

PT129.S2.Q25

turts

Tuesday, Nov 04 2025

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.

2

PrepTests ·

PT102.S2.Q23

turts

Tuesday, Nov 04 2025

@KS49 You missed the "only" right before the "if". A said, "Only if a measure is required to solve a problem should it be adopted."

Only if is a group 2 necessary indicator, so it would be:

should adopt -> required to solve

This is flipped logic, because the conclusion of "should adopt" should be in the necessary condition, not the sufficient.

1

PrepTests ·

PT146.S1.Q14

turts

Sunday, Nov 02 2025

@ionicinstinct For me, I read A very literally.

A: "If a person failed to do something she or he ought to have done, then that person failed to do something that she or he promised to do."

Putting it into an example, if you failed to do something you should have ought to have done (ie. I should have studied for the LSAT more), then I failed to do something that I promised.

But I did not have to make a promise to anyone that I should have studied for the LSAT more. It's still something I ought to have done though. Simplifying what A means with an example helped show me how A is not relevant to the argument.

Meanwhile, D says, "The obligation created by a promise is not relieved by the fact that the promise cannot be kept."

There was a situation that prevented the promise from being kept (the traffic). Despite that, D is saying that one is expected to still follow through ("not relieved by the fact") and still obligated to fulfill that promise. This matches the idea of the stim that there is an instance when you have an obligation (the promise) and you can't follow through on it.

With the negation test, if the obligation you made as a promise IS relieved by the fact that the promise cannot be kept, then now you created an exception of the general rule, wrecking the argument. The example that was used as a premise to support this general rule no longer applies because this promise is no longer considered as an obligation because it falls under the scope of the exception rule.

5

PrepTests ·

PT134.S3.Q22

turts

Friday, Oct 31 2025

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 :(

2

PrepTests ·

PT142.S4.Q20

turts

Friday, Oct 31 2025

@ngannguyen2025 The way I'm reading C, it looks like it's treating the stim as if it was a sufficient necessity confusion: Treating predictability as a "necessary" condition as if it were going to "assure" (aka guarantee or trigger) its prevention.

However, the flaw in the stim was not a sufficient necessity switch. They got that right. Breaking the stim into lawgic:

Prevent -> predictable.

CURRENTLY /predictable

___

NEVER preventable.

The flaw was not the flip in sufficient and necessary conditions, but it was assuming that just because you can't do something NOW, you will NEVER be able do it in the future, which is what D is getting at.

2

PrepTests ·

PT119.S2.Q19

turts

Thursday, Oct 30 2025

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.

3

PrepTests ·

PT125.S2.Q3

turts

Sunday, Oct 26 2025

@lovejeb A late response, but in case other people had the same question, cause I was debating this while timed too.

A is saying that the sale of fiction rose in by mail sales. This works as a potential weakener because the argument was attacking general sale of fictions nationally with the premise of focusing on the sale of fiction books in bookstores. However, if these numbers don't reflect other ways that the general sale could have still gone up, this works as a great answer.

Meanwhile, E is out of scope of the argument because it talking about consumers out of the country. The argumnet is about this national campaign, so we could make a reasonable assumption that their effects would not be felt outside of the country, so rises in sales outside of the country doesn't matter.

1

PrepTests ·

PT118.S4.Q19

turts

Friday, Oct 24 2025

@nnkNewYork This flaw is very similar to the coin flip flaw. When you toss a coin, you have a 50-50 odd of getting a head or a tail. This argument is very similar to the argument that if I flipped a head, I should see a tail next time I flip it. This is a flaw though because every time I flip a coin, I have the same 50-50 odds of getting a head or a tail REGARDLESS of what I got last time. Flipping a head the last time does not increase my odds of getting a tail.

The same logic goes to this question, except the odds are even more extreme. The odds of this crisis happening is still one in a 100 million years. Just because a 100 million years passed does not increase the odds. The tiny fractional odd of it occuring is still just the same, just like the coin toss example.

1

PrepTests ·

PT141.S4.Q26

turts

Monday, Oct 20 2025

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.

