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bp shinners

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Blueprint LSAT Prep's ongoing ask-an-instructor extravaganza

Post by bp shinners » Tue May 29, 2012 11:08 am

UPDATE 8/14/14:
Welcome to the new and improved Blueprint ask-an-instructor extravaganza. From now on, all questions will be fielded by instructor-extraordinaire Robert Seaney (http://blueprintlsat.com/about/our-instructors).

Feel free to post anything you've ever wanted to ask an LSAT teacher: help with specific LSAT questions, general LSAT experiences, what's the best Steely Dan song... Anything's fair game.

If you have a specific question about the LSAT, please post the PT #, section, and question #, along with what specifically is giving you trouble (listing the correct answer and your issue with it, and the answer you picked and your argument for it, is helpful but not necessary).

If you have a general question either about the test itself or the rest of the application process (essays, LoRs, etc…), we're more than happy to give out advice.

If you have any non-LSAT questions about this thread (i.e. a technical/logistical question), please send Robert a PM so that this thread doesn’t get bogged down in anything other than the Q&A.

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by bp shinners » Tue May 29, 2012 4:00 pm

Alright everyone, fire away.

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by ilovethelaw » Tue May 29, 2012 4:10 pm

first of all, this is an awesome idea. thanks so much

general application question:

do you know how admissions treats community college courses taken during high school? I did very poorly back when I was like 17, and it affects my LSAC gpa greatly (like 3.4 instead of 3.8 ). I'm a bit cynical and tend to think its mostly a numbers game for USNews, in which case they report the LSAC gpa for median purposes. I plan to write an addendum about how I was foolish during adolescent years but have learned from it, and my actual undergrad transcript is obviously a lot lot better. however, for application planning, should I think of my application as a 3.4 gpa, or a 3.8, or somewhere in between?

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by Mal Reynolds » Tue May 29, 2012 4:12 pm

Mr. Shinners, thanks for doing this. I actually have a question about some necessary assumptions. I usually fly through these ones but every once and a while there are some tough ones that give me trouble. I'm wondering if these have anything in common with each other and if you have any advice on how to approach them in a systematic way.

Pt 49, Section 2, Q 17-Goal Oriented Behavior and Humans
PT 49, Section 4, Q 16-Beauty and Truth
PT 57, Section 2, Q 24-Poem and Objective Evaluation

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by bp shinners » Tue May 29, 2012 4:15 pm

ilovethelaw wrote:do you know how admissions treats community college courses taken during high school? I did very poorly back when I was like 17, and it affects my LSAC gpa greatly (like 3.4 instead of 3.8 ). I'm a bit cynical and tend to think its mostly a numbers game for USNews, in which case they report the LSAC gpa for median purposes. I plan to write an addendum about how I was foolish during adolescent years but have learned from it, and my actual undergrad transcript is obviously a lot lot better. however, for application planning, should I think of my application as a 3.4 gpa, or a 3.8, or somewhere in between?
Generally, your LSAC GPA is your GPA, and you should plan around that. So, unfortunately, being a foolish adolescent is going to hurt you in this case, and you should think of your application as a 3.4. However, I'd still take a few shots at schools that might be a little out of your GPA range based on your performance in undergrad, with no expectations.

As far as the addendum goes, be really careful about how you phrase it. If your reason for getting poor grades in those high school classes is that you were a dumb kid and you've matured since then, that probably won't be the best addendum - it reflects poorly on you (or, at least, former you), and it's already what I expect the reason to be for those grades. If you really want to write the addendum, make it more informative than explanatory (i.e. just focus on the fact that your grades were brought down by community college courses taken in high school, and don't write about how you were a stupid kid back then).

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by broadstreet11 » Tue May 29, 2012 4:26 pm

Thanks BP!

I started off my PTs (up until mid 40s) scoring around -1 on RC each time. When I got to the most recent tests, I started to average about 3 misses per section which is significantly bringing my score down. I'm not necessarily picking up on patterns of my misses, but have you seen anything that can help get me back down? My LG and LR scores are consistent, so I don't want RC to kill my chances.

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by Joeshan520 » Tue May 29, 2012 4:35 pm

How much do BP's methods conflict with Powerscore's gaming methods? If one wanted to start review before enrolling a course with BP, what would be the best method to do so?

