Prep Test 17

KAPLAN LSAT PREP

LSAT RELEASED TEST XVII EXPLAINED A Guide to the December, 1995 LSAT

KAPLAN The answer to the test question.

1996 Stanley H. Kaplan Educational Center Ltd All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by photostat, microfilm, xerography or any other means, or incorporated into any information retrieval system, electronic or mechanical, without the written permission of Stanley H. Kaplan Educational Center Ltd.

SECTION I: LOGIC GAMES

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LSAT PREP ______________________________________________________________ LSAT Test XVII Explained: Section I

GAME 1 — Seven Appointments (Q. 1-5) The Action: We’re asked to order the appointments for seven patients—P, Q, R, S, T, U, and W. These appointments have been chronologically numbered, 1 through 7, by the test makers. This should give you a big clue as to what your setup should look like. The Key Issues will be: 1) What patient has what appointment? 2) What patient’s appointment can, must, or cannot be consecutive with what other patient’s appointment? The Initial Setup: Keep this simple. The appointments are numbered 1 to 7, so the intuitive way to represent this is, almost certainly, to write the numbers 1 through 7 across the page from left to right. Remember to keep a roster of the patients somewhere:

PQRSTUW 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

The Rules: 1) Recognize that this rule does not mean that Q must have the appointment immediately before W (although she could). This just says that Q’s appointment must come sometime before W’s. Be sure you get the order right. Shorthand this by drawing a Q, a few dots to the right of it, and then a W. 2) Second rule, same as the first. Again, be sure you have the correct order. Draw a U, a few dots following it, and then a P. 3) Build this directly into your sketch. Either R or T will always have appointment number 3. Under the 3 in your sketch, draw “R or T.” 4) At first this rule may have looked complex, but all it’s saying is that R and S must have consecutive appointments. The specific order of their appointments is up for grabs, however. Draw “RS or SR” to give yourself a reminder. Key Deductions: There’s not a lot more to deduce, because the rules have little in common. Just be sure that you understand the workings of each rule. In a game as straightforward as this, if you mess up a rule, you can lose quite a few easy points.

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It’s always a good idea to try to identify the most important entity or entities—the ones that promise the most help. Normally, that’s the one or two entities mentioned multiple times in the rules. However, in games like this one, where no entity is mentioned twice, you should also pay special attention to the most concrete rules. Here, only R and T are tied to an appointment. Rule 3 told us that either R or T must go in slot 3. This is a big hint that R and T are going to be the most important entities. In other words, throughout the game you will be dealing with whether R or T will be the one to go in appointment 3, so that promises to be a good jumping-off-point and head start in the questions to follow. The Final Visualization: Here’s what you have as you go on to the questions:

PQRSTUW 1

2 Q...W

3 R or T

4 U...P

5

6

7

SR or RS

The Big Picture: • When a game gives you a clue about the setup (as it does here with “chronologically numbered 1 through 7” in the opening paragraph), use it. The game is announcing its action and its type. • Never rush through your work on the opening paragraph and rules. You need a proper foundation in order to make any game work. If you reversed the order in either of the first two rules, you’re sunk. You know that the testmakers figure on some examinees' mixing them up. Why should that be you? • Be sure to take a few seconds, before you jump into the questions, to review the rules and ask yourself: What is likely to be most significant?—Which entities and rules are the most helpful or concrete? Which of the entities or rules should I appeal to first, in any given question?

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The Questions: 1. (E) Use this acceptability question to test your grasp of the game’s inner workings. Follow the Kaplan technique and compare each rule against each choice, eliminating all the choices that violate a rule. (A) has P before U, which is the opposite of Rule 2. (B) has someone other than R or T in appointment 3. That’s a no-no according to Rule 3. (C) separates R and S, which we know is not allowed according to Rule 4. (D) has W before Q, which is verboten according to Rule 1. We’re left with our answer, choice (E). • Acceptability questions are extremely helpful. Besides offering a quick'n'easy point, they offer a golden opportunity to practice working with the rules and entities. By the end of such a question, you are given one situation that works within the game’s parameters (the correct answer), and you’re also given four situations that violate the rules (the wrong answer choices)...all of which will help you better understand the rest of the game. 2. (E) The stem puts W in appointment 2 and P in appointment 5. It also tells you that you’re looking for the choice that must be true, so the four wrong answers either could be true or cannot be true. What rule has W in it? Rule 1 says that Q has an earlier appointment than W. The only appointment before W, who takes appointment 2, is 1. Which rule contains P? Rule 2 says that U must precede P. P is in 5, Rule 3 tells us that either R or T is in 3, so the only place for U is in appointment 4. Scan the choices. Is “Q in 1” or “U in 4” a choice? Sure it is. U is in 4, choice (E). If you didn't stop to check the choices at that point, you probably continued on, and recognized that assigning R to appointment 3 won't fly—that would separate R from S (Rule 4). So T will take appointment 3, leaving R and S to slots 6 and 7, in either order. Now that everything's done, it's clear that (E) must be true and that (B) and (D) are both false, while (A) and (C) are only possibly true. • Whenever you’ve deduced something new, stop and scan the choices to see if your new deduction is an answer choice. Often (as is the case here) you can take the deductions further, but it’s a waste of time to do more work than is needed to get the answer. • If you had reversed the order of the entities in Rule 1 or Rule 2, this is the question where you might have picked up on your mistake. If this happens on test day, don’t waste time beating yourself up about it. Be grateful for catching your mistake in time to do something about it.

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3. (B) Like question 2, in this “must be true” question, the four wrong answer choices either could be true or absolutely must be false. Don’t just stare at this stem, your eyes glazing over; get the new information down in your test booklet. Take your time and be sure you get the order right. You should have written “TUR.” In what rules have you seen these entities before? They’re in plenty of them; let’s start with Rule 4. S has to be next to R, and since U is on one side of R, S must be on the other. Now we have a group of 4 entities, “TURS.” Where else are these entities mentioned? Rule 3 told us that either T or R must take appointment 3. Both R and T are in the group of four. This has “limited option” written all over it. Whenever you can narrow things down to two or three possibilities, it’s almost always worth it to go ahead and work them out. With R is 3: T will have to take appointment 1, U in 2, R in 3, and S in 4. We’re left with P, Q, and W. As long as Q is before W (as Rule 1 mandates), these three will fill out the 5, 6, 7 slots. “Option 1,” as it were, looks like this:

1 T

2 U

3 R

4 S

5 (P)

6 7 (Q . . . W)

For the second possibility, T in slot 3, just move the “TURS” foursome over and get T in 3, U in 4, R in 5, and S in 6. Go back to the rules. Rule 2 says that P must follow U, and the only appointment left after U is 7. Q and W are left to take appointments 1 and 2. Rule 1 says that Q goes before W, so Q gets appointment 1 and W appointment 2. Everything is set in this “Option 2.” Here’s what it looks like:

1 Q

2 W

3 T

4 U

5 R

6 S

7 P

With both of these options fully flushed out, it should be a simple (and quick) matter of checking each choice. (A) In the first option, P could be in 5, Q in 6, and W in 7. (A) doesn’t have to be true and is not the answer. (B) In the first option, S is in 4 and P must be in 5, 6, or 7. In the second option, S is in 6 and P is in 7. S must precede P. Either way, choice (B) is true, and on test day you'd choose it and move on. For the record, we’ll go through why the remaining choices needn’t be true. (C) In the second option, we see that not only is S not immediately before Q, S is actually after Q. (D) Stay in the second option, where W (in appointment 2) doesn't immediately precede P (which takes appointment 7), and you see why (D) needn't be true. (E) Back to the first option; S is in 4 and W is in 6 or 7 (Q must be before it, so W can’t be in 5). W needn’t precede S.

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• When you can narrow down the number of possibilities to three or fewer, it usually pays to go ahead and work them out. The time you spend will be more than made up for when you can blow through the choices. • It’s never a waste of time to recopy a master sketch. Indeed, recopying is an excellent, time-efficient way to set up a clean framework for a question AND get a rules brushup besides. However, while recopying a sketch is no trouble at all, rethinking it from scratch is deadly. And so, to facilitate recopying: • ...It's crucial that you keep your master sketch neat and untouched. It represents the basic workings of the game before any extra information has been added, and you need to be able to consult it throughout the game. 4. (B) In this “could be true EXCEPT” question, four of the answer choices either could be true or must be true; the choice we’re looking for will be the one that is false. Depending on how you felt your time management was going, you may have decided to skip this question on your first go-around. Since four choices will work within the games setup, you can probably count on spending a lot of time here. The question stem tells us that P immediately precedes S. Where else have we seen P and S? Rule 4 demands that R be next to S. P is on one side of S, so R must be on the other. Rule 2 says that U must be before P (maybe right before P, maybe not). So that gives us “U . . . PSR.” We’re used to deciding whether R or T goes in the 3 slot, so let’s look there next. Can R go in 3? Nope. At least U, P, and S are before R. No way to put R in the 3 slot, so T must go there. Now, where can we put the “U . . . PSR” block? PSR are all together, so they can’t take the 1, 2 slots. These three will have to follow T in the 4, 5, 6 or 5, 6, 7 slots. U can go anywhere as long as it precedes P. Q and W will fill in the leftovers as long as Q precedes W as Rule 1 requires. Now let’s check out the choices. (A) The ordering U, Q, T, P, S, R, W works and shows that R can immediately precede W. Since (A) can be true, it's not the answer. (B) If T immediately precedes Q, then T is in 3, Q is in 4, and our PSR block must occupy 5, 6, and 7, respectively. But Rule 1 says that W comes after Q, and we have no slots left after Q. (B) is impossible and is the answer. Quickly, here are the orderings that show that the remaining choices all could be true. (C) and (E) are both true in: Q, W, T, U, P, S, R. (D) is true in: U, Q, T, W, P, S, R. • Learn to ask yourself the important questions, such as: “In what rules have I seen this entity?,” and “Where does this new information lead me now?”

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• Earlier, we discussed identifying the aspects of a game that promise to be the most important. Notice that in every question so far, you’ve had to place either R or T in appointment 3. By now, doing so should be second nature. After you’ve incorporated any new information into a question, you should immediately ask yourself “O.K., now what about R and T? Which one takes slot 3 this time?” 5. (D) Another “must be true” question, so the four wrong answer choices will be things that could be true or must be false. From the stem we get (make sure you get the order right) “PTW.” In what rules have we seen these entities? Rules 1 and 2 mean that Q and U must go somewhere before our “PTW” block. Now, as usual, who will take slot 3, R or T? Here we have Q, U, and P who must all precede T. T can’t be in 3, so R must take that appointment. The “PTW” block must follow R in either 4, 5, 6 or 5, 6, 7. But remember Rule 4. S must take the 2 or 4 slot in order to be next to R. Q and U have to precede “PTW,” so S, Q, and U will fill in the 1, 2, 4 slots. The only possibility for our “PTW” block is in slots 5, 6, and 7. (A) R is in 3 and W is in 7. W comes after R, not before. (B) U could take slot 4. U needn’t precede R. (C) U in 2 and S in 4 fulfills all the requirements and shows that S does not have to come before U. (D) R is in 3 and P is in 5. Indeed, R must precede P. (D) must be true and is the answer. (E) S in 2 and Q in 4 shows that (E) doesn’t have to be true. • Don’t rush through complex or unusual question stems. Take the time to work carefully with the information and get it down correctly on paper. From there, test the new information against the rules and you’ll find the answer. If you don't take your time and don’t proceed with care, what’s the point?—you won't end up with a right answer anyhow, and all you'll have achieved is wasted time and frustration. • Checking each answer choice is always an option available to you, but actively pursuing an answer is almost always the better option, because it’s quicker and more direct. Even here where you finally had to check the choices, we managed to greatly reduce the time required through our solid deductive work on the new information.