1

PrepTests ·

PT122.S1.Q20

turts

Friday, Oct 17 2025

@Khoury03 The question stem is a flaw question, but in the Q stem it gives a specific task to find the thing that the author failed to consider. E is saying that the author failed to consider that these supporters could continue to support their OG candidate even if it looks like they lost in the debate. However, the stim already considered this possibility when it said that these people are "likely to have already made up their minds about whom to support". I eliminated E from that alone that it is descriptively inaccurate to say that the author did not consider when they did.

Also, this is phrased like a weakener question (fails to consider... a possible weakener). The right answer, like the right answer in a weakener question, should hurt the argument. Let's give it the benefit of the doubt and keep E despite the author having considered this possibility, and treat it like a weakener. To say that these committed watchers would stick to their OG candidate despite watching them lose the debates on TV would, if anything, seem to strengthen the argument. The author argued that these debates would not affect the odds significantly, and E would give another reason by kinda rephrasing one of the premises, but just elaborating more that they would continue to commit despite watching them lose.

1

PrepTests ·

PT130.S4.Q17

turts

Wednesday, Oct 15 2025

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!

1

PrepTests ·

PT106.S2.Q19

turts

Tuesday, Oct 14 2025

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.

1

PrepTests ·

PT121.S4.Q24

turts

Tuesday, Oct 14 2025

@Joel Keenan The reason I actualy eliminated A was slightly different but someone please correct me if I'm wrong. A was saying many of these birds are too young to breed. While many is logically equivalent to some, I'm going to be generous and say that 49% of these birds are too young to breed. But then time will pass on and eventually, they're going to be old enough to breed. The stimulus said that this pattern of breeding is maintained, so it seems like this pattern is going to continue over time. Now the birds are old enough to have the option to choose cooperative breeding or not. For A to be right, you would have to assume that these birds, now old enough, will choose to not be cooperative instead of maintaining that pattern. This seems like a realy big jump because you don't have reason to support that jump with 50-50 odds.

Compared to C, it said that the most of the island is not the kind of land they're used to for building nests. Now the asumption one would need to make is that if the bird is not used to the land, then they're not going to use it. Although it is a jump, it feels like a smaller jump than compared to the one in A.

1

PrepTests ·

PT115.S4.Q1

turts

Sunday, Oct 05 2025

@alexng30 Kinda late response, but here's my take on this. I would challenge the idea that answer E would require more assumptions to be right. E says that stimulation would help a child with intellectual development. This alone would weaken the conclusion about less stimulation is better because it helps with sleep by introducing a challenger.

I don't have to know whether that stimulation would increase intellectual development to the extent that it would override the weakness it has in comparison to less development from the lack of sleep. E is great in that it introduces the possibility that it could override the limitations with the lack of sleep. Hence, it is a weakening question, not a wreck the argument entirely question.

0

PrepTests ·

PT129.S2.Q20

turts

Edited Friday, Oct 03 2025

@VanshSidhu I think something to keep in mind is that not everyone has to not cause an accident anymore. The stim said that the rates of accidents fell by 15% as a result of the change in speed limits, not that accidents were fully eradicated.

It doesn't have to mean that everyone got a new car that is better at preventing accidents by improving safety by those ten years. However, as time goes on over the ten years, assuming that the AC is true, as done in weakening questions, it would hurt the explanation that it was the speed limit by introducing another plausible explanation.

0

PrepTests ·

PT103.S3.Q24

turts

Saturday, Sep 06 2025

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.

0

PrepTests ·

PT138.S2.Q12

turts

Monday, Aug 11 2025

@turts Omg just reread D and saw that it said "POSSIBILITY that someone who has personal reasons..." whoops.

0

PrepTests ·

PT138.S2.Q12

turts

Monday, Aug 11 2025

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 :(

0

PrepTests ·

PT138.S2.Q11

turts

Monday, Aug 11 2025

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

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

turts

Friday, Aug 08 2025

crying sobbing throwing up dying live laugh loving rn

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Lessons · YOU TRY: Main Point Question (Late Heavy Bombardment)

turts

Friday, Aug 08 2025

@lzagrodnik I interpreted it as that a main point doesn't have to be the summary of the passage, but that still opens up the possibility that it could. As long as it includes the author's point, then it should be the right answer.

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Lessons · Skill Builder - Causal or Non-Causal?

turts

Monday, Aug 04 2025

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

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