When being skeptical makes all answers unacceptable
Posted: Sun Jan 31, 2010 2:13 am
One skill I pick up from training for the LSAT is that you have to be cautious about what can be inferred and what can't...
one of the things i do is questions asking which helps to explain a situation or which is most strongly supported, and even the less ambiguous types like which can be inferred, is to run a simulation of what if that answer choice were taken...once i run into a contradiction, and i have to do it fast in LR, i can eliminate that answer....
except...that...
you can't be TOO skeptical. LSAC saves its "S" with the disclaimer that you pick the BEST answer...but many wrong answers require you to make some assumptions outside the stimulus alone, and you have to figure out when your assumptions are too far fetched...you have to play with this scale until only ONE answer is accepted...and needless to say, to do that, you need to have the correct, LSAC mentality, in how your scale is linearized...that is to say, you need to agree with the LSAC setters that, for example the assumption that "fish all have fins" is more acceptable than "fish all have tails" or vice versa and decide which one will be the LSAC required answer.
for one example, look at LR 51 section 1 question 21. Many of you would have breezed past it and be thinking about me: "Stupid fool. You just aren't 170 material like ME, muhahaha!!!". Some may say "Oh gosh that one was a bit hard, kinda dense, kinda confusing".
The correct answer is D, but the stimulus doesn't actually support it. It just doesn't flat out contradict it.
Look at B. Wrong answer. But the stimulus doesn't actually logically lead to it being a wrong answer. Neither does it support it explicitly.
You weigh them both, and you say, ahhh...D. HO HO HO merry christmas!
Others might say...ahh...B. BAM!!! You lose!!!!!
one of the things i do is questions asking which helps to explain a situation or which is most strongly supported, and even the less ambiguous types like which can be inferred, is to run a simulation of what if that answer choice were taken...once i run into a contradiction, and i have to do it fast in LR, i can eliminate that answer....
except...that...
you can't be TOO skeptical. LSAC saves its "S" with the disclaimer that you pick the BEST answer...but many wrong answers require you to make some assumptions outside the stimulus alone, and you have to figure out when your assumptions are too far fetched...you have to play with this scale until only ONE answer is accepted...and needless to say, to do that, you need to have the correct, LSAC mentality, in how your scale is linearized...that is to say, you need to agree with the LSAC setters that, for example the assumption that "fish all have fins" is more acceptable than "fish all have tails" or vice versa and decide which one will be the LSAC required answer.
for one example, look at LR 51 section 1 question 21. Many of you would have breezed past it and be thinking about me: "Stupid fool. You just aren't 170 material like ME, muhahaha!!!". Some may say "Oh gosh that one was a bit hard, kinda dense, kinda confusing".
The correct answer is D, but the stimulus doesn't actually support it. It just doesn't flat out contradict it.
Look at B. Wrong answer. But the stimulus doesn't actually logically lead to it being a wrong answer. Neither does it support it explicitly.
You weigh them both, and you say, ahhh...D. HO HO HO merry christmas!
Others might say...ahh...B. BAM!!! You lose!!!!!