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LSAT PREP ______________________________________________________________ LSAT Test XVII Explained: Section I

GAME 2 — Employee Committees (Q. 6-12) The Action: We’re called on to distribute six employees among three committees—Policy, Quality, and Sales. Each committee has three employees per committee for a total of nine. The six employees are divided up into officers—F, G, and H—and supervisors—k, l, and m (we’ll use CAPS for the officers and lowercase for the supervisors to keep them separate). The Key Issues will deal with: 1) What employee is on what committee? 2) What employee can, must, or cannot be on the same committee as what other employee? 3) What employee can, must, or cannot be on more than one committee? Key Issue 3) comes about because we have six employees filing nine committee slots. This is the first thing you had to recognize: There are more slots to fill than people to fill ‘em, so some employees must sit on more than one committee. The Initial Setup: Keep this setup very simple. Get the committees down and the number of employees in each. That and making a note of the employees is all that’s needed at this stage:

OFFICERS F G H

supervisors k l m

Policy

Quality

Sales

___ ___ ___

___ ___ ___

___ ___ ___

The Rules: 1) Each of the three committees must contain at least one of our officers. Make a note of this under each committee in your sketch. 2) Basically a loophole-closer but very necessary. No employee will be left out of the game. 3) Huh? You probably blinked on this one. Can it possibly be that helpful? Yep: All three officers fill out the Policy committee, so go ahead and write them in. 1/3 of the game’s work is over. Just be sure that you remember that the officers aren’t done: They can still go on other committees (and, in fact, we need at least one officer per committee, as per Rule 1). 4) G, an officer, can’t be on the same committee as l, a supervisor. Write “No Gl” as a reminder. Saying it to yourself (silently) a couple of times may cement it. Wherever we place G, l must go elsewhere, and vice versa.

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5) A good, solid, concrete rule; we can go ahead and write k into the Sales committee. Remind yourself that k can still go on the Quality committee if need be. Key Deductions: What originally looked like a grouping game with three groups, turns out to be a game with only two groups: The Policy committee is filled. The main thing to keep in mind is the flexibility in this game. Just because one of the employees is assigned to a committee, doesn’t mean that she or he can’t join an additional committee. You may or may not have picked up on one additional bit of deductive thinking that goes like this: Every entity must join at least one committee (thanks to Rule 2). The only entities not placed in a committee by the rules are l and m, and of course, as supervisors, they are closed out of the Policy committee. Of the three slots in the Sales committee, k takes one and an officer takes another so, at most, one slot in Sales is available for l and m. Meanwhile, on the Quality committee, one slot is occupied by an officer; therefore, at most two slots are available for l and m. When all is said and done: Where are l and m serving? There are only three possibilities. l in Quality, m in Sales; m in Quality, l in Sales; or both l and m in Quality. In all of these possibilities, we see that either l or m (or both) must join the Quality committee. So we can enter “l or m” over one of our Quality committee spaces: At least one of that pair must be in the Quality committee. This is tricky thinking, but it proves very useful with question 10 in particular, and throughout the game. The Final Visualization: Here’s what we have going into the questions:

OFFICERS F G H Policy _F_ _G_ _H_ Off.

supervisors k l m

Quality

Sales

___ _l/m_ ___ Off.

___ _k_ ___ Off.

NEVER G l

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The Big Picture: • Pay special attention to the numbers aspect of every game. The minimums and maximums required in a game are always important—especially in games, like this one, where the entities can occupy more than one spot. • Always move from what you’re told or you realize CANNOT be true, to what MUST be true. Don’t wallow in negativity! Drive the information to what is certain. That’s what games work is all about. The Questions: 6. (D) The word “acceptability” isn’t used in this stem, but it’s an acceptability question all the same. The phrase “can be assigned together” is the big tipoff. We’re dealing with the Sales Committee, so take what we know about that committee and look at each choice. Rule 5 told us that k must go on the Sales committee, so axe (A) and (B), which don’t include her. Rule 4 prohibits G and l from being on the same committee, and down goes (C). Rule 1 requires at least one officer on each committee, so (E), which tries to get away with three supervisors, can be crossed off. We’re left with (D), the answer. • We’ve said it before: Got to love those acceptability questions. One of the few nice things the test makers ever did was to make acceptability questions a standard part of games. 7. (C) In a “must be true” question, the four wrong choices either can be true or must be false. We’re given two pieces of information, so start with the one that’s more concrete, and here it’s that H is in only one committee. H is already on the Policy committee, so that’s it for H—it’ll be left to G and F to take care of the other two committees. The second piece of info is that F and m must be separated. m has to be somewhere, so whatever committee m is on, the only officer left to join m is G. Rule 4 says that G and l can’t be on the same committee, so l will have to be on the other committee with F. Who can fill in the remaining slot in each committee? H is out of the running, according to the stem. F can’t join the Gm committee (the stem says no Fm) and neither can l (Rule 4, again). The only employee who can join Gm is k. What about the Fl committee? Again, the stem rules out m (no Fm), and Rule 4 says no G. Again, only k can join Fl. The Policy committee is F, G, H (as always). We don’t know exactly which threesome is on which of the two remaining committees, but one will be G, m, k, and the other will be F, l, k. We see that (C) must be true, k is on exactly two committees. (A) No. G, m, k could be on the Sales committee. (B) No, F, l, k could be on the Quality committee.

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(D) No, l is on exactly one committee, either Sales or Quality. (E) No, m is on exactly one committee, either Sales or Quality. • Don’t worry if you can’t figure out everything in a question. Here, for instance, you don’t know which group was in the Sales committee and which was in the Quality committee. You don’t have to. When you’ve deduced something and hit a lull, go to the answer choices. • When you receive two pieces of information in a question stem, deal with them one at a time, starting with the one that’s most concrete. 8. (B) In this “CANNOT be true” question, we’re looking for the choice that must be false. The four wrong choices either must be true or can be true. In questions like this with no new information, it’s worth the time to scan the answer choices, keeping the rules in mind. (B) and (C) should spring out as likely candidates, since assigning anyone to all 3 committees radically restricts the other assignments—perhaps fatally. Can G or H sit on all three committees? What rules mention G or H? Rule 1 mentions H, but only to included H on the Policy committee. G, on the other hand, is part of Rule 1 and Rule 4. Rule 4 says that G and l must be separated—and there you have it. Every employee (l included) must sit on at least one committee. Since l and G can’t sit on the same committee, whatever committee l is on cannot also include G. G cannot sit on all three committees; (B) must be false and is the answer. Here are the committee groups that show that each wrong choice could be true: (A) Policy: F, G, H; Quality: G, m, k; Sales: H, l, k (C) Policy: F, G, H; Quality: H, m, k; Sales: H, l, k (D) and (E) Policy: F, G, H; Quality: F, l, m; Sales: F, l, k • The “active” way into a question—trying to deduce and pre-phrase an answer directly—is usually the fastest. But if you can’t see one, don’t despair, because you can always try out the choices hands-on. Don’t be leery of trial and error. Generally, if you try, you won’t err. • Get in the habit of scanning the choices in advance of working on the question. Doing so lets you recognize exactly what’s being asked, and will give you a clue as to how much work will be enough, which in turn saves valuable time. Why do more work, and spend more time, than necessary?

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9. (E) Another “must be true” question; the four wrong choices either could be true or must be false. Another stem with two pieces of information. Starting with the more concrete, F sits on three committees, so beyond just Policy, F also sits on Quality, and on Sales with k. As for G sitting on two committees, that would be Policy (as always) plus either Quality or Sales—leave it at that for the moment. Recognize that l and m are the only ones not yet assigned to a committee. Rule 4 dictates that whatever committee G sits on, l must sit on the other. So we’re down to two “limited options.” If G is on Quality, then l must fill out Sales with F and k. That leaves m to fill out Quality with G and F. Option 1 looks like this: Policy: F, G, H; Quality: F, G, m; Sales: F, k, l Alternatively, we could put G on Sales. l must go on Quality, and m is left to fill out Quality. Option 2 looks like this: Policy: F, G, H; Quality: F, l, m; Sales: F, G, k Now, just check the choices against these two options, and we see that no matter what, m sits on the Quality committee. (E) must be true and is the answer. (A) In the second option, we see that G needn’t be on the Quality committee. (B) In the first option, we see that G needn’t be on the Sales committee. (C) Actually in both options, k can only be on the Sales committee. (D) In the second option, we see that l needn’t be on the Sales committee. • When faced with two or three “limited options,” work them out in your test booklet. Why try to figure them out in your head, when you can quickly work them out in front of you where they can be easily referenced?

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10. (E) Another “acceptability” question; this time we’re looking for an acceptable Quality committee. Here’s where the extra thinking up front pays off. We’ve already deduced that either l or m must be on the Quality committee. (If you don’t remember how, look back at Key Deductions.) The right answer must include either l or m or both, so right away cross off (A), (B), and (C). None of them include the needed l or m. From there treat this like a normal “acceptability” question. Compare each rule against each choice. (D) tries to put G and l together which is a violation of Rule 4. (E) is all that’s left and is the answer. • Even if you didn’t make the “l or m in Quality” deduction, you could have still eliminated (A), (B), and (C) just by keeping in mind the numbers aspect of the game. We know that all of the employees must be used, and l and m are the only “floaters” in this game. (A), (B), and (C) are all guilty of not leaving enough space for l and m to sit on a committee. You could have tested each choice, but it’s quicker to axe them all in one fell swoop. 11. (E) Another “must be true” question, and again the four wrong choices either can be true or must be false. The stem says that l is on two committees. The only two open to l are Quality and Sales (Policy is full of officers). Rule 4 rules out G from being the officer in either of these committees, so either F or H will fill those slots. k is still on Sales, so that committee is full with l, k, and either F or H. Meanwhile, m has yet to be assigned a committee, so it must be Quality. Quality is now full with l, m, and either F or H. Scan the choices. We see that m must sit on the Quality committee, and (E) is the answer. (A) It could be H that is on the Sales committee. (B) Absolutely not. Since l in on Sales, no way that G could be too. (C) It could be F that is on the Quality committee. (D) Nope. k is on Sales. The Quality committee is F or H, l, and m. • Don’t let the testmakers throw you with vague hints. Turn what’s vague into something definite. They tell you that “l is assigned to exactly two committees.” Fine; but it’s your job to figure out which two. Take command!

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12. (B) Like question 8, in this “CANNOT be true” question, the four wrong answers either can be true or must be true. To prove a choice wrong, all we have to do is find an instance that shows that the choice can be true. Here’s where your previous work comes in handy. Review the previous questions. If a situation could be true then, it can be true now and may be crossed off. (A) Question 11 showed that the following grouping was possible: Policy: F, G, H; Quality: H, l, m; Sales: H, l, k. In this setup, F and G sat on exactly one committee. It could be true then, it can be true now. Cross off (A). (B) If F and H are on exactly one committee, then that committee must be Policy (Rule 3 has already placed them there). Rule 1 says that each committee must have at least one officer, and the only officer left is G. G goes on both Quality and Sales. But l must join at least one of these two committees (everyone must be used), yet Rule 4 prohibits putting G and l together. Answer choice (B) cannot be true and is the answer. For the record, here are why the remaining choices don’t measure up: (C) Back to Question 11 where we saw the following grouping: Policy: F, G, H; Quality: F, l, m; Sales: F, l, k. There we saw G and H sitting on exactly one committee. It could be true then, it can be true now. Eliminate (C). (D) The following grouping shows that F and M can be on the Sales committee: Policy: F, G, H; Quality: H, l, k; Sales: F, k, m. (E) The following grouping shows that G and K can be on the Quality committee: Policy: F, G, H; Quality: G, k, m; Policy: F, k, l. • Use your previous work whenever possible. Of course, that’s a natural argument for leaving your various sketches untouched. If you redraw your sketch as needed, all of your work will be there whenever it’s needed. Don’t erase anything but your errors (if any).