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by bp shinners » Tue May 29, 2012 4:38 pm

Mal Reynolds wrote:Mr. Shinners, thanks for doing this. I actually have a question about some necessary assumptions. I usually fly through these ones but every once and a while there are some tough ones that give me trouble. I'm wondering if these have anything in common with each other and if you have any advice on how to approach them in a systematic way.

Pt 49, Section 2, Q 17-Goal Oriented Behavior and Humans
PT 49, Section 4, Q 16-Beauty and Truth
PT 57, Section 2, Q 24-Poem and Objective Evaluation
Each of those uses really tricky language and equivocation to get you really confused as to what the argument is saying. So I guess what they all have in common is that they're difficult.

For the first two, a trick I use is similar to the one I'd recommend for Sufficient Assumption questions - after finding the conclusion and underlining it, I see if there's an idea that shows up there and doesn't show up in the premises.

So for PT49, S2, #17, the conclusion is the second sentence. In it, I have intelligence and consciousness as concepts; consciousness showed up in the premise and intelligence didn't. That means that the argument is flawed because it's equivocating between intelligence and the concept in the premise (goal-oriented behavior). I want an answer choice that connects these two ideas.

For PT 49, S4, Q16, my conclusion is about truth and beauty. However, all of my premises are talking about the most realistic, most truthful, and best artwork. At no point do I bring up beauty. Again, the argument is flawed because it's equivocating between two concepts ('best' and 'beautiful'). I need an answer that connects these two concepts.

Why does this work for necessary assumptions as well as sufficient assumptions? Because when we've got an equivocation fallacy, we always need to assume that the two terms are related somehow as much as assuming that the two terms being related is sufficient to get to the conclusion (forgetting about the differences in logical force between the two at times). So if you notice this equivocation in a necessary assumption question, find the answer that connects the dots.

PT57, S2, Q24 is a bit different. Here's a trick for that one - whenever I see the word thinks/believes in a premise, and it isn't in the conclusion, I most likely have a perception vs. reality fallacy. Here, I have people who read the poem and think it has contradictory ideas. That in no way means that it does have contradictory ideas - do you remember some of the dumb stuff people said in high school English class? The rest of the argument, however, treats it as if these poems do, in fact, have contradictory ideas. So I need to link people's beliefs to reality (which can take some doing) for this argument to work.

So my systematic approach? Underline the conclusion, and find the relevant premises. Then, diagnose the flaw/assumption in the argument. The necessary assumption is going to be an answer choice that says it's possible for the flaw/assumption to be true, which is required for the argument to work. If it's an equivocation fallacy, connect the two ideas. If it's a perception vs. reality fallacy, says that perceptions define the reality.

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by bp shinners » Tue May 29, 2012 4:45 pm

broadstreet11 wrote:Thanks BP!

I started off my PTs (up until mid 40s) scoring around -1 on RC each time. When I got to the most recent tests, I started to average about 3 misses per section which is significantly bringing my score down. I'm not necessarily picking up on patterns of my misses, but have you seen anything that can help get me back down? My LG and LR scores are consistent, so I don't want RC to kill my chances.
RC's definitely getting harder (not trickier - which is an important distinction). They're not trying to trick you anymore with crazy, nit-picky questions. Instead, they're upping the ante and making the questions rest on minor extrapolations from existing information in the passage.

Also, they've eschewed the more technical passages in favor of denser ones - you shouldn't worry about someone with prior knowledge getting a leg up anymore.

3 misses per section sucks when it's what's bringing your score down, but keep it in perspective - that's still a solid performance. Even after teaching for several years, there are still RC questions that I'll miss at times.

What I would suggest is that you start treating the RC questions as LR questions with a really long stimulus (what we call the paragraph/argument). The logical rigidity of a correct answer choice is the same in RC as in LR. You can also use similar strategies for attacking the questions. Most of the attitude/viewpoint questions are Soft Must Be Trues, so I would go with a weaker answer choice 9 times out of 10 if I'm stuck between two (in fact, I can generally go 5/7 for passages without reading the passage using this method, along with a few other patterns).

There are also a lot of strengthen, weaken, and parallel questions. For the strengthen/weaken, it's important to note any criticism, flaw, or assumption pointed out in or made by the argument while you're reading. Yes, this means read critically. If you're spotting flaws in the author's argument, you'll be engaged with the passage and remember the argument a lot better. For parallel questions ("which one of the following is most analogous to the experiment in the passage?"), remember that parallel questions have a VERY high burden for a correct answer - if there's a single element that is a bit of a stretch between the original thing and the answer choice that's supposedly parallel, it's not the right answer.

