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I was wondering how valuable are the initial words in the answer choices such as "fails to take into account", "overlooks the possibility", and "presumes, without providing justification" ? After reviewing some questions i get wrong im beginning to think im overlooking this aspect. Take for example PT56 section 2 question 1. I chose C over the correct answer choice E. My reasoning was (aside from what i prephased before i even got to the answer choice) that this is definitely reasonable that being in darkness could make it more dangerous. What i think I messed up on was the initial words of the answer choices. Any advice?

LionelHutzJD wrote:I was wondering how valuable are the initial words in the answer choices such as "fails to take into account", "overlooks the possibility", and "presumes, without providing justification" ? After reviewing some questions i get wrong im beginning to think im overlooking this aspect. Take for example PT56 section 2 question 1. I chose C over the correct answer choice E. My reasoning was (aside from what i prephased before i even got to the answer choice) that this is definitely reasonable that being in darkness could make it more dangerous. What i think I messed up on was the initial words of the answer choices. Any advice?

Can you post the whole LSAT question and answer choices for us to see? That might help.

Btw, I'm doing "flaw " LR's too right now.

FWIW I briefly acknowledge that part but in my experience the flaw is usually in the latter part. I've never had to have an answer choice come down to the first part. Most of the first parts tend to start out the same way anway.

I hear ya but sometimes the latter part on two choices are very attractive.

And you cant post questions on this forum

I'd say C is out of scope. The argument is referring to the danger caused by shark attacks. Danger from anxiety is irrelevant.

Yeah I saw it better afterwards....stupid sharks.

LionelHutzJD wrote:I was wondering how valuable are the initial words in the answer choices such as "fails to take into account", "overlooks the possibility", and "presumes, without providing justification" ? After reviewing some questions i get wrong im beginning to think im overlooking this aspect. Take for example PT56 section 2 question 1. I chose C over the correct answer choice E. My reasoning was (aside from what i prephased before i even got to the answer choice) that this is definitely reasonable that being in darkness could make it more dangerous. What i think I messed up on was the initial words of the answer choices. Any advice?

With flaw questions, the key is to quickly identify the flaw committed in the stimulus before reading over the answers.

Swimming at night is less dangerous than swimming during the day.

Why?

People generally swim during the day.
All recent shark attacks happened during the day.

The flaw is that this argument makes an unsupported claim (swimming at night is less dangerous). Let's imagine that people never swim at night because that's when the water is overly infested with sharks. If no one swims at night (and thus, no one gets attacked by a shark at night), can we still claim that swimming at night is less dangerous? Obviously the arguer failed to take some things into account.

LionelHutzJD wrote:I was wondering how valuable are the initial words in the answer choices such as "fails to take into account", "overlooks the possibility", and "presumes, without providing justification" ? After reviewing some questions i get wrong im beginning to think im overlooking this aspect. Take for example PT56 section 2 question 1. I chose C over the correct answer choice E. My reasoning was (aside from what i prephased before i even got to the answer choice) that this is definitely reasonable that being in darkness could make it more dangerous. What i think I messed up on was the initial words of the answer choices. Any advice?

For the most part, those aren't that important. Most just mean 'assumes'.

However, there are two different families.

One will ask you to find something that the argument 'fails to take into account/overlooks the possibility'. They want you to provide the counterexample/what the argument is ignoring.

The other asks you to find something that the argument 'takes for granted/assumes/presumes, without providing justification'. They want you to state the actual assumption being made inside the argument.