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GAME 3 — A Day’s Meals (Q. 13-17) The Action: In this straightforward, eerily familiar game (take a look at “Seasonal Sports” from PrepTest XIV, section 1, Game 4 if you need more practice on EXACTLY this kind of game), we’re called on to match up two people, Vladimir and Wendy, with the food—fish, hot cakes, macaroni, poached eggs, or omelet—that each eats during one day’s four meals: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack. The Key Issues will, predictably, be: 1) What foods can Vladimir and Wendy eat for each meal? 2) What foods can’t Vladimir and Wendy eat for each meal? The Initial Setup: Set up a little schedule:

Brkfst

Lunch

Dinner

Snack

Vlad Wendy

The Rules: Start with the most concrete rule. You’ll find it way down there at the bottom. 7) For lunch, Wendy eats an omelet. Great, build it right into the schedule. 1) This rule is huge because it greatly restricts the possibilities in this game. For each meal, Vladimir and Wendy will eat different foods. This is why it’s best to start with the most concrete rule. We just placed a big “O” for omelet in Wendy’s lunch slot with Rule 7 (what Wendy, no hamburger?). Now we can put rule 1 into effect. Vladimir cannot have an omelet for his lunch food. He must choose between fish, hot cakes, and macaroni. As far as the rest of the game goes, this is a rule that will have to be uppermost in your consciousness, along with:

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2) Not only do Wendy and Vladimir not duplicate each other’s food in a meal—the better to share and sample, I guess—but neither person eats the same thing twice. Again—nothing much to draw here; it’s a fact that has to stay alive in your brain throughout. 3) The only foods that Vladimir and Wendy can eat for breakfast are hot cakes, poached eggs, and omelet. Note that since Wendy eats an omelet for lunch, Rule 2 means that she can’t eat an omelet for breakfast. Enter her remaining possibilities into the schedule. 4) The only foods available for lunch are fish, hot cakes, macaroni, and omelet. We know Wendy eats an omelet here, so Rule 1 prohibits Vladimir from having an omelet as well. List his remaining possibilities on the schedule. 5) For dinner, the two must choose among fish, hot cakes, macaroni, and omelet. Rule 2 is still in effect—Wendy has had her omelet for the day—so list each person’s remaining possibilities. 6) Only fish and omelet may be eaten for the snack. This is big. Having gotten an omelet for lunch, Wendy is left to have fish here. Rule 1 demands that Vladimir have something different from Wendy, so Vladimir’s snack is omelet. Enter both facts on the schedule. Key Deductions: By dealing with the most concrete rule (Rule 7) first, we were able to do most of our deducing as we went along. We’ve done some excellent thinking and should be prepared to blow through the questions. Before hitting the questions though, you can and should narrow things down a bit further. We deduced both snack orders: Wendy eats fish and Vladimir eats an omelet. Remember Rule 2: Wendy eats fish for her snack, so fish is unavailable for her throughout the rest of the day. Vladimir eats an omelet, so that’s out for him. Omelet is already out for Wendy since she eats one for her lunch. This means that omelet can be crossed off for both people throughout the day. The Final Visualization: Here is our extremely useful master sketch:

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Brkfst

Lunch

Dinner

Snack

Vlad

H/P

F, H, M

F, H, M

O

Wendy

H/P

O

H/M

F

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The Big Picture: • Don’t be intimidated when there’s a large number of rules. They may look scary on the page, but actually, a large number of rules normally makes for a much more manageable game. Some games with fewer rules turn out to be more difficult because they’re much more ambiguous and abstract—they tell you less, so they help you less. • What type of sketch you use is, of course, up to you. Just always be sure that your scratchwork is accurate and neat. Its purpose, remember, is to remind you of the rules quickly and accurately. Sloppiness, or sloppy thinking, undermines both goals. • Many games hinge on the rules that CANNOT effectively be drawn. Here, no scratchwork is going to help you remember that Vladimir and Wendy never have the same food at the same meal (Rule 1), and that neither eats the same food twice (Rule 2). You either understand those facts and carry them with you, or you fumble, crash, and burn. This is one big reason why the Kaplan methods—which stress thinking, and emphasize scratchwork as an aid to thinking—are so superior to those who tell you that in games, “drawing is all.” The Questions: 13. (E) A “must be true” question with no new information is almost always testing a big deduction. We made the extra deductions that Wendy eats fish for her snack and Vladimir eats an omelet for his (look above if you need a reminder of the work). The test makers chose the former as choice (E). • If you didn’t make any big deductions upfront, seeing this “must be true” question with no new information is a big clue that you need to go back and look at the rules and setup closer. 14. (D) What must Vladimir eat? Again, this question is most likely testing our big deduction about Vladimir. The only thing we know for certain about his daily diet is that he eats an omelet for his snack, choice (D). • It should be very clear to you how important it is to take the time upfront to think through all possible deductions. We’ve just been able to blow through the first two questions in around a half a minute total.

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LSAT PREP ______________________________________________________________ LSAT Test XVII Explained: Section I

15. (D) In this “could be true” question, the four wrong choices must be false. This question benefits from a quick redrawing of the master sketch. Looking at the sketch, we see that the only meal during which Wendy can eat macaroni is dinner. Write an “M” in her dinner square. Rule 1 means that macaroni is out for Vladimir’s dinner. The only other meal where Vlad can eat the needed macaroni is lunch. Write an “M” in his lunch square. Back to Rule 2 which dictates that macaroni is now off-limits for both people in all of the other meals. Note the possibilities and here’s our new sketch:

Brkfst

Lunch

Dinner

Snack

Vlad

H/P

M

F/H

O

Wendy

H/P

O

M

F

Now, it’s a simple matter to check each choice against our new sketch and find the one that can be true. We see that Wendy could indeed eat hot cakes for breakfast. Choice (D) could be true and is the credited answer. (A), (B), and (C) Vladimir eats macaroni for lunch, only. (E) Wendy eats macaroni for dinner. • Don’t hesitate to redraw your master sketch when needed. It is crucial that you keep the original untouched. Messy work leads to messy thinking which leads to missed points.

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16. (B) Another “could be true” question, so the four wrong choices must be false. Follow this chain of reasoning carefully: If Wendy doesn’t eat macaroni, then the only food left for her dinner is hot cakes. Since she eats hot cakes for dinner, she can’t eat them for her breakfast. The only food left for her breakfast is poached eggs. Wendy eats poached eggs for breakfast, so Vlad can’t eat them. The only food left for Vlad’s breakfast is hot cakes. Vlad eats hot cakes for breakfast, so he can’t eat them for any other meal. Here’s what this incarnation of the master sketch looks like:

Brkfst

Lunch

Dinner

Snack

Vlad

H

F/M

F/M

O

Wendy

P

O

H

F

Once again, it’s a simple matter to check the choices and find the one that could be true. Vladimir could eat fish for lunch, and (B) is the answer. (A) and (D) No, Vladimir eats hot cakes for breakfast; Wendy eats the poached eggs. (C) No, since Vladimir eats hot cakes for breakfast, the only foods open to him for lunch are fish and macaroni. (E) No, Wendy eats hot cakes for dinner. • Again, don’t be afraid to redraw your sketch. The worst thing you can do is to sit and stare at a question because you don’t think it’s worth your time to redraw.

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LSAT PREP ______________________________________________________________ LSAT Test XVII Explained: Section I

17. (B) In a “cannot be true” question, the four wrong answers are either possibly true, or definitely so. Wendy eats poached eggs for breakfast, so Vladimir can’t eat them. The only other option for his breakfast is hot cakes. Now hot cakes are unavailable for the rest of his day. Scan the choices and (B) should leap out at you. We just said that Vladimir has hot cakes for breakfast. Rule 2 is still alive and strong, so he can’t eat hot cakes at any other meal. (B) cannot be true and is the answer. All of the other choices are quite possible in this situation. • This game is a virtual carbon copy of the “Seasonal Sports” game from PrepTest XIV. This is a MAJOR argument for using past PrepTests along with Kaplan’s explanations to help prepare for your exam. The test takers who knew “Seasonal Sports” backward and forward reported crushing this game when it appeared on their test. One student said that he had to stifle a laugh when he turned the page and saw Wendy and Vladimir. Guess which of the four games he did first?

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GAME 4 — Two Relay Teams (Q. 18-24) The Action: In this game, you need to distribute eight people—Jack, Karen, Laura, Mark, Nick, Owen, Peggy, and Ruth—among two four-person teams—team X and team Y. There is an added twist. Once the people are assigned to a team, the four members of each team are placed into four legs of the race. We’re also told that the teams run their legs at the same time. The Key Issues of this grouping/sequencing hybrid are: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6)

What people are on what team? What people run what leg on their team? What people can, must, or cannot be on the same team as what other people? What people can, must, or cannot run consecutive legs with what other people? What people can, must, or cannot run an earlier leg than what other people What people can, must, or cannot run the same leg as what other people?

The Initial Setup: We have two teams with four legs per team. What would be the natural way to set this up? A simple way would be to write “X” and “Y” for the teams with four dashes under each for the legs. Remember to list the people off to the side:

JKLMNOPR Team X

Team Y

___ ___ ___ ___

___ ___ ___ ___

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

The Rules: A concrete rule sits in the middle of the pack: 4) Mark and Nick are on team Y. Great; build them right into your master sketch under Y, but remember that you don’t yet know which leg each runs on team Y. 1) Jack will be on the same team as Karen. You can jot down “Always J K” as a reminder, or wait one rule and you’ll be able to deduce something concrete. 2) Karen will be on one team and Nick will be on the other. From Rule 4 we know that Nick is on team Y, so Karen must be on team X. Rule 1 just told us that Karen and Jack are on the same team, so put them both on team X.

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LSAT PREP ______________________________________________________________ LSAT Test XVII Explained: Section I

3) Take your time and think this rule through; it’s tricky. Ruth and Peggy don’t necessarily have to be on the same team, but Ruth must run an earlier leg than Peggy. (Do a “What If” if you need some further clarification. Imagine that Ruth is on team X and Peggy is on team Y. If Ruth is running the 3rd leg on team X, then Peggy must run the 4th leg on team Y.) Anyhow, write down “R . . . P” to serve as a reminder always to schedule R before P. 5) We can put this rule directly into the master sketch since we know that Jack is on team X and Mark is on team Y. Under team X’s 3rd leg write “No J,” and under team Y’s 3rd leg write “No M.” 6) Karen and Laura run the 2nd leg. We know Karen is on team X, and there are only two 2nd legs, so if Karen is running the 2nd leg on team X, then Laura must be running the 2nd leg on team Y. Build them both directly into your sketch. 6) Hmmm. We don’t know which team Owen is on, but wherever he is, he’s going to run 4th. Write “Owen runs 4th” or something similar to remind you. Key Deductions: You could spend your time working out countless “What Ifs” about the arrangement of runners and legs. But doing so is pointless. Wait for the questions to provide more concrete information that will kick off more deduction. The Final Visualization: Here’s the final master sketch:

JKLMNOPR

R...P Owen runs 4th

Team X J+2 ___ _K_ ___ ___ 1st

22

2nd

3rd 4th No J

Team Y M N +1 ___ _L_ ___ ___ 1st

2nd

3rd No M

4th

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The Big Picture: • Once again we see the value of starting with the most concrete rule. All of the other rules usually make much more sense in the light of that one fixed point. • The setup is the time to think, above all. The drawing is secondary. Consider the implications of each rule, and if you can build it directly into your master sketch instead of rewriting it (as in Rule 6 and others), then great, do it. The Questions: 18. (A) This “must be true” with no new information has complex answer choices. You might have been best served by skipping this one your first time around. Remember that the four wrong choices either could be true or must be false. To eliminate a choice in a “must be true” question, all you have to do is find an exception. That is, find an instance where with the given conditions, the stated result isn’t the only one possible. (A) If Owen is on team X, he must run 4th (Rule 7). Jack can’t run 3rd (Rule 5) and Karen is running 2nd (Rule 6). The only leg left for Jack to take is the 1st. Choice (A) must be true and is the answer. On test day, you would stop here and go on to question 2. For the record, here are the exceptions that show the remaining choices needn’t be true: (B) and (E)

X: 1st—Jack, 2nd—Karen, 3rd—Peggy, 4th—Owen Y: 1st—Ruth, 2nd—Laura, 3rd—Nick, 4th—Mark

(C) and (D) X: 1st—Ruth, 2nd—Karen, 3rd—Peggy, 4th—Jack Y: 1st—Mark, 2nd—Laura, 3rd—Nick, 4th—Owen. • Since Owen is assigned a definite leg and Ruth and Peggy aren’t, starting with the choices that include him, those are answer choices (A) and (D), is smart. 19. (D) Ruth is on team X. Which legs could she run? Well, Rule 6 assigned Karen to the 2nd leg, so no way could Ruth run there. Whoa!: That eliminates answer choices (B), (C), and (D), all of which include the 2nd leg. Answer choices (A) and (D) are left; what is the difference between them? They both include 1st, so no need to check and see if she can run there. The only question is whether Ruth can run 3rd. Here is a complete setup that shows she can: X: 1st—Jack, 2nd—Karen, 3rd—Ruth, 4th—Peggy Y: 1st—Mark, 2nd—Laura, 3rd—Nick, 4th—Owen. Both 1st and 3rd are possibilities for Ruth, so (D) is the answer. • Keep all of the rules in mind at all stages of your work.

