The Official December 2015 Study Group Forum

SirArthurDayne · Post by **SirArthurDayne** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 12:33 pm

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chicharon · Post by **chicharon** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 12:58 pm

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Mint-Berry_Crunch · Post by **Mint-Berry_Crunch** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 1:00 pm

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Mint-Berry_Crunch · Post by **Mint-Berry_Crunch** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 1:01 pm

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flash21 · Post by **flash21** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 1:01 pm

Mint-Berry_Crunch wrote:Taking 73 today. Third PT in as many days, so this'll be fun.

Let me know how it goes, just took it on Monday.

i_wish_i_was_smart · Post by **i_wish_i_was_smart** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 1:10 pm

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i_wish_i_was_smart · Post by **i_wish_i_was_smart** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 1:25 pm

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khe · Post by **khe** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 1:43 pm

So just so I'm clear, when you guys refer to drilling, most of you mean drilling LR LG & RC separately by type using the Cambridge PTs 1-38 after studying the corresponding types with the PS Bibles and/or Manhattan strategy guides and/or Mike Kim's LSAT trainer? And then after that going through the remainder of the PTs in a traditional timed fashion and then blind reviewing? Im slightly new here and I'm not very familiar with these items so I just want make sure I'm on the same page lol

WorthlessDegree · Post by **WorthlessDegree** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 2:10 pm

Hey, all! Question:

How do you tell the difference between burnout and just being lazy? Sometimes when I'm drilling, my head gets foggy and I'll miss 3 questions where I normally would have missed none. Is this burnout (i.e. I should take a break) or me being lazy (i.e. I should keep drilling to build endurance).

Thanks!

appind · Post by **appind** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 2:28 pm

somethingelse55 wrote:
appind wrote:
somethingelse55 wrote:
appind wrote: yeah about the credited choice. i have a reason for why it may be better than C, but that's a distinction i have never seen any past question use. so i am not sure.

even though many questions in 76 LR are very subtle, these two really stand out to me. i can kinda see why many in Oct waiters were surprised with the test form. if anyone did 76 recently then post how it went.

[+] Spoiler
You are overanalyzing number 21. It is a composition fallacy. Just because one disease by itself didn't cause all of the species to die out, why couldn't the many diseases put together? One disease could have caused 10 of the species to die out, another disease another 15 species, etc until you get to 55.

For parallel flaw questions the arguments do not need to match up 100%, they just need to commit the same logical fallacy. Answer choice B makes the exact same fallacy. Just because neither of the people can fix both doors and windows doesn't mean that one of them couldn't fix the door and the other the window. Same exact flaw.

C is IMO a decent argument but probably still flawed. The flaw with it could be that just because they couldn't agree on a restaurant in the immediate vicinity doesn't mean they couldn't agree on a restaurant that is further away, but even then its not the same flaw. Another flaw with it could be that it assumes they all have to agree on a restaurant in order to go to one, but since the conclusion is only "probably" neither of these are really big flaws and I think one could argue its a relatively strong argument.

What I'm guessing tripped people up with C is this: So in the stim its saying that 55 species died out and no single disease could wipe out all 55. If you try and stretch C to seem like that, then the 5 restaurants correspond to the 55 species and the 3 people correspond to the disease(s). But what C then says is that ALL THREE of them combined couldn't agree on a SINGLE restaurant to go to. Its not the same type of argument for that reason. To compare it, it would be like if the stim said "So ALL 55 of the diseases combined would not be able to wipe out a SINGLE species." M Way different argument.

As for 25, there are two issues with C that make it a worse answer choice than D. 1 is that C is talking about shows last YEAR while D (and the stim) is talking about shows last SEASON. Those are two different time frames. 2 (and more importantly) is that C is talking about shows overall, whereas D (and the stim) are talking about NEW shows. That is a huge difference - they could have some great shows that have been running for a while that didn't get cancelled, but the stim is only concerned with their new shows. Furthermore, even if you don't like those reasons for dismissing C, D is just clearly a much stronger answer choice. It connects the premise (their new shows are police dramas) with the conclusion (most of their new shows will prob be cancelled). The gap in the reasoning is that what if Wilke and Wilke are super good at making police dramas? D erases that possibility by telling you that they suck at police dramas too. Whereas C doesn't really tell you that much. Even if you overlook the subtleties, all C is saying is that out of their good shows, none of them were police dramas. That is a pretty weak statement, we still don't know what their bad shows were or even what their good ones were. We also don't know if they've ever tried to make a police drama before based on C. It still leaves open the possibility that they could be good at making police dramas and that they've just never tried before. Therefore it would be hard to predict if their new shows (which are all police dramas) are going to be cancelled or not.

yeah i see the flaw with stim in q21 and
[+] Spoiler
noticed it when taking the test and the whole agument doesn't need to match 100% but the flaw imo does need to match fully. i read the flaw in the stim as "if one entity can't do something by itself, then many such entities also "probably" can't do that something together". the flaw in B is of stronger degree as it says ""if one entity can't do something by itself, then many such entities also "will not" be able to do that something together". iirc this is the 1st parallel-flaw question i have seen that has this difference in degree of flaw/conclusion in the last 50+ PTs or so. so this appears to be a notable change in the way lsac is shifting to what degree the match has to exist to make a choice credited.

