This is about as great as it is unsurprising. I can remember working on the LSAT with you in 2015, and I think you had already put in a good amount of work. This is so well-deserved. Big congrats, my friend, and I hope that you will hire me when you rule the world. :)

@jchamberlainf946 said:

@cstrobel445 said:

Almost every 1L in my class who lives on campus is in a 2-bedroom. They're pretty good at pairing pet-lovers with pet-lovers, and non-pet-lovers with non-pet-lovers.

Glad to know that 7Sage is showing love for UCI. Fun fact: Pacifico (creator of the Logic Games Attack Strategy) attends UCI and is in his second year of his 4-year JD/MBA program.

So it is very difficult getting one bedroom apartments?

I think that's a fair assumption to make.

Almost every 1L in my class who lives on campus is in a 2-bedroom. They're pretty good at pairing pet-lovers with pet-lovers, and non-pet-lovers with non-pet-lovers.

Glad to know that 7Sage is showing love for UCI. Fun fact: Pacifico (creator of the Logic Games Attack Strategy) attends UCI and is in his second year of his 4-year JD/MBA program.

Greetings, 7sage. Super busy with 1L (second semester is just as intense as the first). We're all pretty stoked about the rankings here at UCI and, at the same time, just doing what we're doing.

I know that UCI encourages us not to do summer study, but I agree with @tutordavidlevine115's reasoning. A lot of this is because each professor has a good deal of discretion in choosing which parts of the doctrine to teach. But there are fundamental doctrines that every American law student will have to take; you're all going to need to know Offer and Acceptance, The Equal Protection Clause, and Intentional Torts no matter where you go. Also, most of these courses teach how to brief cases properly, where a students breaks down a case into. Let me be the one to tell you right now. Briefing cases, as a long term plan in law school, is a huge time sink, and gets in the way of doing things that will help you get better grades. I recommend that once you understand the mechanics of briefing, you immediately stop doing so.

I created a study group with a few people, and we went through Larry's Issue Spotting course and read Short and Happy Guide to Torts, Civ Pro, Con Law, Contracts, and Criminal Law so that we were familiar with black letter law. UCI doesn't offer Property as a 1L course but instead offers International Legal Analysis. There was one other person in my study group who goes to UCI, and we both did very well (3.7-4.0 range) in the first semester. We both have summer jobs. I'm working at the California Court of Appeal. I know of a few other members of the study group (who didn't go to UCI) that are working as summer associates at big law firms (making $$$$). You all know from the curriculum that correlation does not imply causation, but I can say that working during the summer at least demystified much of law school for me. The learning curve just wasn't as steep as it was for my fellow classmates who went in cold.

For another take on Larry, check out this: https://classic.7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/10600/per-daves-request-0l-pre-1l-prep-advice

Nicole is 7Sage royalty.

Anyway, I'm happy to chat in more detail with you during Admitted Students Week if you want. I'll be the big bald guy (just like my picture except my eyes won't be glowing).

Thanks @twssmith644 for the notification.

Hello 7Sage. It's been a while.

I am happy to answer any questions you might have about UCI Law.

Some general rambling thoughts:

The graduate student housing is pretty darn good. It's at most a 10 minute walk to the law school.

If you have a family, I'm not sure you really can beat UCI. The Irvine School District is one of the best.

If you're on the young side and looking to party a lot, Newport Beach and Laguna Beach are the next towns over. But this is law school, so good luck with that.

The faculty is top notch and getting better all the time. Of course, you probably know that we lost our most famous faculty member to Berkeley. Just what that means, no one knows for sure, but, in all honesty, I'll be shocked if our ranking does not go down because of it.

There is an unquestionable "nice" vibe to UCI that many law schools lack. The school bends over backwards to make a student feel like they want you to succeed. However, come exam time, UCI has a curve just like every other law school.