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LSAT PREP ______________________________________________________________ LSAT Test XVII Explained: Section I

20. (E) In a “must be true” question, the four wrong choices either could be true or must be false. Owen and Ruth are on the same team. What team? M, N, and L are already on team Y, so there’s no room for both Owen and Ruth there. They must be on team X. Peggy is left to team Y. Rule 7 forces Owen to run 4th for team X. Jack can’t run 3rd (Rule 5), so the only leg open to Jack is 1st. Ruth is left for the 3rd leg. Scanning the choices, notice that all of the entities mentioned are on team Y. We have to take our deductions a little further. Since Ruth runs 3rd, Rule 3 forces Peggy to run 4th. Stop right there and scan again. That’s enough, because we find Peggy running 4th down in choice (E). • From time to time, stop and scan the choices. You only want to deduce what’s necessary to answer the question. There are no bonus points for taking the deductions as far as possible; doing so wastes time that can be better spent elsewhere. 21. (C) In a “can be true EXCEPT” question, the four wrong choices either can be true or must be true, and the answer must be false. Since there’s no new information, there’s not much to do except try out the choices, looking to throw out the possible ones and locate the one impossibility. Consulting your previous work allows you to answer this question more quickly. In Question 20, we saw J running 1st and Owen and Peggy running 4th. That could be true then, so that can be true now: Cross off (A) and (E). In eliminating choices (B) and (E) in Question 18, we saw Mark running 4th. He could run 4th then, he can now. Eliminate (B). In that same setup, we also saw Nick and Peggy both running 3rd. They could run 3rd then, they can now. Axe (D). We’re left with (C), Nick cannot run 1st. • There’s no need to check to make certain that Nick can’t run 1st. When you’re left with one choice, that’s the answer. Keep this new information in mind throughout the rest of the questions: Nick can never run 1st. 22. (C) In a “must be true” question, the four wrong choices either could be true or must be false. If Ruth and Peggy are on the same team, what team must that be? M, N, and L are on team Y, so there’s no room for Ruth and Peggy there; they must be on team X. Team X is Jack, Karen, Ruth, and Peggy. Team Y is Laura, Mark, Nick, and Owen. As far as the ordering is concerned, Owen continues to be a good starting place since he’s set, in the 4th leg. Owen will run the 4th leg on team Y. Laura is still running 2nd. Mark can’t run 3rd, so only 1st is left for him. Nick will fill the remaining slot by running 3rd. The complete ordering for team Y is set: Y: 1st—M, 2nd—L, 3rd—N, 4th—O.

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Team X is a little more slippery, but only a little. K is set in the 2nd leg. Jack is forbidden to leg 3, so he will take either leg 1 or 4—and Ruth and Peggy will fill in the remaining slots in that order (Rule 3); Therefore: EITHER X: 1st—J, 2nd—K, 3rd—R, 4th—P OR X: 1st—R, 2nd—K, 3rd—P, 4th—J. As correct choice (C) says, Nick runs 3rd. Of the wrong choices, (B) is false—Mark runs 1st; and the others are possible only. • Keep an eye on your answer choices as you work. As soon as you’ve found a correct answer—stop! 23. (B) Questions 21 and 23 are identical; and once again we can use our previous work to seek out cases in which choices were true in the past. In the second option for Team X in question 22, we saw Jack running 4th and Ruth running 1st. Eliminate (A) and (D). In the first option for team X of that same question, we saw Peggy running 4th and Ruth running 3rd. Cross off (C) and (D). We’re left with our answer, choice (B). Nick cannot run 4th. • Use your previous work whenever possible. That’s why it’s very important that you keep it neat and unerased. 24. (B) This “must be true” question turns out to be pretty easy because we’re so used to dealing with Peggy and Ruth by now. Peggy is on the same team as Jack. That’s team X. We’re also told that she runs 3rd on this team. Karen is running 2nd as always. Where to now? Well, you should be used to dealing with Rule 3. Ruth must run earlier than Peggy. Peggy runs 3rd, and both 2nd legs are taken by Karen and Laura. So whichever team Ruth is on, she must run 1st. Scan the choices and there it is. Ruth runs 1st, choice (B). • This game, and indeed this very question, dramatically illustrates why it’s so important to manage your time well. You don’t want to miss a straightforward question like this at the end of the section, simply because you wasted time on an earlier, tougher one.

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SECTION II: LOGICAL REASONING

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1. (B) We’re told that despite the cheapness of cement’s ingredients, its price is influenced by oil’s price, the reason being the high energy needed to turn the ingredients into cement. The implication is that oil is needed for that transformation, at least in some cement making, and that’s answer choice (B). Use the Kaplan Denial Test: If choice (B) were false—if no cement kilns used oil—then how would the cost of oil have anything to do with the cost of cement? (A) The very use of the Contrast Keyword “Nevertheless” belies this inference. “Oil is nevertheless an influence, despite the cheapness of cement’s ingredients;” in other words, oil is no part of the composition of cement but a part of its cost. (C) and (D) Both choices go too far. That cement’s price is influenced by oil’s price is a modest claim, one that cannot be read as suggesting a flat-out direct (C) or inverse (D) relationship. (E) The author implies that at least one factor in cement making—the needed energy—is both separate from cement’s ingredients and relevant to cement’s cost. So (E) is a highly unlikely inference. • That which can be “logically inferred” means that which must be true based on the text. Accept no substitutes. 2. (E) This is a classic example of the reasoning error sometimes called “circular reasoning.” The conclusion is signaled by the Keyword phrase “It is clear from this that...,” and notice that what follows is just a rewrite of the previous sentence, “without self-understanding it is impossible to understand others.” (A) The flaw described in (A)—mistaking necessity for sufficiency—is an error often committed in LSAT Logical Reasoning arguments, but not in this one. We’re told a condition (self-understanding) that is necessary for a particular result (understanding others). So answer choice (A) would be correct if the argument went on to conclude that “Anyone who understands himself can understand others.” But that’s not the conclusion, of course; as answer choice (E) recognizes, the conclusion we get is just the evidence restated. (B) First of all, the first sentence does suggest that there are some people who don’t want self-understanding, but beyond that, this whole issue of wanting or not wanting selfawareness is irrelevant. The author’s concern is whether one can understand others without self-awareness. (C) No blame is assigned, and even if it were, there’s no indication that the people in question “cannot . . . be held responsible” for not understanding themselves or others. (D) There’s nothing “inherently vague” about the term “self-understanding,” even though different people could define the dimension of that understanding in different ways.

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LSAT PREP ______________________________________________________________ LSAT Test XVII Explained: Section II

• Circular reasoning—also known as “begging the question” and “assuming one’s conclusion”—is when the evidence and conclusion are functionally identical, i.e. one is just a rewrite of the other. That’s what happens here. Watch for it in the future. 3. (C) In response to his wife’s desire to sell a painting in order to pay for their daughter’s college education, the husband offers three different reasons for hanging on to the thing, but it’s the third reason that relates most to her argument and that is supported by (C). Establishing, as (C) would, that a link to the past supersedes a college education would make the husband’s argument, and recommendation about the painting, outweigh the wife’s. (A) This family has owned the painting for some time. (A)’s focus on whether or not a gift should be “accepted” is totally irrelevant to the issue at hand. (B) The husband considers the painting a horror, so (B)’s allusion to the work’s “beauty” is likewise irrelevant. (D) No “promise” such as (D) mentions is ever alluded to by either spouse, and the issue is whether the painting should be sold, not whether it should be preserved or destroyed. (E) Au contraire, of course. (E) supports the wife’s position, not that of her husband. • A “justifying principle” is one that alludes to the key issues in an argument and that affirms that the conclusion is valid. • Watch for wrong answers in principle questions to support an opposing point of view ((E) here) or to veer off into irrelevant issues ((A), (B), and (D) here). 4. (E) This is pretty much a two-for-one deal, since all (E) does is articulate Question 3 (C)’s principle in more general terms: The husband sees the family link as an “obligation” that “override[s]” the “practical consideration” of paying for college. (A) and (D) The husband doesn’t argue that her solution is either impractical or false: He doesn’t argue that the painting won’t pay for college, only that that shouldn’t be the governing consideration. (B) Since the wife doesn’t say that the painting is lovely (just that it’s valuable), the husband’s criticism is not a slur on her taste. (C) If anything, it’s the husband whose recommendation is based on emotion—sentimental value and family connections and all that—not the wife. • Never assume that when a stimulus generates two questions, the questions must necessarily focus on different things. If anything, work on one question generally helps on the other.

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5. (D) The author’s conclusion—that the archaeologists will surely be able to determine the accuracy of this year’s museum financial report—is based on their universal access to all relevant documents and, in turn, on the assumption that those documents are going to list all relevant financial transactions. But if they do not, then the reviewers’ determination of accuracy may be way off. (D) points out the possibly unwarranted assumption here. (A) The report examines only each year’s transactions; long-held pieces are irrelevant. (B) and (C) If the documents under review are complete, then the accuracy of the report will be assured; if they’re not, then it won’t. Neither the size nor quality of the collection (B), nor its availability to the public (C), will matter one way or the other. (E) True, the author doesn’t discuss what the next steps would be if discrepancies were found between the report and the documents, but he is not logically obligated to do so. The argument is simply that given the documents, the archaeologists will be able to determine the accuracy of the report—what happens after this is one step beyond the argument. • Keep your eye on the ball—which in LR means “Keep in mind the question being asked, and the scope and nature of the conclusion.” Here, the author’s conclusion isn’t about whether or not the report is accurate, but whether or not the reviewers will be able to make a determination of accuracy. Two very different things! • Don’t fault an argument for not containing a certain element if that element isn’t necessary for the logic to work. Just because a choice may be true, like (E), doesn’t necessarily means it answers the question asked. 6. (D) “Some people argue bla-bla-bla....But this is nonsense.” The sentence demands the response: How so? What’s your evidence? This alerts us that that which “is nonsense,” that which demands evidence, is almost certainly the argument’s main point. (D) has it just right: The argument that using the Moon’s helium-3 will solve Earth’s energy problems is nuts because, as sentences 3 and 4 explain, we couldn’t build the reactors that the helium-3 would fuel until too late. (A) The feasibility of mining the Moon is taken off the table by the engineer’s “Even if.” He bypasses that whole question, in order to take up his real issue, which is the feasibility of using helium-3 in time to do the world any good. (B) Current reactors are beside the point. The engineer is concerned with the reactors 50 years hence which could, conceivably, be designed to use helium-3. (C) implies that the people mentioned in line 1 are the engineer’s target, but they’re not; it’s their point of view that he objects to. Besides, fuels other than helium-3 are never mentioned, so they could hardly be part of the “main point.”

