I was not attracted to D at all because I think I was too married to the idea that the figure in the battle painting was indeed the figure in the self portrait, and that all that there was to contend is whether the person who painted the self portrait is the person who painted the battle. For this reason, none of the answers really appealed to me.

Ultimately I picked A because it seemed to at least suggest the possibility to me that 'Maybe a painter colleague of his painted him into the battle, and it's just a coincidence that he also painted a self portrait in the same year.' I see now that I was grasping at straws like crazy there, because I simply could not accept that the figure in the painting and the figure in the self-portrait could be different people. This probably serves as an example to be as literal as possible when interpreting the stimulus. 'A Closely resembles B ' means just that here. It would be ridiculous in the real world to say that because I resemble someone from a 1860's photograph, I must be the same person. I committed a similar mistake here, taking it to mean 'A is in fact B' is the sort of assumption you don't even notice yourself make that can end up costing you time(I spent 5 whole minutes on this Q) and a right answer.

I'm hoping that there aren't PMOR questions like this in more recent LSATs because while the assumption that telekinetic powers are useful or at least ore obviously so than smoking tobacco may be a reasonable one, it is still not so by any rule of logic. It relies on the test taker being someone who knows what telekinesis is and thinking it is useful.

If you're really just aiming for one specific place I don't know if you really need the package(though hourly/a la carte editing might be worth it). But first priority, I would say, get your PTs up and focus on October. The LSAT median is only 162! If you can hit the mid 160's you'll be well above both medians and probably a shoo in.

I selected E because in my mind I thought it made the argument by analogy invalid-If ill people cannot but go to the doctor to get a prescription, then one cannot say that getting a prescription without a doctor is analogous to DIY will writing. This tells me that it is always more important to focus on the argument rather than the analogy when focusing on assumptions and strengthening/weakening questions.

#help

Not a fan of Q25.

While the last paragraph does explain a motivation for science/scientists to be attracted to the second explanation, the physicists described in the first paragraph are attracted to a theory that emphatically is NOT based on a 'tendency to separate the phenomenon from the observer of the phenomenon'. What, are we supposed to presume that these physicists are the few and the brave in their community and that physicists are typified by acceptance of the FTB explanation? If they reject the explanation that relies on the supposed tendency, how can we then presume that physicists generally possess this tendency? If AC C had instead stated 'the traditional tendency of some physicists, it would be infinitely better as an answer.

Now I chose E and I totally see how it's just this garbled mish-mash and isn't really better, but as it stands C seems pretty unsupportable unless one makes some MAJOR assumptions.

#help

Hey if you got this question wrong, don't sweat it. You know why? Because the question itself is what's wrong!

Let me explain:

The stimulus does not state that Roach Ender was tested against every roach species that infests North America but that vexone has been utilized effectively against them. For E to be a MBF, we must assume the effective utilization of vexone to be equivalent to the testing of Roach Ender? How can we do this? Roach Ender does not equal vexone and making that assumption does not comport with any sort of logical relationship in the stimulus. Again, why assume Roach Ender is the same thing as vexone? If they wanted us to make this assumption then LSAC should have only mentioned vexone, and not introduced this 'Roach Ender'. How in holy hell do we know how many species Roach Ender was tested against? 1? 600? 4 trillion? There's nothing in this stimulus to indicate. Bad, bad question that LSAC should be ashamed of. The whole argument JY presents against E is valid only if we make this faulty assumption. Otherwise it's a red herring.

Unless anyone has any arguments that prove E must be false, this question should be eliminated.

16 is total crap, barfworthy question that someone should be fired for. Yeah LSAC, knowing what 'oxidization' means is really the point of the LSAT? Fug off....

And I'm saying this even though I got it right...

I actually went against C as a tempting choice for another reason-

The answer only really strengthens the argument if it is assumed that when ideas for improved efficiency are not derived from a dialogue involving employees, they are derived from a dialogue without them. Otherwise, let's say 98% of such ideas are not derived through any sort of dialogue and only 1 percent respectively for dialogue w/employees and dialogue w/o employees. In that case, that doesn't make employee dialogue participation a very important factor at all in the grand scheme of things.

In contrast, B is a 'more likely' statement that does not contrast itself to another scenario and is thus more applicable under a wider set of circumstances(more universal) and therefore stronger.

This has got to be one of the hardest RC sections ever listed, both in terms of amount of difficult questions and the sense of time pressure. Starting off an RC section with a MP question as difficult as this is sheer brutality.

Hmm for question 27, I don't see the phrasing of AC E as implying that continued social progress is inevitable. I read it as implying that IF such progress occurs, then cooperation and nurturance will be inevitably an aspect of that progress, that there can be no world where such social progress occurs without those elements.

