@"J.Y.Ping" or anyone that can clearly explain two LR q's, with ways to avoid these traps.

shindavis16

@"J.Y.Ping" or anyone who really understands this and can explain: PT20 S1 Q6 and PT23 S3 Q6

I have listened to the explanation and on the Q6 from PT 23, I understand that E is incorrect, which I knew that going into the answers, but was frustrated, because it seemed to break all of the rules we are told to go by with avoiding "absolutes". The purse with the gold coins HAD been Brought to the ancient city by a pilgrim on route between M & M". The absolute assertion that it was not just "likely" brought, or even "most likely" bothered me and therefore made me feel it couldn't be correct. On the flip side, I knew all of the others were also wrong. E looked like it could have been very close if not for the use of the word "interacted". I could hear JY in my head saying, how do we know if they actually interacted, does that mean speaking, eating together?...So I ruled it out also, but all others looked so wrong as well. Why can the absolute assertion be ok sometimes, but we should stay away from it (in MSS) in almost all other scenarios?

**The Q12 from PT 20 is my BIGGEST issue. I hated this question and I am still arguing that the LSAC people are wrong. They are supposed to provide all you need in the stimulus and I do not feel as though they do. I do not own wood ducks or know anything about building their boxes etc. The majority of the Stim discusses how a female will lay an egg in another nest if they see the other female leaving, but that is so rare in nature bc the nests are so well hidden. Then the stem completely shifts its line of thinking, it goes into the "However, when people put up nesting box to help the ducks breed, they actually undercut the ducks' reproductive efforts. The nesting boxes become so CROWDED..."

So when I am looking at the answers, C looks immediately more correct. The boxes do have less "space" for the eggs than natural nesting sites, IF by space it is understood that when something is "overcrowded" there isn't enough space, or there is reduced space. Eg: There are 30 4th graders in my 2 bedroom apartment for my daughter's birthday and it is very crowded" I clearly have less "space" than I do when the 30 kids are not there. The missing 30 kids would be "my" natural environment.

The part I so whole heartedly disagreed with was the correct answer wording. D tells that, "The nesting boxes would be more effective in helping wood ducks breed if they were less visible to other wood ducks than they CURRENTLY ARE". My main problem choosing this answer was the "Currently Are"; how do I know if they are currently being used? Maybe it was something people used to do or tried in a lab or are talking about in theory. The writers never exactly say they are still in use and not to mention, the stim spends more of the time actually leading to the opposite...that the ducks are more productive in natural nesting sites. If I knew that nesting boxes were being used, and that the issue with this being successful wasn't that they were overcrowded because of "space" but that they were being placed in nature too visibly then I would have seen what they wanted me to pick. I get it that its supposed to be hard, but this seems not accurate. This question seemed to leave far too much to inference and it seems like the CC reminds up that we may have to make some inference but not huge stretches. I just felt that I had to assume too much to make D work. I saw that many students struggled with this.

Can someone please help explain why these stim types are either exceptions, or what is the trick/wording I missed that would have given it away? I wanted to ask @"J.Y.Ping" this during one of those sessions but I didn't make the lottery. Maybe since this seemed to be a really debated question, you could do a deeper explanation for everyone.? Or how to avoid traps like this one.

Thanks in advance!

Cant Get Right

PT20 S1 Q6

@shindavis16 said:
So when I am looking at the answers, C looks immediately more correct. The boxes do have less "space" for the eggs than natural nesting sites, IF by space it is understood that when something is "overcrowded" there isn't enough space, or there is reduced space. Eg: There are 30 4th graders in my 2 bedroom apartment for my daughter's birthday and it is very crowded" I clearly have less "space" than I do when the 30 kids are not there. The missing 30 kids would be "my" natural environment.

We have no idea how much space there is in boxes relative to natural nesting sites. Space isn't tied to being overcrowded. Your 2 bedroom apartment has the same space whether it is crowded with 4th graders or not. Space is an empirical measurement, and we are not provided with that data.