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LSAT PREP ______________________________________________________________ LSAT Test XVII Explained: Section II

(E) is the gist of the engineer’s last sentence, which is evidence for the main point, not the point itself. (If you chose (E), ask yourself: Where is the evidence supporting it? None is provided, so (E) can’t be the main point the author is trying to make.) • If no Conclusion Keyword (such as “Therefore”) jumps out at you, read the stimulus and look for a sentence that whispers (or screams) I am the author’s point of view—I demand evidence. Watch for the other sentences to provide support; the idea they all come together to support will be your conclusion. • Remember that the author’s conclusion can appear anywhere—at the beginning, middle, or end. That decision is a matter of taste and style, not of logic. 7. (C) The stem tells us we’ll be looking for a statement that strengthens the argument, so the first step, as always, is to break down the argument into evidence, conclusion, and assumptions. Smack dab in the middle of the stimulus, highlighted by the always reliable structural signal “therefore,” the author tells us the conclusion: “The government should therefore institute a program” to test the toxin level in the fish eaten by the seabirds killed by net fishing. The evidence appears in the other two sentences—The fishing industry currently has no incentive to report the number of seabirds actually killed by net fishing (the first sentence), and, if the program is adopted, the industry will have a reason to turn in birds because the industry will get desirable information in return (the third sentence). In other words, under the program, the author envisions a win-win situation for the government and the fishing industry. Since the argument is essentially for the creation of the program, a strengthener must bolster the need for such a program of cooperation. (C) does this nicely: If the government can’t reach its objective (an accurate count of seabirds killed by net fishing) without the cooperation of the fishing industry, a program providing an incentive for the fishing industry to help out, such as the one outlined, is essential. (A), if anything, weakens the argument, by working against the fishing industry’s incentive to cooperate. (A) makes any data that the government gives to the industry less valuable. (B) is irrelevant; it really doesn’t matter what the government has done in the past regarding tissue sampling. You might have thought that (B) weakens the argument (similar to (A)), by reasoning that if (B) were true the government might, through inexperience, have difficulty administering the program—However, this reasoning is not supported by the stimulus. In any case, it’s far from a strengthener. (D) certainly doesn’t support the idea of the program; the only effect it would have is to help destroy the incentive of the fishing industry to participate. (E) brings up a hypothetical situation, and a result of it, that are totally irrelevant to the program itself; the point is not to find out how many seabirds are killed by a reduced amount of net fishing, but to find out how many are killed under current conditions. • The conclusion, the author’s main argument, can come anywhere in the stimulus, including right in the middle. Don’t assume that it must be contained in the first or last sentence.

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• Note the way the structural signals “therefore” and “since” regulate the flow of the logic in a stimulus like this one. Use them to help you locate the conclusion and understand the gist of the author’s argument. • Recommendations, when they appear, are very often the author’s conclusion. Be on the lookout for sentences that indicate that a person or group should or must do something; chances are that this is the notion the author is ultimately trying to support. 8. (B) In this long question stem we’re asked to recognize a situation in which the program is not likely to achieve its desired result. In other words, we want to undermine the conclusion. The program relies on the fishing industry’s incentive for cooperation. Under the program, the fishing industry must hand over the dead seabirds, which yields the information that the government needs—the total number of dead seabirds. The fishing industry, in return, receives valuable information about toxin levels in fish. However, if (B) is true, then the fishing industry can secure the info it wants without turning over all of the dead seabirds, which would stymie the intent of the program to provide an accurate count of seabirds killed by net fishing. (A), (C), and (D) All of these choices deal with possible things the government may find once the seabirds are turned in, and thus all three of these choices discuss things that are beyond the scope of the argument. We’re looking for something that will affect how many seabirds are turned in—remember that the government is concerned with getting an accurate count of the seabirds that died. In order to undermine the government program, we need an answer choice that would make it likely that the number of seabirds turned in won’t reflect the actual number of seabirds killed by net fishing. None of the factors stated in these choices impacts on that issue at all. (E), like (A), (C), and (D), has no bearing on the number of seabirds turned in. The only difference is that unlike the other wrong choices, the irrelevancy in this one centers on what the government may do in a specific situation, rather than what the government may learn about the nature of contamination. • Notice the breadth of questioning on the LSAT: From the same situation, you’re asked first to support a plan of action, and then to reverse direction and recognize a reason why that plan of action may not achieve its intended result. This is very much like the thinking you’ll be required to do in law school, so strive to maintain flexibility in your thought process and to see arguments from all possible angles. This will help you not only on the LSAT, but in your legal studies as well. • Double question stimuli offer an excellent opportunity for a quick point: Having thought through the issues involved in order to answer question 7, you’re in a better position to tackle what appears to be a more complex question 8.

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9. (A) The question stem is a fancy way of asking us “so, where’s she going with this?” The first sentence begins with “some people claim . . .” and the second sentence begins with the word “yet.” Believe it or not, you can pretty much answer the question from this information alone. We know from reading the stem up front that our job is to fill in the conclusion, and the sentence structure of the first two lines should have helped you to deduce it. Think about it: If someone says to you “some people claim X,” and follows that up with the word “but” or “however” or “yet,” what do you think is going to come next? The speaker thinks NOT X!! Replace X with “elected officials must avoid the appearance of impropriety in office,” and NOT X, the conclusion that the word “yet” screams for, becomes choice (A). The rest of the stimulus supports this conclusion. The only possible reason for X (avoid appearance of impropriety) is Y (maintain public approval and popularity). No one has an obligation for Y, therefore the conclusion NOT X is confirmed (no elected official has an obligation to avoid the appearance of impropriety). (B) The author states that the only reason to avoid the appearance of impropriety is to maintain public approval. The author never states, however, that all elected officials have a vested interest in a high public approval rating. The author merely states that if officials want to maintain public approval they should avoid impropriety. Some politicians could actually have a vested interest in a low rating. Also, don’t read more into a question than exists: “vested interest” is not the same as “maintaining public approval,” and “high” public approval rating is not the same as public approval and popularity. (C) and (E) are way too specific: The author never singles out and discusses “good” elected officials (C) or “bad” elected officials (E), so any conclusions relating directly to these subgroups of elected officials is out of place in this argument. (D) The author states that the only reason an official may ever want to avoid impropriety is to maintain public approval, but this does not mean, as (D) states, that the public never approves of an official who appears to have behaved improperly. It’s possible, according to the stimulus, that an official can appear to have behaved improperly and still be approved of by the public. • Remember, there are two kinds of “conclusion” questions—ones that ask you for the author’s stated conclusion, and ones that ask you to recognize the conclusion the author is moving towards. Passages attached to the latter type are written to sound as if everything’s there but the last piece of the puzzle. Read such passages with anticipation, as if you’ll be called upon to write the last sentence that ties together the ideas of the entire stimulus. • What a great example to illustrate the power of keywords!! As described above, this entire passage turns on the “yet” at the end of the second line. Never underestimate the potential value of such a little word. • This question clearly illustrates the benefit of reading the question stem first. In this stimulus the credited response can be deduced from the first two sentences alone. If you had read the question stem and understood what you were being asked to do, you could have chosen the credited response quickly.

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10. (A) All assumptions, of course, connect evidence and conclusion. The conclusion is here signaled by “Clearly,” and the evidence basically has two components: (1) The cafeteria’s apples arrive greasy and don’t get washed. (How do you like them apples?) (2) Most fruit is sprayed with pesticides that stay dangerous until it’s washed. For (1) and (2) to combine and lead to the conclusion that the cafeteria sells dangerous pesticide-covered fruit, it has to be true that the apples don’t get a washing somewhere down the road from harvest, which is what (A) is saying. Notice that (A) passes the Kaplan Denial Test: If it’s false—if the apples are washed after harvesting—then there’d be no reason to believe that their grease has anything to do with the pesticides in the field. The fruit would still be gross, but need not be dangerous. (B) Tempting, but this one fails the Denial Test. If (B) is false—suppose that few, if any, pesticides leave a greasy residue—so what? This cafeteria’s apples could be the exception to the rule, could still be greasy and dangerous from pesticides. Since denying or negating (B) does no damage to the logic, (B) as is cannot be a necessary assumption. (C) Patrons’ awareness or lack of same has no impact on whether the apples are, or are not, dangerous and pesticide-covered. (D) can also be eliminated via the Denial Test. If, contrary to (D), one can wash off pesticides other than those that leave grease, we’d still be no closer to determining the safety of these particular apples. (E) Outside the scope: The conclusion is based on evidence about apples, and it holds up just fine with or without the existence of other greasy fruits. • You can never be reminded of the Kaplan Denial Test often enough. A necessary assumption, if denied, must contradict the text. Therefore—follow the contrapositive here—if an answer choice, when denied, fails to contradict the text, then it’s not a necessary assumption. 11. (E) Did you catch the word “needs” in P’s assertion, and did you then connect it to the concept of necessity? Q sure didn’t. She takes P’s assertion—that an effective official needs the support of a party—to mean that any official with party support will be effective. However, that which is necessary for effectiveness need not be sufficient for effectiveness, which is exactly what answer choice (E) tartly points out. All P is saying is that an independent candidate—i.e. one without a party backing him or her—can’t be effective. But Q screws that up. (A) Q does indeed offer evidence: it’s evidence that she believes to be a counterexample to P’s argument. The problem is that that evidence completely distorts what P has said about an independent candidate.

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(B) focuses on a party’s possible decision to support an independent after an election, but that has absolutely nothing to do with Q’s statement and hence cannot explain its weakness. (C) As long as P and Q agree on a definition of “effective,” and there’s no reason to believe that they do not, neither the precision nor the vagueness of that term has any impact on their disagreement. (D) is accusing Q of circular reasoning (that’s what “presupposing” one’s conclusion means). But far from presupposing P’s statement, Q is taking exception to it by presenting a counterexample. • The confusion between necessity and sufficiency is at the heart of innumerable LSAT Logical Reasoning questions. Always be watchful for it. 12. (C) What do you know even before reading the stimulus? That it’s missing some crucial concept or piece of information that’s needed for the conclusion to stand. How do you know this? From previewing the question stem—always Step 1 of the Kaplan 4-Step Approach to Logical Reasoning. The phrase, “that is because,” in the second sentence confirms the first sentence as the conclusion and the second sentence as the reason, or evidence, for that conclusion. Try the “what and why” test: What does the author say? Public health will improve (an assertion) if medical researchers don’t wait to publish their results in peer-reviewed journals and instead inform the press as soon as the findings emerge. Why will this happen? “That is because” people can use the information sooner rather than wait for the official publication. But that assumes (C); that people will use medical information that hasn’t yet been published in the journals. If they won’t, the argument that public health will improve by abandoning the waiting period associated with publishing the findings completely falls apart. Thus, the Denial Test confirms that (C) is a logical, necessary assumption of this argument. (A) and (B) Who cares who reviews the research and under what conditions they agree to do so? The argument centers on bypassing such peer review and getting the info out to the public. (D) The author argues that medical researchers should abandon the process of waiting for peer-review before announcing findings, so any info about the viability of fixing or speeding up the peer-review process is simply irrelevant to the argument. (E), if true, might strengthen the argument but is not an assumption that the author makes. (E) would support discontinuing publication in peer-reviewed journals but does not link the author’s evidence, the slow process, to that conclusion. Deny (E) and you’ll see that the conclusion could still be true—even if new medical information always receives public attention (the denial of (E)), if it takes a long time to reach the public, then we should still opt for the quicker straight to the press approach.

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• The Denial Test works both ways: It can confirm a choice as correct if the negation of that choice leads to a crumbling of the argument, and it can also help you to eliminate wrong choices that, when negated or denied, do nothing or even support the argument. 13. (A) Now that we’ve understood the argument for question 12, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find a weakener to rack up the point for question 13. The author argues that we should abandon peer-reviewed journals so that new medical discoveries can more quickly be used by the public to improve their health. In weakening this argument, we must undermine the evidence for that conclusion. In this case we need to provide a reason why expediency isn’t in the public’s best interest. In (A), the journals serve some other, more useful function—they keep potentially dangerous and ill-formed medical conclusions from reaching the street where they might negatively impact on public health. If (A) is true, a slow process is in the best interests of the public and we shouldn’t rush publication. (B) is consistent with the author’s argument; the fact that people act on the medical information they receive through the press is almost a necessary component of the argument, but technically “alter their life-styles” may be a little extreme. In any case, in no way does this weaken the argument. (C) This choice is outside the scope, plain and simple. This argument concerns improvements in public health derived from new medical information, period; other factors are irrelevant. (D), if anything, strengthens the argument by shoring up the viability of the author’s plan to publish quickly. (E) The issue isn’t peer review or no peer review— the central issue of the argument is whether the practice of informing the press of new medical findings only after peer review should be abandoned. In other words, peer-review journals can still do their thing—this in and of itself doesn’t disrupt the argument, since peer review can still be performed after the press has been notified. • It’s not enough to understand everything the author says in his or her argument— when evaluating an argument’s logic, you must also think about what the author has left out or failed to consider. Pay careful attention to the discussion in the lessons, Previews, and Reviews regarding “alternative explanations /possibilities,” and be on the lookout for the many other questions on released tests where this concept comes into play.

