The Official September 2014 Study Group

[hillz]

It was the best of the times, it was the worst of times...

She took a test. She found it unusually easy. With each passing correct answer, she could feel her heart swelling, the blood rushing to her cheeks. Would this be the test? Would this be her first 170+?

It would, indeed. It would also be the test with a negative curve, in which scores 179, 176, and 173 simply did not exist.

PT 48, why do you hurt me so good?

Congrats! Definitely a wonderful feeling.

[hetookmetoamovie]

I 172ed!

Get those shoes, girl!

[Colonel_funkadunk]

Can someone explain PT28 S1 LR1 Q20 - #290 in LR Cambridge Difficulty packet? I don't understand why A is TCR. I couldn't select an answer on this because none seemed approrpriate. This was my diagram of the stimulus:

First sentence: Economy weak (EC) -> Prices Constant (PC) and Unemployment Rises (UR)
Second Sentence: UR -> Investment Decreases (ID)
Third Sentence: ~ID -> ~UR -> ~EC

My understanding of Either...or is that A, B, or A and B can be true. In this case, why must A be false?

I'm going to give this a try...

The economy weakening means unemployment rises. But, unemployment only rises if investments decrease. So, if investments are NOT decreasing, then unemployment does not rise, and the economy cannot be weak. We are told that investments are not decreasing.

A. says that either the economy is weak or investment decreases. But we know from the above that if the economy is weak, investment MUST have decreased. And that if investments decrease, the economy will be weak. Both must occur. You cannot have one without the other. And we do not have decreased investments, per the stimulus. So, A must be false.

Here's kind of how I'm thinking of it: Say my scarf is knotted around the handle of my handbag. Say I can't untie it. That means that I cannot wear my purse (weak economy) without wearing my scarf (decreased investment), and if I'm wearing my scarf (decreased investment) then I must be wearing my purse (weak economy). I can choose to wear neither, but I cannot choose to wear my purse but not my scarf.

Say I'm not wearing my scarf. Clearly I'm not wearing my handbag either, right?

A says that I'm either wearing my handbag (weak economy) or my scarf (decreased investment). But I just told you I'm not wearing my scarf, so I'm definitely NOT wearing my handbag. A must be false.

Thats a good analogy. The only thing, unless I missed it, is I don't think the stim set up a biconditional of ECONOMY WEAK<----> investment decreasing, it's just economy weak ---> investment decreasing so if the economy is strong we fail the sufficient and investment could decrease along w a weak economy. But the stimulus says investment is not decreasing so we can know that that doesn't happen.

But like i said I could've misread

[sfoglia]

I'm going to give this a try...

The economy weakening means unemployment rises. But, unemployment only rises if investments decrease. So, if investments are NOT decreasing, then unemployment does not rise, and the economy cannot be weak. We are told that investments are not decreasing.

A. says that either the economy is weak or investment decreases. But we know from the above that if the economy is weak, investment MUST have decreased. And that if investments decrease, the economy will be weak. Both must occur. You cannot have one without the other. And we do not have decreased investments, per the stimulus. So, A must be false.

Here's kind of how I'm thinking of it: Say my scarf is knotted around the handle of my handbag. Say I can't untie it, instead I'd have to cut the purse up to get at the scarf. That means that I cannot wear my purse (weak economy) without wearing my scarf (decreased investment). But, if I'm wearing my scarf (decreased investment) then I may or may not have cut up my purse (weak economy), so that doesn't tell us anything. I can also choose to wear neither. The important point here, though, is that I cannot choose to wear my purse without my scarf.

Say I'm not wearing my scarf. Clearly I'm not wearing my handbag either, right?

A says that I'm either wearing my handbag (weak economy) or my scarf (decreased investment). But I just told you I'm not wearing my scarf, so I'm definitely NOT wearing my handbag. A must be false.

Thats a good analogy. The only thing, unless I missed it, is I don't think the stim set up a biconditional of ECONOMY WEAK<----> investment decreasing, it's just economy weak ---> investment decreasing so if the economy is strong we fail the sufficient and investment could decrease along w a weak economy. But the stimulus says investment is not decreasing so we can know that that doesn't happen.