The school has really tried hard to up its public interest cred. Some say they did this because their biglaw numbers never peaked above 40%. Some say it was in the school's DNA from the start. Nevertheless, if you want to go into PI, you'll be hard pressed to find a place better suited. I took Constitutional Law this past semester with a man who's argued 4 times in front of the Supreme Court. His cause is trying to make education a fundamental right. If that quixotic endeavor sounds like something you'd like to spend your life doing, UCI might be the place for you.

UCI has historically been surprisingly good at prestigious clerkship appointments. Again, this is now uncertain since Dean Chemerinsky has left.

Employment numbers could be better, but they could be worse. Here are the numbers. http://www.law.uci.edu/careers/students/employment-info/statistics/employment-summary-2016.html You can judge for yourself. Bottom line: If you want to work in Southern California (especially OC, which is my main goal), a job is yours to lose. If you want something outside of SoCal, you're going to have to put in the work.

Let me know if you have any specific questions. I'm in the middle of finals, so I can't promise I'll check this every day. I'll do my best.

It's not that there are no other gases. This question leans on the distinction between proportion and quantity. A proportion or ratio tells us the relationship between items without telling us the quantity or value of those things. For example, if an ice cream shop always carries a proportion of 2 popsicles for every 3 snow cones, we have no idea how many snow cones or popsicles the ice cream shop has until we know the quantity of the other.

It's that the PROPORTION of the gas relative to all other gases is determined by how readily that gas vaporizes from ice to gas. There can be other gases present, but in order for the conclusion about the QUANTITY of the gases to follow, Nitrogen needs to be 1st (Gold Medal) in readily vaporizing on Pluto, carbon monoxide needs to be 2nd (Silver Medal) in readily vaporizing on Pluto, and methane needs to be 3rd (Bronze Medal) in readily vaporizing on Pluto.

Answer C makes sure that methane wins the bronze medal. If we negate it, then some other gas wins the bronze and then it's impossible (given the direct relationship between proportion of gas and how readily the gas vaporizes) for methane to be the third highest abundant (QUANTITY) gas.

Hope this helps.

I think the key to getting this, and almost all Weaken and Strengthen questions, is to understand/focus/intensely study what the method of reasoning is. I would advise in your Blind Review doing so from now on. Too often, students think of Blind Review as merely a second chance to try to get the question correct rather than as an opportunity to PRACTICE all the discrete elements of the LSAT.

Specifically, this argument's method of reasoning is an attempt to provide an explanation (Nenanderthal's (N's) probably used burnt lichen and grass to smoke meat in order to preserve them) of a phenomena (archaeologists have found that Some N fireplaces have burnt lichen and grass, which produces a lot of smoke but not as much heat or light as wood). So to weaken this hypothesis, answers must either provide an alternative explanation or evidence that makes the explanation less likely.

With this framework, the fact that answer A makes no mention of "Neanderthals" ought to give you pause, since the hypothesis/explanation is specifically about Neanderthals.

The other issue is that the stimulus's conclusion is fairly weak (note the "probably") and, therefore, would need a fairly strong statement (something that categorically denied the possibility of using burnt lichen and grass for preserving meat by smoking it. Even if we were to assume that Ns used the "close proximity fireplaces", it's still possible that Ns probably preserved meat by smoking it.

Hope this helps.

For A, are we certain that those fireplaces that are in close proximity to the fireplaces with lichen and grass were actually used by the Neanderthals? Isn't it possible that those fireplaces were used by non-Neanderthal cultures (maybe even thousands of years later)? That possibility renders answer A irrelevant, or, at the very least, it shows that answer A assumes that Neanderthal cultures used those fireplaces in close proximity to the grass and lichen fireplaces.

LSAC is playing with us with the phrase "close proximity".

Excellent choice! Congrats, Daniel!

Hmm, 2 tutors named Daniel, 2 tutors named Dave. It looks like we need another Josh to become a tutor. Then, we'll have 3 sets of name-pairs.

I do an LG per day as a warm-up before I tutor or do some 0L prep (I've got PT 18, game 3 up for today). I too think I will continue this practice into 1L. It's the perfect warm up.