@shindavis16 said:
The part I so whole heartedly disagreed with was the correct answer wording. D tells that, "The nesting boxes would be more effective in helping wood ducks breed if they were less visible to other wood ducks than they CURRENTLY ARE". My main problem choosing this answer was the "Currently Are"; how do I know if they are currently being used? Maybe it was something people used to do or tried in a lab or are talking about in theory. The writers never exactly say they are still in use and not to mention, the stim spends more of the time actually leading to the opposite...that the ducks are more productive in natural nesting sites. If I knew that nesting boxes were being used, and that the issue with this being successful wasn't that they were overcrowded because of "space" but that they were being placed in nature too visibly then I would have seen what they wanted me to pick. I get it that its supposed to be hard, but this seems not accurate. This question seemed to leave far too much to inference and it seems like the CC reminds up that we may have to make some inference but not huge stretches. I just felt that I had to assume too much to make D work. I saw that many students struggled with this.

So, if we need to establish or imply that these nesting boxes are in use, I think the final line of the stimulus accomplishes this. The nesting boxes can't "become" anything if they don't exist. They do become something though, so we can reasonably imply that there are some boxes out there.

You're correct that the ducks do better in natural nesting sites, but answer choice D isn't suggesting that if the boxes were less visible they would then be better than natural sites. It's only saying that they'd be better than than these boxes that are out there now in plain sight. Natural nesting sites may very well remain better, but that's not what we're comparing these less visible boxes to.

Cant Get Right

PT23 S3 Q6

@shindavis16 said:
I have listened to the explanation and on the Q6 from PT 23, I understand that E is incorrect, which I knew that going into the answers, but was frustrated, because it seemed to break all of the rules we are told to go by with avoiding "absolutes". The purse with the gold coins HAD been Brought to the ancient city by a pilgrim on route between M & M". The absolute assertion that it was not just "likely" brought, or even "most likely" bothered me and therefore made me feel it couldn't be correct. On the flip side, I knew all of the others were also wrong. E looked like it could have been very close if not for the use of the word "interacted". I could hear JY in my head saying, how do we know if they actually interacted, does that mean speaking, eating together?...So I ruled it out also, but all others looked so wrong as well. Why can the absolute assertion be ok sometimes, but we should stay away from it (in MSS) in almost all other scenarios?

Yeah, this is really bizarre. To understand this, we've got to take into account the specific wording of the question stem. Take another look and see if you can see how this particular question stem makes this okay in this particular example. What do you think?

shindavis16

Ok, I looked at it again. The trade linking China and Europe isn't really useful in terms of the only possible correct AC. The 'popular stopover for pilgrims on route between M & M and the traders purse containing more diverse coins' should have eliminated all other answers from what I can see. Is that what I should have seen first off?
I guess I was looking at it with the "don't select absolute answers" mentality and almost wanted to find fault with it. It is the only one that makes sense, but it just seemed badly worded. Is there a helpful way to approach questions/stems that do this?

shindavis16

We have no idea how much space there is in boxes relative to natural nesting sites. Space isn't tied to being overcrowded. Your 2 bedroom apartment has the same space whether it is crowded with 4th graders or not. Space is an empirical measurement, and we are not provided with that data.

@"Cant Get Right" Ok, this really helped a lot. I have been looking at the word "space" and "crowded" as basically ending in the same place. I wasn't thinking in terms of actual definition, I was applying our real world contextual usage to the idea.

So, if we need to establish or imply that these nesting boxes are in use, I think the final line of the stimulus accomplishes this. The nesting boxes can't "become" anything if they don't exist. They do become something though, so we can reasonably imply that there are some boxes out there.

This was also enormously helpful. I had never considered the word "become" as being significant. Once you say it that way, it seems so obvious that they are telling us the boxes have already "become" crowded and thus they are currently in use and not just theory.

Thank you very much!! I have been beating my head against the wall about this one in particular.

Cant Get Right

@shindavis16 said:
Ok, I looked at it again. The trade linking China and Europe isn't really useful in terms of the only possible correct AC. The 'popular stopover for pilgrims on route between M & M and the traders purse containing more diverse coins' should have eliminated all other answers from what I can see. Is that what I should have seen first off?
I guess I was looking at it with the "don't select absolute answers" mentality and almost wanted to find fault with it. It is the only one that makes sense, but it just seemed badly worded. Is there a helpful way to approach questions/stems that do this?

Yeah, think of this more as a reverse strengthening question than a MSS. We're being asked to find the answer that the stimulus strengthens. So while it's pretty weak support, it definitely qualifies under strengthening guidelines. It's all in how the question is worded. It's a very strange question.

@shindavis16 said:
Thank you very much!! I have been beating my head against the wall about this one in particular.

You're welcome, glad I could help!