The Official June 2016 Study Group Forum

[somethingElse]

Guys. At this time next week we will be donezo.

So close yet so far

!!!!

WOMP

[forum_user]

Guys. At this time next week we will be donezo.

So close yet so far

!!!!

Yeah except we'll all be stuck with 140s at this rate of posting

[pretzeltime]

Guys. At this time next week we will be donezo.

So close yet so far

!!!!

Yeah except we'll all be stuck with 140s at this rate of posting

I am TRYING!!

Anyone else a Bachelor fan

Im watching right now

Next week I will be absolutely hammered watching

And thank you I watch it from a feminist angle so please

[dvc5240]

Hey guys, I literally made an account to just ask this question after lurking and reading all your advice/convos for the past couple of weeks:

So I have been stuck in the mid 160s for the past month now and the think thats holding me back is LR. Example for PT 75 I just took today:

LR: 8
RC: 2
LR: 7
LG: 1

I realize if I could get down that number I would be in a much better situation. Do you all have any last minute practice advice you can offer me as to how to better tackle LR questions (especially necessary assumptions, flaw, and parallel reasoning)? I would really appreciate anything!!

Hey! I fall in about the same averages as you (except I have a lower RC score and slightly better LRs). I have recently been pre phrasing and it makes a huge difference! The first couple sections it may slow you down, but give it a chance.

Also, I have found that for the first 10 questions, once I think I have the right answer I do not continue going through the answers and just move on. This has been stressful for me to commit to, but the majority of the time I get all of those right even if I don't have time to come back and check them (so you just have to remember all the time you're gaining even if it means taking a little more risk). Of course I circle all of these questions and draw a line under the answer where I stop reading the choices, so that if I have time to come back and check I can pick up quickly where I left off.

[dvc5240]

Guys. At this time next week we will be donezo.

So close yet so far

!!!!

Yeah except we'll all be stuck with 140s at this rate of posting

I am TRYING!!

Anyone else a Bachelor fan

Im watching right now

Next week I will be absolutely hammered watching

And thank you I watch it from a feminist angle so please

I'm watching rn!!! Good way to let my brain get all nice and mushy after a day of PTing.

[pretzeltime]

Guys. At this time next week we will be donezo.

So close yet so far

!!!!

Yeah except we'll all be stuck with 140s at this rate of posting

I am TRYING!!

Anyone else a Bachelor fan

Im watching right now

Next week I will be absolutely hammered watching

And thank you I watch it from a feminist angle so please

I'm watching rn!!! Good way to let my brain get all nice and mushy after a day of PTing.

Yeah I need a good amount of absolute garbage tv and podcasts to balance out lsat/work.

PLL is hitting my garbage spot pretty hard as well. Shout out SE

All garbage everything

[appind]

re the above explanation of 55.3.14, i think merely giving it a property that aligns with non-dwellings doesn't truly strengthen, at least not in the way traditionally LSAT has given strengtheners.

what we get from B is that most ~dwellings are ~onlyL, so knowing that the bldg has the property ~onlyL doesn't make it likely that it's ~dwelling. for all we know from the stim, most or all dwellings could also be ~onlyL.

we need to know more about bldgs with stones other than limestone L for it to clearly strengthen, not the bldgs that are non-dwellings and choice B gives us info only about the latter not former.

[R. Jeeves]

merecat and somethingelse, you guys have different interpretations of premise 4; i was confused about this premise the first time i read this question because i couldnt decide which of two ways to interpret it. you guys have both the interpretations I was considering written - are most buildings at the site human dwellings? or are most limestone-only buildings at the site human dwellings?

most bldgs at the site are dwellings. it's written as an independent clause.

ok thats what i thought, the only reason i suspected otherwise is because i thought answer B would make more sense if the latter were true - although now I cant really see why I thought that.

Thanks merecat and somethingelse. Ill take some time to look over your explanantions.

[forum_user]

Hey guys, I literally made an account to just ask this question after lurking and reading all your advice/convos for the past couple of weeks:

So I have been stuck in the mid 160s for the past month now and the think thats holding me back is LR. Example for PT 75 I just took today:

LR: 8
RC: 2
LR: 7
LG: 1

I realize if I could get down that number I would be in a much better situation. Do you all have any last minute practice advice you can offer me as to how to better tackle LR questions (especially necessary assumptions, flaw, and parallel reasoning)? I would really appreciate anything!!

So yeah as the user above said, pre-phrasing is key, especially for necessary assumption questions because those typically just link up a premise and the conclusion (or the conclusion and an elimination of an alternate explanation).

For parallel reasoning, look at the conclusions first. If the stimulus's conclusion is "most cats are black" and an AC says "all trucks are 4WD," that's definitely not going to be parallel to the question, so eliminate it immediately. Sometimes it helps me to diagram it--doesn't have to be a flawless diagram, just something to mechanically illustrate the form of the stim (like, "all C=F, most F is B, so most C=B").