At the risk of reiterating what Dave brilliantly has said, you never stop foolproofing. Even when you get down to -1 avg on your LG. I guarantee you'll foolproof PT 57, 62, 68 and many of the 70s no matter how good your LG game is. LG is like a yoga practice. Even a yogi master never stops practicing. You just keep honing your LG habits so that today they are 1% better than they were yesterday.

For example, are you neat and organized rather than messy and haphazard while you are working through the game? Are you constantly trying to push rules up against other rules making inferences (i.e. thinking) rather than just copying the rules down on paper? Are you using probabilistic reasoning about which answer choices to start with depending on whether it's a MBT, MBF, CBT, CBF question rather than just brute forcing your way through the answer choices? These are just to name a few.

Nevertheless, congrats on your tremendous improvement thus far. Be proud of what you've done. And then try to be 1% better tomorrow. :)

I > @bswise2931 said:

This, in conjunction with the stimulus (maxing the amount of earthquakes at 1 every 100,000 years) leaves us with the possibility that there are some faults that do not produce any earthquakes.

The reason is because I believe the negation of E provides for the possibility of these inactive faults, hence why I'm contesting the fact that it's not a necessary assumption.

I figured I was straw-man-ing your argument (forgive me for that. I only wished to find a re-wording for answer choice E that would, in my opinion, lead to a necessary assumption.) , but your explanation above now, I think, helps me see your reasoning error: your interpretation of necessity is more liberal than LSAC's definition. A negated necessary assumption can't merely leave open the possibility that the conclusion is false. It must definitively vanquish all possibilities that the conclusion is true.

In other words, even if there is the possibility that there are some faults that do not produce any earthquakes, it's also still possible that all faults do eventually produce earthquakes, and, thus, it also still possible that (1)nuclear reactor sites located near a fault that has had an earthquake within living memory in geologically quiet region are less likely to be struck by an earthquake than (2) all other nuclear reactor sites NOT located near a fault that has had an earthquake within living memory in a geologically quiet region. True, your negated version makes the conclusion LESS likely than before, but not impossible. Hope this helps.

@tutordavidlevine115 you're absolutely right about everything, answer choice E being a tantalizing trap answer---it just "feels" like a correct NA answer, while answer C with its "every" "feels" too strong to be an NA (That's why it's so important on NAs to have iron-clad understanding of the stimulus)---- and a good discussion ----- the purpose of this forum. I've spent many a keyboard click arguing this way or that about a particular answer choice, and each one contributed to my overall understanding of the test. Thanks and so happy to have you with us.

@tutordavidlevine115 said:

@ryonseymore612 That's some good input but if you think about it the stimulus allows for there to be minor faults that don't produce earthquakes at all. If that is the case, then we would have the same problem for the conclusion that we would if potential sites were allowed to be away from any minor fault lines. Both of those potential sites would be less likely to have an earthquake than a site near a minor fault that produces earthquakes.

Thank you, but I'm not sure how "minor faults that don't produce earthquakes at all' is relevant to this particular question since no answer choices addresses those kinds of minor faults. I think if there was an answer that addressed this issue, you'd be on to something, but alas, it's not. In other words, there's more than one possible necessary assumption. We can only go for the answers they give us.

Thinking about this more I think that E is wrong because it's more of a sufficient assumption attempting to address the problem of minor faults that produce no earthquakes.

If it was a sufficient assumption, then it would mean that we have a valid argument. I'm not sure how you come by that reasoning. Which valid argument type would that even be?

We have a comparative conclusion that makes distinctions about location of nuclear reactor sites, but we have no premises to support that distinction. For E to be a sufficient assumption, it would have to address that deficiency. I hope that you can see that it clearly doesn't. A sufficient assumption would be something like this:

"If minor faults in a geologically quiet region never produces an earthquake more often than once in any given 100,000-year period, then any nuclear reactor near a fault line that has produced an earthquake within living memory in a geologically quiet region is less likely to be struck by an earthquake than one that is not near such a fault line."

