The Official June 2014 Study Group Forum

[Christine (MLSAT)]

Ok...

70.4.17 why isn't it d?

70.1.19 why isn't it c?

Having issues with parallel reasoning

Not sure if you're still sticking on these, but thought I'd offer my thoughts.

70.4.17

The original argument goes like this:

• PREMISE: All [Furniture Labyrinth stuff] is [well-crafted]
  some [halogen lamps] are [Furniture Labyrinth stuff]
  CONCLUSION: some [halogen lamps] are [well-crafted]

We know that we need an ALL statement and a SOME statement leading to a SOME conclusion.

The kicker on (D) is interpreting "every lake nearby is teeming with healthy fish". At first glance, this seems to fit our need for an ALL statement. But it's the wrong kind of 'all'! This statement gives us information about all the lakes - what would need would be information about all the fish in those lakes, just like the original argument gave us information about all the things on display at Furniture Labyrinth.

Given that what we really need to know is about the fish, we have to look at "teeming with healthy fish" - that just means that some of the fish in the lakes are healthy - not necessarily ALL of them. So, annoyingly, this statement is actually just a SOME statement, with regard to the fish, and breaks our parallelism.

• PREMISE: some [minnows] are [fish in nearby lakes]
  some [fish in nearby lakes] are [healthy]
  CONCLUSION: some [minnows] are [healthy]

As for 70.1.19, the answer IS C. If you meant something else I'd be happy to help!

[rebexness]

What take are you on?

¯\_ _/¯

[Learn_Live_Hope]

What take are you on?

¯\_ _/¯

How can you not know?

[mornincounselor]

Post removed.

[BaberhamLincoln]

As for 70.1.19, the answer IS C. If you meant something else I'd be happy to help!

Thanks so much Christine!!

I meant to ask "Why isn't it A?"

[santoki]

What take are you on?

¯\_ _/¯

How can you not know?

i'm on my 3rd.....i think im gonna ignore the rule

[Learn_Live_Hope]

What take are you on?

¯\_ _/¯

How can you not know?

i'm on my 3rd.....i think im gonna ignore the rule

...just make sure the nerves don't get to you .....taking the test, while knowing its your last chance can get to people

[rebexness]

...just make sure the nerves don't get to you taking the test, while knowing its your last chance can get to people

No such thing as last chance till you're dead.

[Learn_Live_Hope]

...just make sure the nerves don't get to you taking the test, while knowing its your last chance can get to people

No such thing as last chance till you're dead.

Don't turn all philosophical on me now

[WaltGrace83]

Came across a beast of a problem that is very reliant on an understanding of symbolic logic. I took a symbolic logic class a few years ago and I thought I'd share this with you all! I hope it is correct!

The problem is 13.4.15 "At Flordyce University..."


"Any student who wants to participate in a certain dig is eligible to do so but only if..."

• We get some conditional language here so I am going to take a mental note of this. The "only if" signifies that we just got a sufficient condition.

"Only if the student has taken at least one course and has shown an interest..."

• More conditional language! We know that two elements are necessary.

"Many students who have shown an interest...never even take one course...Therefore..."

• The contrapositive! We know that (course) and (interest) are both necessary conditions. When even one of these necessary conditions fail - which we know because there is ~(course), the sufficient condition will automatically fail.

Now the "therefore" is coming so we can be fairly certain that we now have all the premises. Let's put this into symbolic logic.

(S & P & E) → (A & I)

• How did I get here? Well what do we know? We know that we have the "only if" trigger, showing that everything on the right of the "only if" is a sufficient condition and everything on the left is a necessary condition (this works well in this question but don't use that as a hard-and-fast rule!!!). So as for the sufficient condition, we know you have to be student (S) who wants to participate (P) and you are eligible (E). All of these things matter! We are talking specifically about the people who are students and wanting to participate and eligible. We don't know anything about people who just want to participate or just are students - we only know about those that are S, P, and E.
  