For flaws, prephrasing is also very helpful, because the answer is right there (i.e. you don't even have to rely on the ACs once you're really good at flaw qs). Take a few seconds up front to think about what's actually wrong with the argument--usually these are correlation/causation, appeals to emotion/authority/tradition, faulty group/individual extrapolation, not actually addressing the argument, rejecting an argument due to lack of evidence for it, and a handful of others.

[Hennessy]

Took PT 70 - what an trashfire.

LR (-6)
RC (-9) what the fuck
LG (-0)
LR (-5)

81 scores a 164 on a very normal curve

One RC game fucked me up, wealth and happiness. that accounted for 5 points right there. super mad.

oh well.

[ayylmao]

Guys. At this time next week we will be donezo.

So close yet so far

!!!!

Holy fuckballs! I'm so excited!

[Hennessy]

btw i have a LG question

Are we allowed to diagramma below the:

"STOP"

IF YOU FINISH BEFORE TIME IS CALLED...

section?

[R. Jeeves]

btw i have a LG question

Are we allowed to diagramma below the:

"STOP"

IF YOU FINISH BEFORE TIME IS CALLED...

section?

lol yeah you can diagram below that haha

[forum_user]

re the above explanation of 55.3.14, i think merely giving it a property that aligns with non-dwellings doesn't truly strengthen, at least not in the way traditionally LSAT has given strengtheners.

what we get from B is that most ~dwellings are ~onlyL, so knowing that the bldg has the property ~onlyL doesn't make it likely that it's ~dwelling. for all we know from the stim, most or all dwellings could also be ~onlyL.

we need to know more about bldgs with stones other than limestone L for it to clearly strengthen, not the bldgs that are non-dwellings and choice B gives us info only about the latter not former.

Lol this is one of those questions where, the more I think about it, the worse it seems. I took a quick look at it initially and was like oh, duh, B. But after awhile I started to realize that it really is just a TTTTTT question, as Jeeves put it. Like, most buildings are dwellings and most buildings are limestone; okay, that gives us at least one building that is an only-limestone dwelling--everything else could very well be a non-limestone dwelling. But B gives us, of the non-dwellings, most of them are non-limestone--so this makes it like sliiightly more likely that the building in question is a non-dwelling. Not convincing, but it technically does strengthen the argument.

[somethingElse]

It's definitely a somewhat weird question in that there really aren't any premises, only background statements. But whenever there's a strengthen question that isn't about causation, TCR will usually just be something that connects the premise(s) to the conclusion. B does that and does strengthen the argument, albeit slightly. That Q is also a great example of why it really is important to eliminate every incorrect answer choice. Because each of those other answer choices are either very out of scope or don't impact the conclusion. In other words they are very wrong.

[appind]

re the above explanation of 55.3.14, i think merely giving it a property that aligns with non-dwellings doesn't truly strengthen, at least not in the way traditionally LSAT has given strengtheners.

what we get from B is that most ~dwellings are ~onlyL, so knowing that the bldg has the property ~onlyL doesn't make it likely that it's ~dwelling. for all we know from the stim, most or all dwellings could also be ~onlyL.

we need to know more about bldgs with stones other than limestone L for it to clearly strengthen, not the bldgs that are non-dwellings and choice B gives us info only about the latter not former.

Lol this is one of those questions where, the more I think about it, the worse it seems. I took a quick look at it initially and was like oh, duh, B. But after awhile I started to realize that it really is just a TTTTTT question, as Jeeves put it. Like, most buildings are dwellings and most buildings are limestone; okay, that gives us at least one building that is an only-limestone dwelling--everything else could very well be a non-limestone dwelling. But B gives us, of the non-dwellings, most of them are non-limestone--so this makes it like sliiightly more likely that the building in question is a non-dwelling. Not convincing, but it technically does strengthen the argument.

the issue is that there is really no standard to tell how it makes the argument even slightly more likely. from the stim it's very possible among the spectrum of possibilities that even most or nearly all dwellings are non-L bldgs. so B telling us that most non-dwellings are non-L doesn't say much at all. usually a strengthen will strengthen without making extra assumptions.

e: correction

[somethingElse]

re the above explanation of 55.3.14, i think merely giving it a property that aligns with non-dwellings doesn't truly strengthen, at least not in the way traditionally LSAT has given strengtheners.

what we get from B is that most ~dwellings are ~onlyL, so knowing that the bldg has the property ~onlyL doesn't make it likely that it's ~dwelling. for all we know from the stim, most or all dwellings could also be ~onlyL.

we need to know more about bldgs with stones other than limestone L for it to clearly strengthen, not the bldgs that are non-dwellings and choice B gives us info only about the latter not former.