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14. (C) A paradox, of course, is a seeming contradiction, and at first blush it does seem as if the decrease in wood workers contradicts the increase in wood yield over the same period. One possible resolution would be greater work efficiency on the part of the workers who remained employed, but that doesn’t appear as an answer choice. The other resolution, the one we get in answer choice (C), is that the workers and the yield essentially have nothing to do with each other. Given that at least some of the 12,000 laid-off workers were wood processors, there’d be no paradox if the amount of unprocessed wood went up after those workers left. (A) Hearkening back to the 1950s does us no good, nor does the timber industry’s status relative to other industries. It’s all irrelevant. (B) presents a different inverse relationship—acres down, demand up. In and of itself this is no paradox (demand ought to go up when acreage decreases), and since answer choice (B) doesn’t relate to the worker/wood yield issue, it doesn’t help us resolve the paradox we’ve got. (D)’s domestic use vs. exported wood contrast is totally outside the scope, since the author never alludes to different potential destinations for the wood. (E) An increase in overall Ravonian unemployment that parallels the one in the timber industry gets us no closer to resolving the dilemma presented in the paragraph. • Trying to pre-phrase a correct answer to an LR question is generally a smart idea, and never more so than in Paradox questions. A few seconds’ thought about how the two seemingly contradictory phenomena can actually coexist will very often reap a quick and easy LSAT point. 15. (A) Anyone who read the question stem first would know to expect two things—the stimulus contains a “principle,” and each choice contains a “judgment.” Our job is to find the judgment amongst the choices that matches the principles in the stimulus. First, then, we need to understand the principles in the stimulus. If a morally wrong act offends humanity (a principle), and all offenses against humanity are equally bad (a second principle), then all morally wrong acts are equally bad. Now we can match the judgment in correct choice (A) to the principles in the passage: If lying is morally wrong and murder is morally wrong (the stimulus states that murder is morally wrong), these two acts must be equally bad because the first sentence states that all morally wrong acts are equally bad. (B) and (D) Risking one’s life to save lives is most likely a morally good act, while we don’t know if accidentally killing someone is considered morally bad (for the sake of this question, at least). These two choices therefore fall outside the scope of the argument, which concerns only morally wrong acts. (C) Outside the scope—”prevention” goes one step too far and is an issue that’s neither dealt with in the principles in the stimulus nor in the judgments of the choices.

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(E) In order for (E) to conform, we’d have to infer, on our own, that not saving a life in such a situation is a morally bad thing. This, however, would be unwarranted—the principles, taken together, simply state that any two things that are known to be morally bad can be considered equally bad. There’s no room in this principle for our interpretation of the moral value of various acts in specific situations. • LSAT testmakers are big on definitions. Don’t enforce your own judgments on an event if no definition is given, especially when all other events are strictly defined. For example, we don’t know where accidental death falls in the morally good / bad spectrum; chances are somewhere in the middle. But notice how strictly all the acts of consequence (murder and lying) are defined. It’s not up to you to decide for yourself if accidental death (D), or for that matter failing to save a life by refusing to kill another (E), is morally good or bad; if the testmakers wanted you to know, they would have told you. The ambiguity inherent in (D) and (E) should have scared you away from these choices quickly. 16. (B) The stimulus conclusion is about “a majority” of members of a group; for that reason only (B) and (E), which deal with “most” members of a group, need be kept in contention. You can perhaps understand the faulty logic in the stimulus best by picking a few easy numbers. Assume 100 voters. Suppose a majority—say 55 voters—vote for conservatives. Suppose that 55 voters vote for candidates supporting the antipollution bill. Do they have to be the same 55 voters in both cases? Certainly not! In fact, it’s quite possible that no more than 10 voters in one category fall into the other. (Example: 55 people vote for conservatives. The other 45 do not. Maybe all of those 45 vote for the candidates who support the antipollution bill—leaving 10 to make up the rest of the voters.) Anyhow, the two majorities mentioned in the evidence need not make up the one big majority that the conclusion indicates....and by the same token, even though most kids may like pie and most may like blueberries, the majority of kids don’t have to overlap as (B)’s conclusion suggests. There doesn’t have to be more than a small number of kids who like both pie and blueberries. (A)’s logical flaw is its assumption that what can happen when gardens are tilled and planted in wet soil (soil damage and plant rot, according to Bill and Sue) will happen. But (A) has nothing to do with necessary overlaps of majorities. (C) commits two instances of mistaking necessity for sufficiency. No rain is a requirement for Mark to go to the picnic, but it doesn’t assure his going; secondly, Mark’s attendance is a requirement for Susan’s going, but it doesn’t assure her going. (C) draws both conclusions. But necessity vs. sufficiency is not the issue at the heart of the stimulus.

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(D) only tempts because of its use of the word “majority.” The stimulus, remember, points to two separate majorities and concludes that they must overlap. (D), however, mentions one majority—the majority that orders both fish and stuffed mushrooms—and concludes that those are the dishes most frequently ordered. The flaw here is the assumption that those “who regularly eat” at the restaurant represent a huge number; after all, if the place has very few regular eaters, maybe fish and stuffed mushrooms are ordered only occasionally. But that’s not what’s going on in our stimulus. (E) starts off promisingly, with two “majorities” at Gina’s house that need not overlap— those who cook well, and those who enjoy eating well-cooked meals. (E) fails by drawing a conclusion about a different issue: The nature of the meals served at Gina’s isn’t mentioned in the evidence. That’s a logical flaw, but it’s not the same as the stimulus. • When two arguments are parallel, they draw the same kind of conclusion. Reject any choice ((A), (C), and (D) here) whose conclusion deviates from the one in the stimulus. • When a Parallel Logic question explicitly focuses on faulty logic, the wrong choices will either demonstrate proper logic, or logic flawed in a different way from that of the stimulus. (All four here happen to be of the latter type, as we’ve seen.) 17. (B) What’s wrong with the politician’s reply? The politician argues that the dispute over the definition of “wetlands” is “quibbling over semantics,” meaning that the definition doesn’t make a real difference one way or another. But this is just his opinion; no evidence is given to support the notion that how the wetlands are defined is irrelevant—it may make a whole lot of difference to the critics of the bill. For example, the politician ignores the possibility that a restrictive definition might reduce the scope of the legislation’s impact. The politician argues that the legislation would be more demanding in areas that are designated “wetlands,” but unreasonably dismisses the question of which areas will receive that protection. (A) distorts the argument. The politician does claim that the critics don’t really care about wetlands, but doesn’t make the further claim that the critics have the same motives as all the opponents of conservation. (C) Does the politician assume the critics will profit if the bill is defeated? No; that doesn’t show up anywhere in the argument. In fact, the only thing the politician accuses the critics of is not caring, and we can’t infer from that alone that he therefore assumes the critics will profit from the bill’s defeat. (D) No, it’s the critics of the proposed legislation who seem to prefer the less restrictive definition, and the politician has no duty to argue their case. (E) is out of the scope. The author of the bill is never mentioned, and therefore his or her credibility is not an issue.

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• Focus on the scope of the argument, putting it in your own words. Wrong answer choices often change the scope by distorting terms or adding new considerations. • Don’t fault an author or speaker for omitting something from the argument that he’s not logically obligated to include. True, the politician doesn’t provide a defense for the less restrictive definition, choice (D), but why would he?—in this case that would be the burden of the critics. 18. (D) Keywords help you navigate your way through Dillworth’s unusually lengthy diatribe. Situation: People are deciding against kids for two reasons: A lot of sacrifice is required, and the kids end up ungrateful, grumble grumble. Contrast Keyword “However”: He brings up another consideration that, in his mind, outweighs the first: The fact that kids are the best way of passing on one’s values. Conclusion Keyword “Therefore”: Dillworth’s point is that those who hold values should separate themselves from the pack mentioned in sentence 1, and have kids despite all the sacrifice and ingratitude. (D) puts all of that in abstract language. The “category” is people with deep values, the “given course of action” is having kids, and the “reasons cited against [it]” are the sacrifices and ingratitude. (A) is tempting to those who read choices too quickly, because it sounds superficially plausible. But Dillworth doesn’t deny that the sacrifices required to raise kids, and the resulting ingratitude, are real “drawbacks,” as (A) would have it. Instead, he takes them off the table, saying that those drawbacks “have no bearing on” what should be the compelling reason for action, namely the desire to pass on one’s values. (B) The choice Dillworth rejects—not having kids—he rejects only for those who hold deep values. And he doesn’t pass moral judgment on everyone else who opts against child rearing. (C) Dillworth says nothing about prohibited actions. (E) Just a lot of jargon—there’s no “specific-to-general” reasoning here. If anything, Dillworth argues that a course of action appropriate under one set of conditions would not be appropriate under another. • Proceed with care when answer choices traffic in abstract language. Such language can be interpreted just about anyway, unless you’re diligent in matching up that language to the specific case at hand. • Beware of choices (like (B) here) that suggest that a speaker is impugning the motives of others. Such answers are almost always wrong...and when they’re correct, you should be able clearly to see the motive-doubting in the text.

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19. (E) A majority of the time, when someone replies “You’re ignoring such-and-such,” we can infer that the replyer is taking issue with the first speaker, and so it is with Travers here. She points out that whenever kids are ungrateful, it’s because they’re rejecting their parents’ values—a fact totally and completely at odds with Dillworth’s claim that one reason for having kids in the first place is the opportunity to pass on one’s values. Answer choice (E) puts it rather neatly: Dillworth has set aside the ingratitude issue to focus on the values issue. However, Travers points out that they are, potentially at the very least, interconnected. (A) Travers doesn’t describe an alternative way in which kids acquire values, so (A) can’t be her point. (B) Self-sacrifice is the one aspect of Dillworth’s argument that Travers doesn’t concern herself with. (C) Big distortion, (C)’s “well-known fact” notwithstanding, the rejection of values Travers describes is on the part of one’s children, not one’s peers. (D) goes too far. Travers isn’t saying, Hey, all kids reject their parents’ values, so don’t even hope to pass yours along through your progeny. She simply argues that Dillworth shouldn’t be so quick to ignore some of the reasons people use to opt out of child rearing. • When two people are arguing—on the LSAT, at least—be sure to paraphrase what each is saying, and to explore the relationship of the second person’s comment to that of the first. Questions usually hinge on those two issues. 20. (B) We’re looking for an inference, a statement that must be true based on the statements in the passage. In such questions, the answer can come from anywhere in the passage, and we may not even know beforehand what part of the passage to specifically focus on. Even isolating the conclusion may not help greatly, since the right answer to a strict inference question like this could come from a seemingly obscure piece of evidence, or even an irrelevant aside. In this case, correct choice (B) is inferable solely from the second sentence: If the feeding methods of jawless fishes were “limited to either sucking in surface plankton or sucking in food particles from bottom mud,” then we can be 100% sure that these jawless fishes didn’t prey upon other fish. As simple as that—which is not to say it’s obvious. Many test-takers passed on (B) because it seemed outside the scope, or just not important enough. But sure enough, the passage could end with the word “mud” in sentence two and (B) would still be inferable—it may get lost in the verbosity and onslaught of facts in the rest of the passage, but there’s no denying that fish who’s food choices are LIMITED to sucking EITHER plankton OR mud particles surely aren’t preying on other fish. (For more on the nature of this strict inference question type, see the first bullet point below.) (A) The only thing we’re told about jawed-fish in relation to prey is that they’re able to pursue prey, and use their jaws and teeth on it. What kind of prey we’re talking about here isn’t mentioned, so there’s no way we can infer it’s primarily fish.