in q25, both c and d talk about last year. yeah i kinda see your description of this question. i hadn't noticed that C talked about all shows and not just new shows, but the reason i had for thinking that C doesn't strengthen was different and something i have never seen lsat use in any of their PTs. C actually says a lot even though it's written in a double negative form, which is that if any show was a police drama last year, then it was cancelled, which is a very strong statement as it applies also to new police drama shows last year. taken only as a conditional c is stronger than conditional d, but there is a subtle point about c that makes it not strengthen the stim at all.

[+] Spoiler
What is the reason you had for saying that C doesn't strengthen (that you haven't seen the LSAC use before?) I'm curious what you mean by that. Do you mean this? I'll explain. This is what C says:

Out of all the shows that were not cancelled, none of them were police dramas.

If you want to put that in a conditional, then it says
Not cancelled -> Not a police drama

and yes, the contrapositive of that says that

If police drama -> cancelled

However, we only know that to be the case "IF" there were any police dramas actually created. C does not tell you whether any police dramas were in fact created. It is very possible, given what C tells you, that there were never any police dramas created at all. And so its too weak to affect the argument. We do know that IF there were any, then they were cancelled. But we don't know "IF" there were any in fact. Is this what you mean by the subtle point? Because D tells us that they DID in fact try to make some police dramas last season and they were cancelled. It goes much further than C.

yeah that's pretty..

[+] Spoiler: much it, there is nothing to indicate to enforcement of the sufficient condition in C to make it strengthen the stim. lsat hasn't used this lack of sufficient condition in one choice to differentiate between two choices of the form X->Y and Y->X in a strengthen question where anything that suggests that X & Y can occur together can strengthen the argument as both these choices do.

PoopNpants · Post by **PoopNpants** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 2:43 pm

So I'm studying with my buddy today and I noticed that on formal logic LR Q's he would literally diagram every single "some Xs are Ys, all Ys are Zs" etc. for literally EVERY single question regarding formal logic. I was flabbergasted, is this normal? I literally don't ever do any diagramming at all cept for Logic games

appind · Post by **appind** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 3:14 pm

Mint-Berry_Crunch wrote:
CharlesS wrote:Just redid PT71 which I already did two months ago. Got a 175. Pretty disappointing considering this is the second take.
The breakdown is: LR -2, LG 0, RC -6 (what happened?)
Normally I get below -3 on RC. Can't believe this.

Does anybody find PT 71 RC strangely difficult?
I had a similar deal with RC, -5. I missed most in that physics passage, which is annoying as I thought it was manageable. Gunna BR it today.

you br after seeing your section breakdown and the questions missed?

slizerd · Post by **slizerd** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 3:15 pm

Suggestions for which PT to take today?

tvu · Post by **tvu** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 3:43 pm

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gamerish · Post by **gamerish** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 3:53 pm

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appind · Post by **appind** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 4:06 pm

i have been reviewing RC of 76 and it seems to be on the easier side. I missed at least 4 due to really stupid reasons and did not have time for q27. If I get these easy ones in rc, I could be doing much better. But during timed test conditions, I feel like I don't have time to nitpick a choice so sometimes i eliminate a good one quickly and then realize that no good choice remains and pick a bad one. at other times, I don't feel I have enough time to go back and try to find support for one out of two remaiming and pick the bad one. anyone else do this?

that q3 in rc is incredible, I think i couldnt have predicted the right answer. anyone got it right during fresh test conditions?

i_wish_i_was_smart · Post by **i_wish_i_was_smart** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 4:08 pm

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appind · Post by **appind** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 4:10 pm

i_wish_i_was_smart wrote:
A) says "As long as B obtains, A obtains"

Is this diagrammed like, A--> B or B-->A? If the former, then A--> B--> C, so -C--> -B--> -A which allows the conclusion to be drawn. If the latter, then -C--> -A--> -B, which also allows the conclusion to be drawn. But which one is it?

B -> A

i_wish_i_was_smart · Post by **i_wish_i_was_smart** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 4:15 pm

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slizerd · Post by **slizerd** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 4:19 pm

I've been trying focus on LSAT today, but I just got in to WUSTL and now I'm on too much of an admissions-high to focus

flash21 · Post by **flash21** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 4:19 pm

how is everyones reading comp going?

Got -5 on 73 which I'm happy about, hoping to not get screwed with a ridiculous passage like I felt the last one was in October. sigh

gamerish · Post by **gamerish** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 4:22 pm

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Mint-Berry_Crunch · Post by **Mint-Berry_Crunch** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 4:27 pm

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Mint-Berry_Crunch · Post by **Mint-Berry_Crunch** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 4:29 pm

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Mint-Berry_Crunch · Post by **Mint-Berry_Crunch** » Wed Nov 25, 2015 4:31 pm

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