In the last sentence of the last paragraph, it seems that 'restoration of a balance...includes...cooperation and nurturance' are held to be a necessary condition for future social progress. Therefore, E is simply stating that the presence of future social progress must include more cooperation and nurturance. #help

Same boat, except for I don't have an LSAT score yet haha. I went to a tiny liberal arts college where we had no required classes, no majors, and grades were optional which meant that less than 1/2 of the students took grades for ANY classes. What mattered much more to us was the content of our classes, which were often socratic seminar based and almost never involved testing. The entire pedagogical model revolved around curricular self-design and encouraged experimentation. This meant that grades mattered far less than at a tradiditional major/minor setting.

I know that such colleges might be more looked down upon by law schools who are used to a more rigid sense of academic excellence, but I'm hoping they at least know that such 'Montessori for undergrads' type schools exist out there, and that the GPA from a school where acting students are also studying plant biology, spanish lit, and jazz improv should be taken with a grain of salt.

#help

For question 11, I think there is textual support for choosing answer B. In the third paragraph, the author states after claiming that transparency requirement should be implemented "Accordingly, we should eliminate disqualification motions alleging bias, whether actual or apparent'. Is this not the author's way of saying that the transparency requirement is incompatible with the statutes that allow for such motions?

Booooo on this question, LSAC. I don't really see a way that makes this question obviously referring to unemployment levels among homeowners. I read it as saying that 'In the countries with higher home ownership, there tends to be more unemployment', not specifically 'more unemployment among homeowners'. For that reason I chose B as I thought that could explain that while more jobs are available for homeowners they are being drawn away from non-homeowners. Does anyone have a good reason why the grammar/syntax of the sentence should be read the way LSAC intended rather than how I read it?#help

And here I join the legion of 7sagers who have gotten this super-easy question wrong because they didn't read the question stem properly.

A makes me think that the the human language ability is actually a curse. I've never wanted to murder a sentence more.

A quibble I have with this problem is that it conflates 'handwriting analysts who make exaggerated claims' with the handwriting analysts who will be called as witnesses. If D does indeed make it so that the former group will never be able to pass the board and therefore be called as witnesses, could there not be some analysts who do NOT claim handwriting provides reliable evidence of character who are still called as witnesses anyway? I know it seems unlikely that someone would be called as an expert witness who doubts the usefulness of his or her own expertise, but I don't think it's unreasonable in the scope of the logic of the stimulus.

BUT, even with that in mind D is still the best answer.

If they had written 'curries eaten by Indians who live in Singapore' instead of 'Indian curries' E would have been a better AC. As it is, this is one of those questions where the right AC is the best out of a shitty lot.

This question made me so frustrated-I was so sure B was right even after watching the video until I realized that the second sentence is absolutely crucial. This sentence implies that the act of plowing in its very nature always redeposits all pigweed seeds under the soil. The reason I had chose B is because I had been thinking 'Wouldn't some of the pigweed seeds be exposed to sunlight when the next day comes and therefore germinate?'

According to the logic of the question, NO. This may not make any sense and seem unlikely as far as my experience weeding goes, but we're bound by the second sentence. When plowing occurs, we assume all pigweed seeds have been redeposited, day or night.

One might say, but wait, doesn't that still leave D valid if all pigweed seeds are redeposited? If that happens to all seeds, wouldn't it be a necessary condition for germination? However, the fact that all pigweed seeds get redeposited when plowed do not imply that redepositing is necessary for germination. Just because condition A always precedes B happening doesn't make it so B requires A to happen.

I think B is ultimately a better answer than D but I got a beef with it. The AC states "less likely to be remembered by medical staff".

Huh? There's no reference to medical staff in the first argument about changes in medical status; it's an element of the full moon argument.

I feel like there's a conflation of 'patients remebering medical changes' and 'medical staff remembering medical changes' as elements here.

But I suppose you could argue that it's not a crazy assumption to make that medical staff are likely to be the ones to be reporting patients' predictions of changes in medical status? (what a convoluted sentence) I dunno....

For Q6, AC C seems like a really weak correct answer, mostly because of issues with syntax. When I read 'The first and third lines are a set convention' in the final paragraph, I assumed this referred to variants of the Gregorio Cortez corrido. This is an assumption yes, but I don't see why it's more reasonable to assume, given the placement of this information, that it refers to complete corridos in general, which is what JY states in the video as support for AC C. If the sentence had read 'The first and third lines are a set convention for all complete corridos', that would make more sense. #help

Yes totally! Thanks, I wasn't picturing it like that.

Something this argument made me realize is that for SA/PSA questions, a quick way to eliminate answers is to see which ones do not touch the logic of the conclusion. 'm pretty sure JY has said as much in the lessons but it's easy to forget under timed pressure. Here, the fact that the conclusion starts with 'There is little of social significance ' indicates that we should be looking for answers that enable us to find that something has little/no social significance. Only E and C do that. I was only able to eliminate A on my timed run and was felt overwhelmed trying to out the four remaining options, whereas remembering this and choosing between just two would have allowed for more time and more clarity/confidence.