But like i said I could've misread

Ughhh, no, you are right. I misread. I thought it was "WHEN the economy is weak" rather than "IF the economy is weak."

Okay, let's adjust the analogy so that if I cut up the handbag then I can wear my scarf...

I don't know. My brain hurts. I think that works. Can't wear handbag without scarf but can wear scarf without handbag. Italicized above. Colonel, please confirm.

[sfoglia]

Congrats! Definitely a wonderful feeling.

Get those shoes, girl!

Thank you both!!!

[Colonel_funkadunk]

I'm going to give this a try...

The economy weakening means unemployment rises. But, unemployment only rises if investments decrease. So, if investments are NOT decreasing, then unemployment does not rise, and the economy cannot be weak. We are told that investments are not decreasing.

A. says that either the economy is weak or investment decreases. But we know from the above that if the economy is weak, investment MUST have decreased. And that if investments decrease, the economy will be weak. Both must occur. You cannot have one without the other. And we do not have decreased investments, per the stimulus. So, A must be false.

Here's kind of how I'm thinking of it: Say my scarf is knotted around the handle of my handbag. Say I can't untie it, instead I'd have to cut the purse up to get at the scarf. That means that I cannot wear my purse (weak economy) without wearing my scarf (decreased investment). But, if I'm wearing my scarf (decreased investment) then I may or may not have cut up my purse (weak economy), so that doesn't tell us anything. I can also choose to wear neither. The important point here, though, is that I cannot choose to wear my purse without my scarf.

Say I'm not wearing my scarf. Clearly I'm not wearing my handbag either, right?

A says that I'm either wearing my handbag (weak economy) or my scarf (decreased investment). But I just told you I'm not wearing my scarf, so I'm definitely NOT wearing my handbag. A must be false.

Thats a good analogy. The only thing, unless I missed it, is I don't think the stim set up a biconditional of ECONOMY WEAK<----> investment decreasing, it's just economy weak ---> investment decreasing so if the economy is strong we fail the sufficient and investment could decrease along w a weak economy. But the stimulus says investment is not decreasing so we can know that that doesn't happen.

But like i said I could've misread

Ughhh, no, you are right. I misread. I thought it was "WHEN the economy is weak" rather than "IF the economy is weak."

Okay, let's adjust the analogy so that if I cut up the handbag then I can wear my scarf...

I don't know. My brain hurts. I think that works. Can't wear handbag without scarf but can wear scarf without handbag. Italicized above. Colonel, please confirm.

You are correct on the italics my friend

Eta: the thought of you tying your scarf to half your handbag and cutting the handbag in half is really funny

[sfoglia]

I'm going to give this a try...

The economy weakening means unemployment rises. But, unemployment only rises if investments decrease. So, if investments are NOT decreasing, then unemployment does not rise, and the economy cannot be weak. We are told that investments are not decreasing.

A. says that either the economy is weak or investment decreases. But we know from the above that if the economy is weak, investment MUST have decreased. And that if investments decrease, the economy will be weak. Both must occur. You cannot have one without the other. And we do not have decreased investments, per the stimulus. So, A must be false.

Here's kind of how I'm thinking of it: Say my scarf is knotted around the handle of my handbag. Say I can't untie it, instead I'd have to cut the purse up to get at the scarf. That means that I cannot wear my purse (weak economy) without wearing my scarf (decreased investment). But, if I'm wearing my scarf (decreased investment) then I may or may not have cut up my purse (weak economy), so that doesn't tell us anything. I can also choose to wear neither. The important point here, though, is that I cannot choose to wear my purse without my scarf.

Say I'm not wearing my scarf. Clearly I'm not wearing my handbag either, right?

A says that I'm either wearing my handbag (weak economy) or my scarf (decreased investment). But I just told you I'm not wearing my scarf, so I'm definitely NOT wearing my handbag. A must be false.

Thats a good analogy. The only thing, unless I missed it, is I don't think the stim set up a biconditional of ECONOMY WEAK<----> investment decreasing, it's just economy weak ---> investment decreasing so if the economy is strong we fail the sufficient and investment could decrease along w a weak economy. But the stimulus says investment is not decreasing so we can know that that doesn't happen.