  The right side of the arrow is a little bit easier to see, we know that in order to be an eligible student who wants to participate, you HAVE TO have taken at least one archaeology course (A) and you HAVE TO have shown an interest (I). Just like before, both are necessary are that is why we want to express this as (A & I).
  
  Now keep in mind the contrapositive of (A & I). What is the opposite of both A and I? It is ~A or ~I.

Many ~(A & I)

• This could also be written to say that many (~A or ~I) but the logic is still the same. The point is that this gives us the contrapositive. Thus, the argument is actually valid so far. There are no problems yet!

⊢ Many (S & P & ~E)

• The stuff after "therefore" is telling us that there must be some who are (students) that (want to participate) and are (ineligible). This seems great! So what is the problem? Well the problem is this: we were given the contrapositive of the necessary condition. In order to logically complete the argument, we would expect something like this:

Many ~(A & I) ⊢ Many ~(S & P & E)

• This is a perfectly logical argument. All this is is simply a contrapositive of the initial premise! Super easy! It can also be expressed like this...

• Many ~(A) or ~(I) ⊢ Many ~(S) or ~(P) or ~(E).

So what is the problem with the argument then? Look closely at the contraposed conclusion above (Many ~(S) or ~(P) or ~(E))

Here is the problem:

• Many ~(S) or ~(P) or ~(E)
  
  • does NOT have to equal
  Many (S & P & ~E)

We could conclude that many students are ~(P) just as easily (and logically) as we could conclude that many students are ~(E). We know from the premises that it must be (Many ~(S) or ~(P) or ~(E)). However, we don't know exactly which one can be negated! I hope that makes sense.

The Answer Choices

(A) (J & W) → L, ~L ⊢ ~(J & W)

• This is actually a fairly valid argument. We know that in order to be both a (jar) and (worth saving) you have to have a lid! Some don't have lids. Therefore, there are some (jars) that ~(worth saving.) The problem is that the original argument gives us two necessary conditions, not just one. In addition, this appears to be logically consistent anyway.

(B) Perfect match!

(C) (R & S) → BS, many ~(R & S) ⊢ many ~(BS)

• This is a different flaw. This is simply a false negation. We cannot merely negate the premises and conclude a negated conclusion!

(D) ~(RM) → (O & NR), many ~(O & NR) ⊢ many (RM)

• Also a valid argument. It uses the contrapositive.

(E) (ENB & GI) → A or OS, many ~A ⊢ few (ENB & GI)

• This is a different kind of flaw. It assumes that just because many are ~A means that many are also ~(OS). Maybe every building that is ~A is OS?

My head hurts.

[jimmymac]

Ugh. The reading comp in the 60s is really hitting me hard. Took PT 65 today, went -7

Any advice on how to master these type of sections vs. old RCs? Was averaging around 175 for the 50s PTs but now am about 172 for the 60s. Not a good trend.

[agalfano]

Ugh. The reading comp in the 60s is really hitting me hard. Took PT 65 today, went -7

Any advice on how to master these type of sections vs. old RCs? Was averaging around 175 for the 50s PTs but now am about 172 for the 60s. Not a good trend.

Why does RC get so much harder!?... I'm not as high of a scorer as you..but I was going about -7 on them consistently, hoping to improve to -4 or -5 by test day...but my last two have been -13 and -11! ughh hoping for some help on here from someone scoring well on RC!!!!

[jk148706]

.

[Clyde Frog]

Ugh. The reading comp in the 60s is really hitting me hard. Took PT 65 today, went -7

Any advice on how to master these type of sections vs. old RCs? Was averaging around 175 for the 50s PTs but now am about 172 for the 60s. Not a good trend.

Well the curve was -14 so it's supposed to be hard.

[agalfano]

Just took PT 70..

Scored a 162, which makes my last three PTs 162, 163, 162... so I sort of like where I'm at considering where I started..

