I think my answer sheet in my practice test booklet isn’t correct then. It had choice E as the correct answer for the Mediterranean diet question you showed. It was driving me crazy because I was so sure I got this one right.
As someone who has been writing curriculum and textbooks for more than 15 years, I know there is no mistake that undermines a student's confidence more than an error in the answer key. So sorry your other materials had that wrong.
When you’re explaining the second example question, you say that answer choice D is undermining the second premise. Do you mean the second sentence/conclusion?
No, I'm referring to the second statement highlighted in blue, "only conscious beliefs are under the patient's direct conscious control." Thanks for the question!
Hi Lana, I'm looking at the data now. If you look at "all-time" which goes back to 1991, Strengthen questions have been 7.3% of all LR questions. If you look at the last 10 years, it's 7.8%, the last 5 years, it's 8.2%, the last 3 years, it's 7.6%, the last 2 years, it's 7.5%, and for the last year, it's 5.0%. There are some fluctuations, but it's holding pretty steady.
@@LSATLab 7% might just be much more than im thinking, they show up so much on my practice tests. btw thanks for the videos :) they are really helpful in reviewing how to approach questions!
You're just trying to strengthen the author's case, in any conceivable way. But if you wanted to name some general categories, you can strengthen by 1. making the evidence more robust or credible 2. strengthening the connection between the evidence and the conclusion 3. making the conclusion more plausible 4. ruling out a potential objection to the argument
@@LSATLabyou mentioned that premise support is a trap answer choice but you mentioned in this comment that to strengthen we should make the evidence more robust. How does that make sense then? Which one should be done?
Well, they ARE of course polar opposites. But there are several similarities: - the answers present brand new facts, and we have to judge whether those facts have any impact on the case (do they help the prosecution, i.e. the author, help the defense, or are they inadmissible) - weak claims (i.e. "some, can, might, not always, not identical") are almost never correct - the correct answer can impact the argument in lots of different ways (it might provide independent reasons for believing/doubting the conclusion, it might deal with missing links between the evidence and the conclusion, it might deal with alternate explanations for a piece of evidence, it might deal with the trustworthiness of the evidence) - we don't have to worry about conditional logic that much. We do have to worry about Causality and Comparisons - we usually have to add a little common sense in order to explain to ourselves how the correct answer impacts the argument - there might be more than one answer choice that goes in the desired direction, in which case we need to assess which of those answers is stronger / has more impact.
I don't care about the logic makeup. The question about conscious beliefs is bullshit wording. There's nothing to suggest that you can't focus on both the unconscious and conscious beliefs. If you focus on the conscious beliefs, it is an effective treatment because it focuses on the conscious control. This is a perfect example of why this test is fucking stupid. As for B, just because it makes it more difficult for the psychotherapy to be effective, does not make the psychotherapy inherently more effective or ineffective than any other. Stupid question with a stupid answer.