But like i said I could've misread

Ughhh, no, you are right. I misread. I thought it was "WHEN the economy is weak" rather than "IF the economy is weak."

Okay, let's adjust the analogy so that if I cut up the handbag then I can wear my scarf...

I don't know. My brain hurts. I think that works. Can't wear handbag without scarf but can wear scarf without handbag. Italicized above. Colonel, please confirm.

You are correct on the italics my friend

Teamwork! I'm going to go edit the first post so I don't confuse anyone...

ETA: I was thinking that I knotted it to one of the handles really badly. Seems like something plausible! Although, I now realize that in reality I could also just cut the scarf to get to the handbag. We can say the scarf is like vintage Dior or some shit and I'd definitely sacrifice my purse before the scarf.

Fashion.

[schmelling]

Post removed.

[BillPackets]

I 172ed!

Boooooooyaaaaaaaaaaaa congrats u r now an LSAT genius fogs

[mr.plum]

I'm starting to feel a bit tired just looking at the questions, after a month and a half of intensive pt-ing and drilling. I am going to relax (with only three weeks to go ) and just go over the hard games this week. Hopefully the better me will come back after this ...

[Louis1127]

I 172ed!

Boooooooyaaaaaaaaaaaa congrats u r now an LSAT genius fogs

[boris09]

This is probably the first time i've ever come across such a situation, so I figured it would be best to come here for some help

PT 60, section 3, question 22

What the hell is the difference between indirect and unforeseen in this situation? I understand that they have a different meaning out of the context of the stimulus, but in the stimulus there was no reason to believe that the government policy was chosen to be used indirectly, nor is there any reason to believe that it was unforeseen. Even when doing the negation test, i found it extremely difficult to rule out B for some reason. I looked on the manhattan forums, and to my surprise, nobody even mentioned B as a concern. I got rid of C, D, and E quite easily, and lucked out by picking A, but damn this question blew my mind for some reason

[el madrileno]

PT 54

169

RC -9
LR -1
LG -0
LR -1

Got killed by falling asleep during the 4th passage and not having a ton of time when I came back to the 2nd passage. I leave the dual passages as my final passage but in this case my score probably would have been better served going in order.

[PeanutsNJam]

PT 53 Section #1 #19 is the most semantic question I've ever seen in 30 or so PTs. A and B are practically the same thing save for like a word. Hope I never have to deal with that again.

[BJS]

Can someone explain PT28 S1 LR1 Q20 - #290 in LR Cambridge Difficulty packet? I don't understand why A is TCR. I couldn't select an answer on this because none seemed approrpriate. This was my diagram of the stimulus:

First sentence: Economy weak (EC) -> Prices Constant (PC) and Unemployment Rises (UR)
Second Sentence: UR -> Investment Decreases (ID)
Third Sentence: ~ID -> ~UR -> ~EC

My understanding of Either...or is that A, B, or A and B can be true. In this case, why must A be false?

The economy weakening means unemployment rises. But, unemployment only rises if investments decrease. So, if investments are NOT decreasing, then unemployment does not rise, and the economy cannot be weak. We are told that investments are not decreasing.

A. says that either the economy is weak or investment decreases. But we know from the above that if the economy is weak, investment MUST have decreased. And that if investments decrease, the economy will be weak. Both must occur. You cannot have one without the other. And we do not have decreased investments, per the stimulus. So, A must be false.

Ah. I attacked the answer choices excluding the stim's statement that investments were not decreasing. That makes sense - thanks!

PT 53 Section #1 #19 is the most semantic question I've ever seen in 30 or so PTs. A and B are practically the same thing save for like a word. Hope I never have to deal with that again.

I think the important difference is that A states a generality - "When a small company advertises, its financial situation generally improves...
- while B is far more restricted - "Certain small companies..." Likewise, the stim is phrased as a generality - "People....typically begin to feel..."

[Tyr]

PT 43, I got my first -0 in a LG section. That's the good news. The bad news is I also had my worst LR section at -11. W. T. F. When I went back to review, at least 5 of the questions in the section I bombed were questions I clearly knew the answer after the fact. Damn.

[sfoglia]

Thank you all!! I'm very excited about the score. As you can tell by my being up early enough to check TLS before leaving for work. I <3 LSAT!