Lol this is one of those questions where, the more I think about it, the worse it seems. I took a quick look at it initially and was like oh, duh, B. But after awhile I started to realize that it really is just a TTTTTT question, as Jeeves put it. Like, most buildings are dwellings and most buildings are limestone; okay, that gives us at least one building that is an only-limestone dwelling--everything else could very well be a non-limestone dwelling. But B gives us, of the non-dwellings, most of them are non-limestone--so this makes it like sliiightly more likely that the building in question is a non-dwelling. Not convincing, but it technically does strengthen the argument.

the issue is that there is really no standard to tell how it makes the argument even slightly more likely. from the stim it's very possible among the spectrum of possibilities that even most or all dwellings are non-L bldgs. so B telling us that most non-dwellings are non-L doesn't say much at all. usually a strengthen will strengthen without making extra assumptions.

The bolded is not entirely true.

P1: Most Buildings from the time period -> Only limestone
P2: Most Buildings from the time period -> Dwellings

C1: Some of the limestone-only buildings were dwellings.

We know that Building A is not like C1 buildings. We know from B that most of the non-dwellings are not like C1 buildings either. Combine that information and B does make the conclusion - which only says that the Building is PROBABLY not a dwelling - stronger.

[R. Jeeves]

re the above explanation of 55.3.14, i think merely giving it a property that aligns with non-dwellings doesn't truly strengthen, at least not in the way traditionally LSAT has given strengtheners.

what we get from B is that most ~dwellings are ~onlyL, so knowing that the bldg has the property ~onlyL doesn't make it likely that it's ~dwelling. for all we know from the stim, most or all dwellings could also be ~onlyL.

we need to know more about bldgs with stones other than limestone L for it to clearly strengthen, not the bldgs that are non-dwellings and choice B gives us info only about the latter not former.

Lol this is one of those questions where, the more I think about it, the worse it seems. I took a quick look at it initially and was like oh, duh, B. But after awhile I started to realize that it really is just a TTTTTT question, as Jeeves put it. Like, most buildings are dwellings and most buildings are limestone; okay, that gives us at least one building that is an only-limestone dwelling--everything else could very well be a non-limestone dwelling. But B gives us, of the non-dwellings, most of them are non-limestone--so this makes it like sliiightly more likely that the building in question is a non-dwelling. Not convincing, but it technically does strengthen the argument.

the issue is that there is really no standard to tell how it makes the argument even slightly more likely. from the stim it's very possible among the spectrum of possibilities that even most or all dwellings are non-L bldgs. so B telling us that most non-dwellings are non-L doesn't say much at all. usually a strengthen will strengthen without making extra assumptions.

The bolded is not entirely true.

P1: Most Buildings from the time period -> Only limestone
P2: Most Buildings from the time period -> Dwellings

C: Some of the limestone-only buildings were dwellings.

he shouldnt have said "most or all". But "most" is still possible.

[appind]

The bolded is not entirely true.

P1: Most Buildings from the time period -> Only limestone
P2: Most Buildings from the time period -> Dwellings

C: Some of the limestone-only buildings were dwellings.

he shouldnt have said "most or all". But "most" is still possible.

corrected the original post. all is not possible, i only mean most.

[R. Jeeves]

theres another question thats kind of similar to this one i think - the cop drama question. iirc the principle it uses is similar, but to me it was much clearer than this limestone q. (pt 76 section 2 q 25)

[appind]

theres another question thats kind of similar to this one i think - the cop drama question. iirc the principle it uses is similar, but to me it was much clearer than this limestone q. (pt 76 section 2 q 25)

that's actually a reasonable question and there's a subtle but solid reason as to why the credited choice is correct and not the other close one.

[R. Jeeves]

It's definitely a somewhat weird question in that there really aren't any premises, only background statements. But whenever there's a strengthen question that isn't about causation, TCR will usually just be something that connects the premise(s) to the conclusion. B does that and does strengthen the argument, albeit slightly. That Q is also a great example of why it really is important to eliminate every incorrect answer choice. Because each of those other answer choices are either very out of scope or don't impact the conclusion. In other words they are very wrong.

yeah maybe what was throwing me off is that strengthen questions tend to at least make the conclusion kind of good. I feel like this one makes a REALLY SHITTY conclusion become just a shitty conclusion (if even that). Maybe i'll look over it with a fresh mind tomorrow.

[somethingElse]

It's definitely a somewhat weird question in that there really aren't any premises, only background statements. But whenever there's a strengthen question that isn't about causation, TCR will usually just be something that connects the premise(s) to the conclusion. B does that and does strengthen the argument, albeit slightly. That Q is also a great example of why it really is important to eliminate every incorrect answer choice. Because each of those other answer choices are either very out of scope or don't impact the conclusion. In other words they are very wrong.

yeah maybe what was throwing me off is that strengthen questions tend to at least make the conclusion kind of good. I feel like this one makes a REALLY SHITTY conclusion become just a shitty conclusion (if even that). Maybe i'll look over it with a fresh mind tomorrow.

Yeah that sounds about right. It's a shitty conclusion for sures, we just don't have nearly enough info. But B does help the conclusion and that's all it needs to do.

[HaveMercy]

.

[Helioze]

ugh do not want to do this again.