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1st section Q17, 20, 26, 2nd section Q16, Q22, Q25. I need help! Explanation, please?

That's a lot of questions! You might get better luck separating those into different posts. Anyway, I'll take a couple:

1, 17 - The conclusion of this argument is that magazine B could depend less on donations if it published an anthology. Why? Because another magazine, The Brick Wall Review, published an anthology in addition to its magazine, and the sales of this made it some money (enough to cover most operating expenses). Supporting this argument is the fact that the poems in magazine B are similar to The Brick Wall Review. The part about folks needing to agree that The Brick Wall Review can re-publish their poems is background (and rather distracting). Since we have to weaken the argument, we probably have to attack an assumption. So what's the gap? This analogy may help to clarify it:

Kenny Rogers writes a lot of songs with lyrics that are similar to yours. His songs end up in Christmas Music CDs, and he makes a lot of money from the sale of those CDs, so you should be able to make money from Christmas Music CDs as well.

The gaps in this analogy are more numerous, but they include this one: who's to say that Kenny Rogers songs are the reason folks buy those CDs? With the argument we're discussing, who's to say that the The Brick Wall Review Anthology includes only poems from the The Brick Wall Review magazine? It's possible that there's a glossy centerfold of Keats that people love, or perhaps, as (E) suggests, the anthology includes some special poems that are not in the regular magazine. Would magazine B be able to get such famous poets to contribute to its anthology?

(A) focuses on how the donations are used. We need to show that magazine B cannot make money from its anthology like the Brick Wall Review does
(B) is confusing, but ultimately boils down to the idea that magazine B has different standards for poems. If anything, this suggests that magazine B is a better one, but perhaps it simply has a cranky editorial staff
(C) is out of scope - who cares about poets and whether they get paid. Sorry.
(D) is similar to (A) as it focuses on the budget, but we're not interested in that. All the argument suggests is that magazine B can reduce its dependence on donations.


20. The conclusion of this argument (and by the way, I suggest you look at arguments this way: what's the conclusion? why do they say that?) is that the speed limit has led to a decrease in highway accidents. Why? Because 10 years ago the speed limit was introduced (and set at 55mph) and the highway accident rate since then has been consistently lower than the highway accident rate that existed before the speed limit was introduced. We have to weaken this argument, so let's look for the assumptions. The gap here is similar to the gap in this argument:

5 years ago, Jim used to score in the 130s, then he started drinking paint thinner on the weekends and he now scores 170s, so it must be the paint thinner that did it. Well, who's to say that it's not because he studied or started taking Ginkgo biloba?

Similarly, who's to say that it was the speed limit that led to reduced accidents? Perhaps it was a renewed sense of concern for fellow drivers. Perhaps it was those "Baby on Board" signs. Or, perhaps, as (D) suggests, it was because of improvements in cars.

(A) is tempting, but irrelevant. Just because cars could go faster doesn't mean they did.
(B) is a tempting detail creep. We're looking at highway accidents, not any road accidents.
(C) is similar in some ways to (A). The fact that people generally drive faster than the speed limit does not mean that the speed limit doesn't affect the overall speed. Anyone who drives up I95 and crosses into states with different speed limits knows what I'm talking about!
(E) is tempting as it hints at improvements to cars, but those improvements reduce harm when there's an accident, they don't reduce the number of accidents.

Here are explanations for two questions in the second section:

16: http://www.atlaslsat.com/forums/pt-57-s ... -t283.html

25: http://www.atlaslsat.com/forums/pt57-s2 ... -t208.html

I hope that helps. Good luck!

Thanks a lot atlas - those explanations really helped. Unfortunately the links are to the first LR section, though.
Would anyone else be kind enough to bite on any of these questions: 1st LR (section 2) Q26, 2nd LR (section 3) Q16, Q22, Q25.
Appreciate it!

did anyone find the logic games? in this preptest to be unusually difficult.

I absolutely bombed the games here (-10) but was only -5 on the rest of the test. Wondering if the rest of the test was easier than usual to accommodate a hard game section, or if I can trust that -5 as legit. I've scored -5 before, but not lately. The back story is I was in the 166-168 range after taking a PT every other day for a month. Then started hitting 162 regularly and figured it was burnout (or hoped it was burnout rather).

So I'm wondering how much I can trust this PT 57 score since it seems like a hard LR may have made them use easier other questions. Also, thought the RC was a breeze on this one. Did anyone else think so? I usually barely finish but had time to spare and only missed one ticky tacky one.