" So I think the necessary assumption that we wanted E to be would have been "all minor faults in geologically quiet regions are capable of producing earthquakes".">

On this, I whole-heartedly agree! That's why I surmised that she might have thought that E negated said, "Earthquake faults in geologically quiet regions can never produce earthquakes." It's the negation of your necessary assumption that we wanted. My bad on not being clear there.

@danielmoshesieradzki129 I've been off in 0L Prep-land and doing a ton of SAT/ACT/LSAT tutoring for their respective June 3/10/12 tests, so I've been a little MIA. After a vacation to CT in June 12-23, I plan to get more involved with 7sage again.

I LOVE the idea of specifically defined study groups. I know at the end of my term running my particular study group, I tended to focus on the grammar difficulties and cookie cutter argument forms that the LSAT presented. After the June test, I'd be happy to throw my hat in the ring to lead a group focusing on this grammatical aspect.

Agreed. This is great. I find that I mostly tutor grammar and argument forms with my students. 7sage's curriculum is more than sufficient for logic. What really throws people is understanding what the argument and answer choices are even saying.

I'm not certain that necessity can be qualified. In other words, one necessary assumption is not more necessary than another. Admittedly, this is a very tricky stimulus that's both modifier- and referential-phrase-crazy, but I need to ask you a question: How would you negate answer E?

It hard to surmise because I haven't seen your negation, but I think your negation would be something like this: "Earthquake faults in geologically quiet regions can never produce earthquakes." I realize I'm oversimplifying and I'm not trying to "straw man" you. I'm merely writing it this way because it would clearly be a necessary assumption. Unfortunately, that is not what the negation of answer choice E is doing.

My version is that "earthquake faults in geologically quiet regions, if they produce earthquakes, do so after 100,000 years have gone by."

Before I address why this negation doesn't destroy the argument and, thus, why the answer isn't necessary, I think I need to address this question's difficulty, which is in the wording. I'll attempt to clarify what the argument is saying, thereby making it clear (hopefully) why C is the correct answer and E is an incorrect answer.

The argument's conclusion is making a comparison about the likelihood of being struck by an earthquake:

(1)Nuclear reactor sites located near a fault that has had an earthquake within living memory in geologically quiet region

vs.

(2)All other nuclear reactor sites NOT located near a fault that has had an earthquake within living memory in a geologically quiet region.

In this case, quite simply (1) beats (2) in terms of being less likely to get hit by a future earthquake. Why is it making this comparison? Because minor faults in geologically quiet regions NEVER produce an earthquake more often than once in any given 100,000- year period.

Answer C is correct because it rules out the possibility that a (2) nuclear reactor, though still in a geologically quiet region, isn't hundreds of miles away from any faults. period. Because if it weren't near a fault, we can't conclude that (1) beats (2) in terms of being less likely to get hit by a future earthquake.

Answer E, instead of addressing where the nuclear reactors are located like C does, addresses the time it would take for an earthquake to hit. In other words, it's not addressing the key distinction made in the conclusion: its location. The time it would take for an earthquake to hit addresses both (1) and (2) nuclear sites equally and would have no impact on the distinction that the conclusion is making.

This is a very tricky question, but I hope this helps you see how E isn't necessary .

Love to see you all keeping this going. Well done, everyone!

You're correct, but I need to fix you're reasoning:

You say:

"Rifka Premise: We would not need to do that (stop and ask for directions) unless we were lost. Translation: /Lost → / Need to stop

Rifka Implicit Premise: We are Lost."

Do you see that if R's implied premise is "we are lost" would negate the sufficient condition? That makes the statement irrelevant.

Instead, Rifka's implicit premise is that "we are NOT lost".

That allow R to conclude that "we don't need to stop."

The sources are wrong. Craig totally accepts R's explicit premise. Craig says that "we are lost". He did what you thought R did. He negates the sufficient condition, thereby rendering Rivka's statement irrelevant. That's not the same as not accepting the truth of the premises. He just doesn't use that premise. Do you see the distinction?

Instead, Craig uses his own implied premise:

If we're lost, then we need to stop.

No answer addresses this, though. Instead, answer B addresses the fact that Craig contradicts Rifka's implicit notion that "we are NOT lost."