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(C) Why not? How do we know this? We absolutely don’t. Nowhere does it say that jawless fishes had a monopoly throughout history on bottom mud particles—teleosts can partake too. (D) This is simply answer choice (C) in reverse—just because some jawed fishes had or have cartilage as their skeletal material doesn’t mean that jawless fishes did not; maybe they did. (E) No; 400 million years ago is the date given for the first development of biting jaws in fishes, but we have no reason to believe that the entire population of jawless fishes disappeared instantly on or around that date. That is, nothing in the stimulus precludes the possibility that some classes of jawless fishes remained alive for quite some time while jawed fished evolved from other classes of fish. • Note the wording of this classic type of inference question—it doesn’t ask for the choice that’s most strongly supported, as do some inference questions; no, it asks for the choice that must be true based on the stimulus. The latter is in fact much stricter than the former; it implies that somewhere in this long narrative exists a premise or a combination of premises that leads to an airtight deduction, just like in Logic Games. The flip side of this is that the answer may not sound very important at all, but that’s okay; we’re not looking for the main point, or a central assumption that the argument depends on. The correct answer to such a question can be and often is as simple and innocuous as (B) here, derived from the seemingly unimportant information in the second sentence. In this case, every sentence besides the second sentence exist merely as fodder for wrong choices. Any time a question stem takes this form, be aware that the answer can come from anywhere, and from the simplest information no matter how complicated the passage looks or how long it is. • Sometimes, the most effective method is to simply check the choices against the passage. It would take you a long time to pre-phrase the correct answer to an inference question like this. If you get the feeling that a question may not be ripe for pre-phrasing, skim the passage once quickly to get the gist, and then spend the bulk of your time carefully evaluating the choices. • Revisit the concept of “what DON’T you know?” from the lessons, previews and reviews. Those were exercises that pointed out how important it is to recognize what we CANNOT infer from stimuli in order to eliminate wrong choices.

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21. (C) We know from the stem that we’re looking for an assumption, so it’s wise to be on the lookout for the gap in the logic in our initial reading of the stimulus. The author concludes that in “geologically quiet” regions, the best way to reduce the risk of having a nuclear reactor struck by an earthquake is to place it near a fault that has produced an earthquake within living memory. As evidence, the author notes that such faults cannot produce earthquakes more often than once every 100,000 years. So, if such an area has experienced an earthquake within living memory, which presumably means no more than 80 or 90 years ago, the next one must be at least around 100,000 years away. This is a low risk, but it’s still higher than no risk at all. If there were potential sites that were distant from even minor faults, then they would be better choices. In other words, the author assumes that every reactor site in such a region must be next to a fault, which may not be the case. If it’s not, then the most earthquake-proof place for a reactor site in a geologically quiet region needn’t be where the author suggests. We can thus deny choice (C) and see the argument fall apart, which confirms (C) as the assumption we seek. (A) is too broad. The argument concerns the danger posed by earthquakes, and not danger in general, so the argument doesn’t rely on a danger comparison of different types of regions. (B) The argument needs no help from information about whether earthquakes constitute the main safety concern for reactors; for all we know, there are other more important danger factors involved. Either way, this issue is irrelevant to the argument, which is solely concerned with the prospects of an earthquake striking a reactor in a specific region. (D) No; the issue is specifying the site with the least chance of getting struck by an earthquake—what happens if one does get hit is irrelevant. Therefore, the notion of how many earthquakes such a reactor can withstand has no bearing on the argument at all. (E) The evidence states that such faults produce earthquakes no more than once in 100,000 years. If we change that to at least once in 100,000 years (as in choice (E)), then placing a reactor near a minor fault becomes slightly more risky, which doesn’t help the author. • Noticing scope shifts between the argument and the choices will help you eliminate the wrong ones. To do this, keep the crux of the conclusion in mind. Here, the author is primarily arguing about the location in a particular type of region that is “least likely to be struck by an earthquake.” If you focus on that sentiment throughout, you should be able to recognize the subtle shifts away from it contained in choices such as (A)—where overall are the least or most dangerous places to build reactors; (B)—what part do earthquakes play in the overall safety of reactors; and (D)—how are reactors able to withstand earthquakes? Since all of these issues are beyond the scope, they have no bearing on the argument and therefore cannot be assumed by the author. • Once again, we see an assumption based on an alternative possibility. In assumption, strengthen/weaken, and logical flaw questions especially, be on the lookout for other possibilities / conclusions / explanations that the author overlooks.

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22. (D) The first task in this one is to make our way through the complicated stem. Boiled down to its basics, the question simply asks us to assess the second argument as a response to the first. In other words, does it work or not, and why? Notice that the first three choices begin with “it succeeds” and the last two start with “it fails.” That makes it easier; we can narrow the choices down first by a gut reaction to the validity of the response, and then go on to pinpoint the choice with the correct reason. Well, did you think the response worked? Hopefully not; the Advertising-Sales director misses the point. The Magazine editor is worried that readers will perceive a decline in editorial integrity on the part of the magazine if the magazine favorably mentions products in articles. The Advertising-sales director counters “don’t worry about it . . . people know the difference between articles and ads, so the response to the ads has nothing to do with the magazine’s editorial integrity. . .” Here’s where you should have begun scratching your head and muttering “huh??!! . . . what does that have to do with anything?” That one quick gut feeling is enough to kill choices (A), (B), and (C)—no way does this response succeed, it’s barely talking about the same thing. The editor is talking about a reader response to articles and the director is talking about a reader response to ads. Now to narrow down the precise reason why the response fails. The editor doesn’t care, at least in this argument, about readers’ response to ads—she’s worried about their response to the articles written to glorify the advertisers’ products. (D) cites this as the correct reason why the response fails as a counter to the editor’s concern. As for (E), the editor doesn’t state a view about reader response to advertisements, so obviously the advertising-sales director can’t misunderstand it. • When you have a good grasp of what’s going on in the passage, and an idea of what the right answer will look like, scan the choices instead of reading them all in depth. You should have eliminated (A), (B), and (C) quickly after reading the first two words of each. If you got the immediate sense that something was wrong with the response, the only choices worthy of evaluation were (D) and (E). • Beware of the subtle scope shifts those wily testmakers throw into the various arguments. These types of errors in logic are not entirely outside the scope; instead, they usually involve an author or character having an entirely wrong perspective on the topic at hand. 23. (C) In all assumption questions, we are looking for an answer choice that helps to link the evidence to the conclusion. For Question 23 we can ignore the Advertising-sales director’s response because we are only asked about the editor’s argument. The editor’s conclusion is that the magazine shouldn’t endorse advertisers’ products in its articles because doing so would actually hurt the advertisers, not help them. The evidence for this conclusion is the editor’s predicted loss of readership. The assumption is that the loss in readership will somehow hurt the advertisers (relatively speaking) despite the product endorsements they are getting in the articles. In other words, the editor assumes that the benefits from product endorsements in articles (and corresponding loss of readership) are worth less to advertisers than the benefits they get from their current advertisements, or as answer choice (C) states: favorable mention in the articles is of less value than the current advertising.

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(A) In this one particular case, the editor feels she must go against the wishes of some of the regular advertisers, but there’s no reason to believe that, in making this argument, the editor relies on a policy of never considering advertisers wishes. In fact, the editor appears to fight for the best interests of the advertisers, behavior that strongly implies that she does take their wishes into account. (B) is actually part of the editor’s evidence for her conclusion; it’s not an underlying assumption on which the argument relies. (D) Au-contraire—if the editor believed this, her argument would be totally different; she wouldn’t believe that granting the advertisers’ wishes would work against them. (E) This sentiment does nothing for the validity of the argument. Just because the editor feels that product endorsements in articles may cause problems of integrity and loss of readership, there’s no grounds to believe that she assumes that normal paid advertisements are never problematic themselves. However she feels about this issue, it’s not crucial or even relevant to this particular argument. • In a classic assumption question, such as 23, always identify the evidence and the conclusion and pick the answer choice that best links the two together. 24. (A) The Keywords “For example” immediately signal that the author’s conclusion appears earlier, and so it does: It’s that arguments employing statistics don’t advance policy debates, but instead “deflect public fears.” That’s a little obscure; did you take that concept and push it up against the given example? If so, you probably noticed that, to the author, the policy debate over auto safety isn’t especially advanced by the seat belt statistics; instead, those stats “deflect public fears” by making them feel safer when they buckle up. (And inferably, may encourage people to drive more, thus increasing the safety risks.) In the same way, (A)’s stats about the relative safety of nuclear plants don’t advance the debate over technology and health; they may even blind the public to the real issue of conservation vs. nuclear power, and encourage the latter. (B) “These statistics counter [a] widely-held...belief”: The seat belt stats aren’t used to “counter” anything; they’re used to show how statistics can undermine public policy debates. (C) is an argument for not using statistical arguments as the sole basis for the public policy debate. Nothing like this is in the stimulus. (D) cites life expectancy statistics, and then cites other facts that cast doubt on the statistics. No relationship to the stimulus at all. (E), to its credit, does indeed mention public policy, but answer choice (E) shows how statistics (about people’s various addictions) can actually advance the public debate (about programs to fight substance abuse). This is more or less the exact opposite of the author’s point.

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• Be careful of bringing your everyday-life biases to bear on your understanding of LR arguments. Here, for instance, we mustn’t let our conviction that seat belts are a good thing blind us to the author’s view (that focusing on seat belts distracts from the real policy debate over auto safety). 25. (D) Since W draws no conclusion, the facts she cites make sense only in the context of S’s argument that we shouldn’t try to halt future global warming because scientists disagree all over the place; the evidence isn’t firm; global warming may not even be real. What W does is suggest that scientists don’t bother to argue when facts are established, and that scientists do accept one fact: Global warming is happening, albeit within an uncertain 3°C range. W’s facts are the “similarities” among scientists to which (D) refers. (A) W and S are equally aware of the disagreements among scientists; it’s just that W denies those disagreements’ relevance to the global warming debate. (B) Since W doesn’t bring out her explicit point of view, we can’t be sure that W accepts S’s conclusion—indeed, their profound disagreement over the global warming trend implies that their conclusions would be very different. (C) Inferably, W’s scientists are the same as S’s. They just look at these authorities from different perspectives. (E) Another accusation of circular reasoning, but this one is balderdash. (See also Q. 2 (E) and 11 (D) in this LR section, and Q. 20 in the other.) First of all, W doesn’t explicitly offer a conclusion at all; also, her evidence is quite concrete with no hint of “circularity.” • It’s always a good idea to read the second speaker’s comment first (doing so is clever, and saves time). Just be prepared to need, and rely on, the first person’s remarks as context for understanding the overall disagreement.

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SECTION III: LOGICAL REASONING

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1. (B) The stem tells us to draw a conclusion from the formal logic-type statements found in the stimulus. The major key is for you to recognize that the first statement is a statement of necessity: “there can be no growth without investment” means that if capacity is full, growth needs, or requires, investment. That is, under full capacity, investment is necessary to bring about growth, although there may be other factors that are needed as well. Now we can integrate the second sentence: Reducing interest rates produces investment, the very thing we just saw is necessary for growth. Bottom line: Reducing rates won’t guarantee growth, but it will lead to one necessary factor for growth—investment. In other words, as answer choice (B) has it, a reduction in rates allows for a condition necessary for growth to come about. (A) contradicts the stimulus. Any reduction in interest rates produces new capital investment—no exceptions. (C) is an out-of-place policy recommendation. The argument never discusses what should be done with interest rates or anything else. (D) There are no restrictions on the source of new capital investment. The stimulus deals only with falling rates; since we’re told nothing of rising rates, it’s totally possible that new capital investment that takes place while interest rates are rising could lead to industrial growth. (E) This answer choice scrambles the terms of the argument. The argument never mentions “manufacturing capacity newly created” and there is no requirement that it be “fully utilized.” • Reading the question stem first tells you the task that you are assigned and directs your attack on the stimulus. In this question, you’re told to draw a conclusion by combining statements. • In formal logic questions, don’t be intimidated by jargon like “fully utilized manufacturing capacity.” You don’t need to understand the theory of economics to find the answer. You do, however, have to paraphrase the argument, and shortening the major terms to capacity, growth, and investment could make the task more manageable. • Beware of the “can vs. should” scope shift, seen here in answer choice (C). If the argument is only in terms of what is possible, then no conclusion can be drawn about what ought or should be done.