For specific reference questions, don't be above going back to the passage. They give you the lines for a reason, and yet high scorers tend to pick an answer without looking back at the passage. Don't do that, as they're going to have an answer that is meant to trick people who don't refer back.

Other than that, when reviewing questions, notice what features of the passage are being asked about. For instance, lists of characteristics always show up in the questions. Ditto widely/commonly-held beliefs/traditional knowledge. When you start to predict what 6/7 out of 7/8 questions are before you even get to them, you have a much better shot of going -0 - -1.

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by rbkl » Tue May 29, 2012 4:50 pm

What can you tell me about application consulting, specifically why would you recommend it?

I know it's probably hard to provide any statistics (and I am not expecting that you do), but I am wondering how much the consulting could help, given its steep price.

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by bp shinners » Tue May 29, 2012 4:51 pm

Joeshan520 wrote:How much do BP's methods conflict with Powerscore's gaming methods? If one wanted to start review before enrolling a course with BP, what would be the best method to do so?
I'll start by saying that I'm not 100% familiar with PS's methods, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

There's definitely some conflict between the two, albeit conflict that's easy to overcome if you understand why the tools that each company uses make it easier to get the correct answer. If you read through the Games book before showing up for class, you're going to be both ahead of the curve as far as your understanding goes, and behind the curve as far as your ability to adapt the methods we teach into your test taking goes (because you've developed other habits).

That being said, our method doesn't just consist of tools to help you understand the section. We also teach you a methodical approach to use those tools so that you can make the big deductions and blow through the games quickly. That methodical approach can be adapted to pretty much any decent Games/tool method, and it's as useful as the tools we teach you.

Our class will completely prep you for the exam, so there's no need to do anything before your first day of classes. If you absolutely must do something Games-related, I'd recommend heading to B&N and going either to their section for Crossword/Word Find/Other Puzzles or (at some) their checkout lines and find the Posh Puzzles series of books. They fit in a pocket and are easy to carry around, and they each have 75 puzzles in them. I recommend the Posh Logic books. They're the logic puzzles that show up in Games magazines or in middle school when your teacher is hung over. They make you figure out who is married to whom, what color house they live in, what sport they play, and what job they have (you know the type). They're not the same as Games on the LSAT, but they do test the same analytical reasoning abilities. They're also significantly more difficult than any game that's ever been on the LSAT. If you work your way through these, it will give you brain a great workout doing what it needs to do on the LSAT without developing 'bad' habits before you start prepping.

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by ilovethelaw » Tue May 29, 2012 4:52 pm

(in fact, I can generally go 5/7 for passages without reading the passage using this method, along with a few other patterns)

any other patterns that come to mind?

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by bp shinners » Tue May 29, 2012 4:53 pm

rbkl wrote:What can you tell me about application consulting, specifically why would you recommend it?

I know it's probably hard to provide any statistics (and I am not expecting that you do), but I am wondering how much the consulting could help, given its steep price.
Sorry to punt on this question, but making an argument for application consulting seems too much like promoting my own services for my comfort on this thread. I'd rather this just be a general advice/get a question explanation thread than me trying to get people to sign up for a service I offer.

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by Joeshan520 » Tue May 29, 2012 5:01 pm

Is there a personality screening required for BP instructors to pass in order to be employed? Trent's videos are pretty amusing. If so, do you believe other testing companies should employ this when hiring instructors?

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by bp shinners » Tue May 29, 2012 5:02 pm

ilovethelaw wrote:(in fact, I can generally go 5/7 for passages without reading the passage using this method, along with a few other patterns)

any other patterns that come to mind?
I generally want weaker answers over stronger answers. I generally want a more neutral position than a polarized one. I generally want an answer that reflects respect for an opposing viewpoint, even if the author doesn't agree with it. I generally want an answer that expresses at least the chance of the opinion being wrong (though usually not in the artist/author passages).

These are general trends, but you can use them to great effect when deciding between two answer choices. Unless you have a specific reason to pick the stronger of the two, don't.

Also, when I told my class this, they didn't believe me. However, to prove my point, I had a student read the first sentence of a passage. Using these rules and that single sentence, she got 5/7 correct. If you recognize that these are actual articles, pulled and edited, you'll start to recognize that you don't get many truly polarizing academic papers. Since that's the case, answers that reflect a polarization are likely to be wrong.