My LR I missed a total of 11 (pretty cool with that, on test day Im hoping to keep it under -10)

On LG I missed 2 questions, and they were both on a game where I diagrammed wrong on a very simple mistake!! So I'm happy here with my score..

On RC I am still bombing it... I got -11, and on my last PT I got -13.. I don't know what to do!! This time I actually thought I had a good idea about the passage (evidently not) but the questions were just very difficult to me.. I need a better way to anticipate what questions will be asked..

Overall, I'm hoping to score in the mid-low 160s so I'm happy as of now.. but just knowing that I'm so close to being in the upper 160s with some good RC makes me so mad!! Any tips on RC will be greatly appreciated!!

[Louis1127]

Does anybody want to comment on exactly how RC "got harder"? I have seen so many TLSers say that and I'm just curious as to how it gets harder. Some of the passages in the 30s seem really hard to me, and I haven't used PTs 40-71.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not questioning the validity of your guys' observation. I'm more curious

[rebexness]

Does anybody want to comment on exactly how RC "got harder"? I have seen so many TLSers say that and I'm just curious as to how it gets harder. Some of the passages in the 30s seem really hard to me, and I haven't used PTs 40-71.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not questioning the validity of your guys' observation. I'm more curious

We discussed this in our review last week.

50s RC seemed to be super obscure, dense passages, which had fairly straightforward questions.

60s RC seems much more readable, however, the questions are super specific and a careful read of the Question stem and each answer choice is imperative.

[Learn_Live_Hope]

Does anybody want to comment on exactly how RC "got harder"? I have seen so many TLSers say that and I'm just curious as to how it gets harder. Some of the passages in the 30s seem really hard to me, and I haven't used PTs 40-71.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not questioning the validity of your guys' observation. I'm more curious

We discussed this in our review last week.

50s RC seemed to be super obscure, dense passages, which had fairly straightforward questions.

60s RC seems much more readable, however, the questions are super specific and a careful read of the Question stem and each answer choice is imperative.

Did PT70 resemble more of the RC from 50s, or 60s?

[rebexness]

Did PT70 resemble more of the RC from 50s, or 60s?

70/71 both seemed 60s ish.

[Learn_Live_Hope]

Did PT70 resemble more of the RC from 50s, or 60s?

70/71 both seemed 60s ish.

I meant to say 71-I'm glad you caught on to that

Thank you for answering

[santoki]

...just make sure the nerves don't get to you taking the test, while knowing its your last chance can get to people

No such thing as last chance till you're dead.

yup if i have to il do it again.

but i dont really want to so im gonna get it done in a couple weeks

[WorldsCollide]

Hey everyone! Relatively new here... Just wanted to share my frustrations with everyone.

I'm taking about 2PTs a day until test day (not the day before though)... For the past few days I've taken only one so that I could work more on logic games (I know how to solve them but the timing was killing me). Definitely saw an improvement. But I'll need to improve significantly in order to reach my goal on the actual test. June 9th is way too close =,(

[Learn_Live_Hope]

...just make sure the nerves don't get to you taking the test, while knowing its your last chance can get to people

No such thing as last chance till you're dead.

yup if i have to il do it again.

but i dont really want to so im gonna get it done in a couple weeks

I thought you said it way your 3rd take?...unless you are referring to two years from now...

[Clyde Frog]

Does anybody want to comment on exactly how RC "got harder"? I have seen so many TLSers say that and I'm just curious as to how it gets harder. Some of the passages in the 30s seem really hard to me, and I haven't used PTs 40-71.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not questioning the validity of your guys' observation. I'm more curious

I think the earlier are tougher. I love comparative reading, because to me it's an easy -0. People forget about some of the insanely tough early passages such as waterbugs, Ronald dworkin anything, code switching, Navajo weaving, gray marketing, Hippocratic oath ect.

[WorldsCollide]

Just figured out that the last practice test I'll be taking will be 61. Will I get to see any of the new comparative readings? If not, will I be at a disadvantage?