Hope everyone's mornings don't suck!

[Gray]

I 172ed!

Boooooooyaaaaaaaaaaaa congrats u r now an LSAT genius fogs

[PeanutsNJam]

Can someone explain PT28 S1 LR1 Q20 - #290 in LR Cambridge Difficulty packet? I don't understand why A is TCR. I couldn't select an answer on this because none seemed approrpriate. This was my diagram of the stimulus:

First sentence: Economy weak (EC) -> Prices Constant (PC) and Unemployment Rises (UR)
Second Sentence: UR -> Investment Decreases (ID)
Third Sentence: ~ID -> ~UR -> ~EC

My understanding of Either...or is that A, B, or A and B can be true. In this case, why must A be false?

The economy weakening means unemployment rises. But, unemployment only rises if investments decrease. So, if investments are NOT decreasing, then unemployment does not rise, and the economy cannot be weak. We are told that investments are not decreasing.

A. says that either the economy is weak or investment decreases. But we know from the above that if the economy is weak, investment MUST have decreased. And that if investments decrease, the economy will be weak. Both must occur. You cannot have one without the other. And we do not have decreased investments, per the stimulus. So, A must be false.

Ah. I attacked the answer choices excluding the stim's statement that investments were not decreasing. That makes sense - thanks!

PT 53 Section #1 #19 is the most semantic question I've ever seen in 30 or so PTs. A and B are practically the same thing save for like a word. Hope I never have to deal with that again.

I think the important difference is that A states a generality - "When a small company advertises, its financial situation generally improves...
- while B is far more restricted - "Certain small companies..." Likewise, the stim is phrased as a generality - "People....typically begin to feel..."

Yeah that's what Manhattan LSAT basically decided. The thread for that question is probably one of the longest on that forum. It's one of the only questions where one word makes the difference between two answer choices. I bet if you used this reasoning in any real-life argument, even in a courtroom, you're just gonna get glares and eye rolls.

[BillPackets]

Yeah that's what Manhattan LSAT basically decided. The thread for that question is probably one of the longest on that forum. It's one of the only questions where one word makes the difference between two answer choices. I bet if you used this reasoning in any real-life argument, even in a courtroom, you're just gonna get glares and eye rolls.

I would say that B is wrong for more reason that just one word. Stimulus states that people who switch from 6 or less to 8 "typically feel much less anxious." B states that after companies who had not previously began advertising on the internet their financial situations "began to improve." That's a pretty big difference...typically (or generally, as stated in A) vs. something that happened 100% of the time.

also fwiw more recent PTs get much more detailed than this and one word makes or breaks any number of Qs between 16-25(6).

[hetookmetoamovie]

This is probably the first time i've ever come across such a situation, so I figured it would be best to come here for some help

PT 60, section 3, question 22

What the hell is the difference between indirect and unforeseen in this situation? I understand that they have a different meaning out of the context of the stimulus, but in the stimulus there was no reason to believe that the government policy was chosen to be used indirectly, nor is there any reason to believe that it was unforeseen. Even when doing the negation test, i found it extremely difficult to rule out B for some reason. I looked on the manhattan forums, and to my surprise, nobody even mentioned B as a concern. I got rid of C, D, and E quite easily, and lucked out by picking A, but damn this question blew my mind for some reason

For me, the words that made the difference between the two answer choices were "can bear responsibility" vs. "is responsible." The stimulus concludes that "There is no doubt that the government is responsible...," so B is just repeating this assertion (and strengthening it). A is the necessary assumption, because if the government weren't able to bear responsibility, then the conclusion would be invalid.

So I think I agree with you that "unforeseen" and "indirect" consequences are basically the same here.

[PeanutsNJam]

Yeah that's what Manhattan LSAT basically decided. The thread for that question is probably one of the longest on that forum. It's one of the only questions where one word makes the difference between two answer choices. I bet if you used this reasoning in any real-life argument, even in a courtroom, you're just gonna get glares and eye rolls.

I would say that B is wrong for more reason that just one word. Stimulus states that people who switch from 6 or less to 8 "typically feel much less anxious." B states that after companies who had not previously began advertising on the internet their financial situations "began to improve." That's a pretty big difference...typically (or generally, as stated in A) vs. something that happened 100% of the time.

also fwiw more recent PTs get much more detailed than this and one word makes or breaks any number of Qs between 16-25(6).