Don't use these rules if you don't think they apply to a specific passage. However, there are only a handful I can think of that use strong enough language to justify moving away from them. That's why, when an opposing viewpoint is presented, the author generally gives it a fair shake.

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by bp shinners » Tue May 29, 2012 5:03 pm

Joeshan520 wrote:Is there a personality screening required for BP instructors to pass in order to be employed? Trent's videos are pretty amusing. If so, do you believe other testing companies should employ this when hiring instructors?
I'd be more than happy to answer this questions elsewhere, but I'm going to try to keep this thread to advice on the LSAT, and not talking specifically about Blueprint.

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by meandme » Tue May 29, 2012 7:38 pm

Hey M
What should I be thinking when reading stim in LR? For example I know when reading RC passage I should be looking out for thesis, antitheses, author conclusion, and etc. But what about while reading LR stim? Love the semi-weekly office hours. Thank you so much man.

God bless.

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by bp shinners » Tue May 29, 2012 7:52 pm

meandme wrote:Hey M
What should I be thinking when reading stim in LR? For example I know when reading RC passage I should be looking out for thesis, antitheses, author conclusion, and etc. But what about while reading LR stim? Love the semi-weekly office hours. Thank you so much man.

God bless.
When reading the stimulus, you should already have read the prompt. That's going to guide what you're looking for.

If you're in the implication family (MBT, MBF, ~MBT), you should be looking to diagram if possible. If you can't diagram everything, diagram what you can. For ~MBT, look for the strongest statement in the stimulus. For MBF questions, look for a rule to be broken.

If you're in any other question type (other than Resolve/Explain), the first step is to find the conclusion of the argument. Then, find the relevant premises. If you're in any question type other than Describe, Main Point, or Role, find the flaw in the argument.

I honestly could write an entire book on this question, but hopefully this gives you a start!

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by dowu » Thu May 31, 2012 1:54 pm

:shock: :shock:
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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by rbkl » Thu May 31, 2012 2:11 pm

Any tips on avoiding reading mistakes, especially for the LR section? It seems like I could cut down my losses on LR by 50% if I read carefully. I have tried to really force myself to read every word, but that doesn't seem to sustain through the entire section.

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by PLXTDNR » Thu May 31, 2012 2:52 pm

Hey there bp - I'm hoping you can explain a rule on games to me -

the dreaded "if and only if."

1) A goes to the party if, and only if, B goes to the party AND

2) If A goes to the party then B goes to the party.

Now, the way it looks to me is in scenario 1, they must go together. A goes to the party if B goes to the party, and does not go to the party without B.

In Scenario 2, it looks like B is free to go to the party without A, but A must have B. (If A then B, if no B then no A)

I think I have that right (but am not sure), but what would the contrapositive for scenario 1 look like?

Thanks!

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by rglifberg » Thu May 31, 2012 3:45 pm

Could you go over #21 on section 2 from PT#31, please. Thanks!

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by bp shinners » Thu May 31, 2012 4:21 pm

nmop_apisdn wrote:Any advice?

TYIA,
UD.
Seeing how they trick you is as important as realizing why your answer was wrong and the right answer is right. Try to put it into fallacy words - "I picked the wrong answer because I fell for an equivocation fallacy/logical force fallacy/etc..." If you do this, you'll start to notice a pattern to your incorrect reasoning, and that's the first step towards correcting it.

If you post which wrong answers you picked, I can take a quick look and see if anything stands out. Just knowing that you got them wrong doesn't help me evaluate how you got them wrong.

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by bp shinners » Thu May 31, 2012 4:29 pm

PLXTDNR wrote:Hey there bp - I'm hoping you can explain a rule on games to me -

the dreaded "if and only if."

1) A goes to the party if, and only if, B goes to the party AND

2) If A goes to the party then B goes to the party.

Now, the way it looks to me is in scenario 1, they must go together. A goes to the party if B goes to the party, and does not go to the party without B.

In Scenario 2, it looks like B is free to go to the party without A, but A must have B. (If A then B, if no B then no A)

I think I have that right (but am not sure), but what would the contrapositive for scenario 1 look like?

Thanks!
You've got it exactly right.