The cookie-cutter notion that this question wants to explore is, as JY calls "the oldest trick in the book," necessary-sufficiency confusion.

Hope this helps.

probably although it'd be better to also to say "from different time time periods", but that would have made the answer pretty obvious and not the incredibly devious 5-star question it actually is.

"That is not the same as positing something for the reason of being theoretical." Of Being theoretical? I think you're adding words where there aren't any and confusing the grammar here. Here, "reasons" and "grounds" are both being modified by "theoretical". You seem to be trying to trying to make this more than that. "posited solely on theoretical grounds" is more or less the same as saying "posited for theoretical reasons only". That's it. "on theoretical grounds" and "for theoretical reasons" are synonymous.

The different placements of the adverbs "solely" and "only", while certainly an attempt by LSAC to take you down the semantic rabbit hole, make no changes in the meaning. Adverbs have that privilege ("Rarely, I eat spinach for breakfast" or "I rarely eat spinach for breakfast" or "I eat spinach for breakfast rarely" all work).

Hope this helps

In order for Answer C to support the conclusion, we have to make an assumption here, but I think it's an assumption the LSAC is willing to live with: eating one serving of fruit or vegetables is not sufficient for a healthy diet and, thus, is dangerous to your health. I think it's safe to infer that, over a long period time, an insufficiency of fruits and vegetables will create an adverse condition, like a vitamin deficiency, which is unquestionably dangerous to health.

We're trying to parallel the flaw. A very helpful but not necessarily fun exercise to do with these questions is to make them ABSTRACT.

The premise gives us the probability (1 in a 1000) of an event (lottery) happening and a likely belief to have about that event (will lose). Then, it concludes something that must be false (no ticket will win), given the circumstances (In a lottery, someone must win).

Answer A matches this abstraction: The premise gives us the probability (4 aces in a deck of 52 cards) of an event (picking an ace) happening and a likely belief to have about that event (not an ace). Then, it concludes something that must be false (never pick an ace), given the circumstances (In drawing each of the 52 cards, at least one of them must be an ace--in fact, four of them MUST be an ace!).

Answer B's abstraction: The premise gives us the probability (999 in a 1000) of an event (horse winning) happening and a likely belief to have about that event (will win). [So far, so good. In fact, a very helpful technique to do at this point is PREDICT what the correct conclusion WOULD be and compare to actual answer. In this case: "Then, it concludes something that must be false (no horse will win), given the circumstances (In a horse race, some horse must win)." Which is weird, but that's okay, the wrong answers should feel weird.] Instead, the argument concludes an inability of others (reasonable to believe that no one other than the horse can win) by ignoring the slight probability (that someone other than the horse with a 999 out of 1000 will win). It's wrong because it just doesn't match the reasoning of the initial flawed reasoning.

This is a great exercise to do with EVERY answer because it will train you to see the structure of the argument rather than the content of the argument. That kind of analysis will help you tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. :)

Hope this helps.

Analogy: Is urinating in a public place a private behavior? Most likely, it isn't. In other words, the behavior depends on context.

I'm also wondering why you're asking the question because neither Ana nor Pankaj seem to be addressing whether the behavior is public or private but rather the where a specific behavior ("smoking") is allowable. I hope you can see the distinction I'm trying to make.

Yes, bridging NAs look VERY similar to SAs because they both cover gaps (or assumptions). This is why I was saying in our session that NA bridging is very common when there is ONLY one premise to the conclusion; a natural gap normally exists between a single premise and the conclusion. But I want to be very clear about something: it didn't have to look like a sufficient assumption. A necessary assumption to this argument could have also been something like this: "There exists a relationship between discussing aesthetic value of poetry and objectively evaluating poetry." In other words, ANY statement that connects those two ideas is a necessary assumption. But LSAC knows that students use simplified heuristics like "SAs are strong, NAs are weak." As you can see from this example, that heuristic doesn't work in this case. The only way to know for sure an assumption is necessary is to employ the Negation test.