Never had a similar issue in the 3 PTs I've taken after 53 (57, 60, 61). Go -2/-0 regularly, and the ones I get wrong are due to carelessness and lack of attention. Never have I seen two answer choices that are so incredibly similar save for a word.

I read "certain small companies that had never previously advertised on the Internet ... " as "some of the companies that had never previously advertised on the Internet ... ", implying that not all companies "began to improve" after starting to advertise on the Internet, only certain ones. At this point, you can say some companies XYZ =/= companies generally XYZ, but that's pretty ambiguous because some is 1-all.

I understand WHY I'm wrong, because my interpretation requires the necessary assumption that there are companies outside of these "certain ones" that attempted to advertise on the Internet and didn't improve financially, but my point is that this is a very reasonable assumption and answer choice A and B are painfully close; not like any other two answer choices in all of my experiences.

[Colonel_funkadunk]

Yeah that's what Manhattan LSAT basically decided. The thread for that question is probably one of the longest on that forum. It's one of the only questions where one word makes the difference between two answer choices. I bet if you used this reasoning in any real-life argument, even in a courtroom, you're just gonna get glares and eye rolls.

I would say that B is wrong for more reason that just one word. Stimulus states that people who switch from 6 or less to 8 "typically feel much less anxious." B states that after companies who had not previously began advertising on the internet their financial situations "began to improve." That's a pretty big difference...typically (or generally, as stated in A) vs. something that happened 100% of the time.

also fwiw more recent PTs get much more detailed than this and one word makes or breaks any number of Qs between 16-25(6).

I think another important distinction to focus on is that B states "who have never previously advertised" and the stimulus doesn't say, "people who have never slept for 8 hours". Just that when they start sleeping for 8 hours, or as a says "when a small company first begins to advertise on the internet".

[PeanutsNJam]

Yeah that's what Manhattan LSAT basically decided. The thread for that question is probably one of the longest on that forum. It's one of the only questions where one word makes the difference between two answer choices. I bet if you used this reasoning in any real-life argument, even in a courtroom, you're just gonna get glares and eye rolls.

I would say that B is wrong for more reason that just one word. Stimulus states that people who switch from 6 or less to 8 "typically feel much less anxious." B states that after companies who had not previously began advertising on the internet their financial situations "began to improve." That's a pretty big difference...typically (or generally, as stated in A) vs. something that happened 100% of the time.

also fwiw more recent PTs get much more detailed than this and one word makes or breaks any number of Qs between 16-25(6).

I think another important distinction to focus on is that B states "who have never previously advertised" and the stimulus doesn't say, "people who have never slept for 8 hours". Just that when they start sleeping for 8 hours, or as a says "when a small company first begins to advertise on the internet".

(A) says the same thing. "First begin to advertise" means they never advertised before.

[Colonel_funkadunk]

Yeah that's what Manhattan LSAT basically decided. The thread for that question is probably one of the longest on that forum. It's one of the only questions where one word makes the difference between two answer choices. I bet if you used this reasoning in any real-life argument, even in a courtroom, you're just gonna get glares and eye rolls.

I would say that B is wrong for more reason that just one word. Stimulus states that people who switch from 6 or less to 8 "typically feel much less anxious." B states that after companies who had not previously began advertising on the internet their financial situations "began to improve." That's a pretty big difference...typically (or generally, as stated in A) vs. something that happened 100% of the time.

also fwiw more recent PTs get much more detailed than this and one word makes or breaks any number of Qs between 16-25(6).

I think another important distinction to focus on is that B states "who have never previously advertised" and the stimulus doesn't say, "people who have never slept for 8 hours". Just that when they start sleeping for 8 hours, or as a says "when a small company first begins to advertise on the internet".

(A) says the same thing. "First begin to advertise" means they never advertised before.

Correct. But its worded more closely to the way the stimulus is worded which often helps in these parallel questions.

ETA: I liked your explanation of the Lobster Necessary Assumption question. That is welcomed in this forum even if it isn't in the other.