If and Only If statements can also be called Must Be Together statements - you either have both, or you don't have either. As such, we write it out as a biconditional:
A<-->B
That way, I know it goes both ways - If A, then B; If B, then A.
The contrapositive (if you want to call it that) is:
NOT A<--> NOT B
If no A, then no B; if no B, then no A

For grouping games, these are unbelievably powerful rules, and they usually lead to scenarios.

The second rule you state is what we call a Tag Along rule, and they're the weakest of the four main types of grouping game rules.

For the record, those rules are:
AT LEAST ONE
-The sufficient condition is negated
-So NOT A-->B is the same as saying you must have A or B (or both, since or is inclusive)
-Shortcut: If the sufficient condition is negated, you must have at least one of the players in the group
-These are unlikely to come up in multi-group grouping games (i.e. the ones with 3 or more groups)

NOT BOTH
-The necessary condition is negated
-So A-->NOT B is the same as saying you can't have both A and B (which is the same as saying NOT A or NOT B, or not both since or is inclusive)
-Shortcut: If the necessary condition is negated, you can't have both of the players in the same group
-These are the most common rule in grouping games

MUST BE TOGETHER
-Usually stated as must be together, or if and only if
-You either have both, or you have neither
-The strongest rule, and the one most likely to lead to scenarios

Tag Along
-Either neither term is negated, or both are (if both are negated, just take the contrapositive and you'll get the traditional-looking tag along)
-Will look like A-->B (or NOT B-->NOT A)
-Weakest rule, doesn't tell you much

There is one time when you can get a stronger rule than Must Be Together, and that's when you have AT LEAST ONE, BUT NOT BOTH. This can either be a single rule, or broken up into two rules. If you get this type of rule, you're golden. This means you should set up two scenarios, based on which one of your two players is in and which one is out. It makes a rough game a lot easier. Just look at the summer school grouping game, where the student has to take 4 of 8 classes (statistics at 3/9, world history, russian, japanese, geography, psychology, mathematics, and yes I did that from memory).

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Re: bp shinners’ semi-weekly office hours

Post by bp shinners » Thu May 31, 2012 4:42 pm

rglifberg wrote:Could you go over #21 on section 2 from PT#31, please. Thanks!
The dreaded double flaw parallel flaw question - no one likes these!

The first flaw, I believe, is pretty obvious. We're given a rule (deposits are credited that day only when made before 3). I'd diagram that as:
DC->3PM- (if the deposit is credited that day, it was made before 3PM)
because 'only when' introduces the necessary condition.

Then, we're told that Alicia knows the deposit was made before 3PM. Well, that doesn't guarantee that the deposit was credited that day, because being deposited before 3PM is a necessary condition to being credited that day, but not a sufficient condition. So the first fallacy is a sufficient/necessary condition fallacy - we're given the necessary condition, and we conclude the sufficient. We can't do that.

The second flaw is much more subtle, and much harder to spot. I've still got my rule above. I also still know that Alicia knows the deposit was made before 3PM. From that, I conclude she knows that the deposit was credited that day (I know that's my conclusion because of the "So,..." at the beginning of that sentence, which is a tell-tale sign of a conclusion). Well, here's the problem with doing that - I'm never told that Alicia knows the rule about when deposits need to be made in order for them to be credited that day. Alicia might have no idea about the bank's rules, and all she really knows is that she stopped by the bank and dropped a check off at 2:54 PM. My argument is assuming that Alicia knows the rule and was applying it to her actions (incorrectly, I might add, as we already talked about the sufficient/necessary fallacy she was falling into if she did know the rule and did think it was definitely credited that day). I don't know if I'd classify that as a specific type of flaw - I'd probably throw it under the catch-all of "Unwarranted assumption."

So I need to find an answer that both messes up sufficient/necessary conditions, and also assumes that someone knows something that I'm not told they know.

A messes up sufficient and necessary, but it doesn't assume knowledge on anyone's part.
B is wrong for exactly the same reason as A.
C is the correct answer. We mess up sufficient and necessary conditions (it's necessary for Helen to resign for George to be promoted, but it's not sufficient), and we also assume that George knows that he's in line for the promotion if Helen resigns. Bingo bango.
D isn't even flawed, so it can't be right (if John believes that 4 is a prime number divisible by two, he believes that such a number exists).
E is an exclusivity fallacy - just because something shares two features, and someone wants one of those features, it doesn't mean they want the other. Pat could want to become a social worker in spite of the poor pay, not because of it.

Hope that helps!

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