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2. (D) As soon as you see “apparent discrepancy” in the stem, you know what to expect: Something in the passage is going to seem odd—an unusual circumstance, a strange result—and it’s up to you recognize the choice that clears the whole thing up. The apparent discrepancy isn’t too hard to spot: Several traps, and the number of rose beetles decreases—so far so good. Only one trap, however, and the number of little buggers increases. Huh? It’s odd, it’s strange, we’ve located the apparent paradox. You’d think that one trap would reduce the number of beetles, just not by as much as several traps. You may not be able to precisely pre-phrase an answer, but you should be able to get a feel for what the right answer will sound like: There’s something about the mechanism of this trap that makes them work well in bunches but horribly by themselves. That’s the only notion you need to recognize answer choice (D)—throw any trap down, even just one, and more beetles than one trap can handle are lured to the site. That explains why using only one trap will cause a net increase in beetles. But using several traps won’t attract many more beetles than one trap will, and now the capacity for catching the little guys is increased. Answer choice (D) explains why using several traps together does the job, while using just one trap alone makes the problem worse. (A) not only fails to explain the given paradox, it actually adds to the mystery: Why would more beetles result from using one trap if the beetles can’t even detect the scent of a single trap? (B) makes logical sense; one would expect several traps to have this kind of advantage over a single trap. But if you chose answer choice (B) on this basis alone, you forgot what question you were answering. (B) shores up one element of the stimulus (use several traps, and the number of beetles will be greatly reduced), but entirely ignores the crux of the discrepancy—we’re still in the dark as to why laying down a single trap increases the number of beetles. (C) Here’s information that like (B), stands to reason, yet does nothing to erase the mystery in question. (E) Okay, in this scenario, beetles check in, but some DO check out (remember that roach motel commercial?). How does this lead to an overall increase in the number of beetles in the rose garden? This choice shows promise, but doesn’t go far enough to make a necessary connection that allows us to say “aha! that explains it!”. • Be wary of choices in paradox questions that sound reasonable (like (B) in this case) simply because they’re in accordance with some of the information in the stimulus. That’s not enough; a good choice must still make the seemingly contradictory elements of the stimulus mesh.

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3. (D) This is a standard assumption question; our task is to locate the evidence and conclusion, and then to find the necessary but unstated premise that connects them. The conclusion is supplied by the first sentence, which states that computer programs should not be patented. For evidence, we’re told patents should not grant large corporations control over a methodology, and computer programs are implementations of methodologies. If the author believed that large corporations should hold patents for implementations of methodologies—the negation of choice (D)—then the argument would crumble. Obviously the author feels otherwise, which means that (D) is necessary to the argument, and must be assumed. (A) weakens the argument. If patents are designed to protect small-time inventors from exploitation, then the development of computer programs by small-time inventors would tend to support the move to patent computer programs, which is the opposite of the author’s view. (B) is irrelevant, which can be demonstrated by trying the Denial Test: If implementing a methodology requires more creative effort than does true invention, would the argument be damaged? No, so answer choice (B) isn’t necessary, and cannot be a necessary assumption. (C) is also irrelevant—whether the issue of patents for computer programs has been raised in the past is a totally different issue from the argument at hand, which focuses on the desirability, not the history, of program patenting. (E) Again with the small-time inventors . . . Small-time inventors are mentioned only in relation to the origins of the patent system, while most of the argument focuses on the relation between computer programs, patents, and large corporations. What small-time inventors believe as a group, and how their beliefs impact on their cause, are issues for another argument altogether, not this argument. This argument needs none of this to survive. • The Kaplan “Denial Test” builds strong LSAT scores in at least two ways. First, it is extremely useful as a backup, to confirm that your choice in an assumption question is in fact necessary to the argument. If the argument could stand without a particular choice, then that answer choice isn’t necessary. Second, it’s sometimes hard to see why a choice is an assumption, yet easier to see why the negation of the choice would defeat the argument. In this case, it might be difficult to see why the argument depends on answer choice (D) until you think about what would happen if answer choice (D) were false.

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4. (D) Question 4 asks, “How does Larissa make her argument?,” Question 5, “What is a point at issue between Larissa and Walter?” Start with whichever question you feel more comfortable. Walter’s conclusion is that tolerating an injustice is morally wrong and shortsighted. His evidence follows the colon (always pay attention to punctuation). Larissa also believes that allowing injustices is bad policy, but disagrees with Walter as to the reason. The key to understanding Larissa’s evidence is the phrase “not because . . . but because.” She disagrees with Walter’s reason for the conclusion and provides her own. Therefore, you’re looking for an answer choice, such as (D), which states that Larissa agrees with Walter’s conclusion but disagrees with his evidence (reason). (A) might have been tricky if you didn’t read the stimulus critically. Larissa agrees with Walter’s conclusion, she only disagrees with his reasoning. (B) Larissa’s conclusion is the same as Walter’s, and she bases it on her own evidence—she doesn’t do anything with any assumptions Walter may have, let alone draw implausible consequences from them. (She does disagree with his evidence regarding the wealthy’s vulnerability to injustice, but that’s another matter.) (C) Larissa deals only with Walter’s argument, she never questions Walter himself or his authority to address matters of social policy. In order for (C) to be correct, Larissa would need to have said something like “Walter is not in a position to make his assertions because he is neither an economist nor a politician.” (E) Although Larissa believes that the possibility of social unrest is the reason that we should not tolerate injustice, she does not mention a belief that Walter should have more fully developed his argument. She simply disagrees with his rationale. • In method of argument questions, it’s often helpful to try to imagine what the stimulus would have to sound like if the choice you’re analyzing were correct. As noted in (C) above, the stimulus would have to be much different than it is for this choice to describe Larissa’s method, which allows us to confidently cross it off. 5. (E) As the analysis for Question 4 shows, Larissa and Walter agree on the conclusion, but disagree on the evidence supporting that conclusion. Walter believes that we should not tolerate injustice because it may affect a well-to-do person tomorrow. Larissa believes that we should not tolerate injustice because it’s a source of social unrest. Larissa doesn’t merely present different evidence however, she affirmatively disagrees with Walter’s reasoning. Larissa states, in the first sentence of her response, that the well-to-do can protect themselves against injustice better than the rest. Walter believes that injustices can inflict the well-to-do just as easily. So, Walter and Larissa disagree on whether the economically privileged members of a society are less exposed to certain sorts of injustices than are the economically disadvantaged—answer choice (E).

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(A) Social fabric? Hopefully, this new term immediately caught your attention. Although Walter and Larissa do indeed disagree on how injustice affects the privileged and the disadvantaged, they never debate whether the rich and poor are part of the same social fabric. (B) This answer choice distorts several things that are mentioned. Inferably, both Walter and Larissa believe that at least some economically privileged people “tolerate,” that is, allow, injustice against the disadvantaged. Whether this makes these rich folks the “least tolerant people” in the society is ambiguous at best. And even if you did make this leap, which is unwarranted, you’d have to infer this judgment for both Walter and Larissa; that is, it wouldn’t be a source of conflict between them, so it still can’t be the point at issue we seek. (C) is an au contraire answer choice. Both Walter and Larissa agree that the disadvantaged members of society suffer from injustice, and they both agree that this is bad. They disagree on why it is bad. (D) Neither Walter nor Larissa discusses who is responsible for correcting social injustices. They both agree that social injustices are bad, they differ on why injustices are bad, but neither mentions what should be done to fix the problem. • Use common sense: We’re told in the stem that Walter and Larissa are logically committed to disagreeing about something, but since Walter and Larissa agree on the overall point (allowing injustice to persist is bad), you should have realized that the answer to this question is buried in the evidence. • If you find a question time consuming, make a good guess after eliminating one or more answer choices, and move on. There may be easier questions to come. If time permits, return later. 6. (E) The market analysts predict that the decision of leading manufacturers to concentrate their detergents will lead to the virtual disappearance of the older, bulky style. The concentrated detergents will be sold in smaller packages that will save production costs, which gives manufacturers a reason to prefer the new approach. This is all well and good, but the author does neglect a full half of the supply and demand equation—what about the consumers? If the consumers ain’t going to buy the new detergents, the manufacturers, and this argument, are sunk. If, on the other hand, the consumers had a reason to prefer the new approach, then the argument would be strengthened. Answer choice (E), proposing that consumers would prefer concentrated detergents due to environmental concerns, fits the bill. (A), if anything, weakens the argument. If smaller manufacturers were unable to adopt the new approach, then the eventual disappearance of bulky detergents would be much less likely.

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(B) and (C) Both of these also lean more towards weakening than strengthening the argument; both paint a negative picture of the new detergent/consumer relationship. Initial skepticism about the effectiveness of the concentrated detergent answer choice (B) could only weaken the argument. However, since the argument refers to the eventual disappearance of bulky detergents, initial skepticism wouldn’t damage the argument too much, making this choice mostly irrelevant without additional information. As for answer choice (C), if the analysts are correct and consumers have to pay more to use the concentrated style, the law of demand suggests that bulky detergents would be more likely to stay on the market. (D) A discount from major supermarkets would have been a boost to the argument. However, if supermarkets charge the same for shelf space for the new product, then it’s hard to see how this would affect the argument at all. • Don’t rush through the question stem. If you do, you might mistakenly identify a strengthen question as a weaken question, or make a mistake about the particular argument that needs to be evaluated. If you do get it backwards, then an au contraire choice (in this case, one of the many that tends to weaken the argument) might look tempting. 7. (C) Since the question stem tells us that the critic believes that the advocate’s argument is flawed, match the critic’s language and logic to the relevant portions of the advocate’s argument. The critic suggests that contribution caps (the advocate’s second reason) will prevent the candidate from spending more time serving the public (the advocate’s first reason), because candidates will need to spend more time finding more small contributors. As (C) states, the two projected results (more time with the public and less time working for large contributors) cited in support of the proposal (public campaign funding) work against each other. (A) is outside the scope; the critic’s objection never mentions large contributors or ways to circumvent caps. Don’t read more into an answer choice than you’re allowed. That can lead to missed points. (B) is a tricky half-right half-wrong answer choice. It starts out strong by mentioning both results in support of the proposal, but fades quickly when it states that the two reasons are actually one. The critic believes that the two reasons are inconsistent, not that one entails the other. (D) mentions something, the possibility that large competitors will stop contributing, that neither the advocate nor the critic mention. Thus, (D) can’t be a flaw in the critic’s argument. (E) sets up a false contrast/distinction that isn’t present in the critic’s response. The critic’s response does not mention generous contributors or moderately generous contributors and never compares the two.

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• When the response in a dialogue stimulus is substantially shorter than the initial statement, consider starting with the shorter, and often more manageable, second statement first. • Always read the entire answer choice. Half-right half-wrong answer choices often fool the uncritical reader. 8. (A) According to the advocate, there are two reasons campaigns should be subsidized with public funds: 1) incumbents will be able to spend more time serving the public, and 2) it will be less likely officials will work for large contributors. Both reasons cited are only benefits to the public if public funds are used. Neither are as likely, according to the advocate, if private funds are used. Answer choice (A), in a wordy sort of way, says just this. (B) Hopefully, when you scanned all five answer choices quickly, you dismissed answer choice (B) immediately as being outside the scope of the argument. Neither the advocate nor the critic ever discusses lengthening the terms of office for elected officials in their arguments. (C) Neither the advocate nor the critic discusses subsidizing under-funded candidates. Both talk in generalities about rules that should apply to all candidates. (C) sets up a contrast that doesn’t exist in the stimulus. (D) is a long and convoluted answer choice, so rather than trying to deal with the entire choice all at once, try breaking it down clause by clause. The first clause talks about benefits for specific individuals—the stimulus never mentions specific individuals and this alone would allow you to eliminate the choice. If you couldn’t decipher the first clause, don’t be afraid to start with the second clause. The second clause (after the comma) says individuals should fund the activity (political campaigns). This runs counter to the advocate’s argument that the public should fund campaigns, and gives us another reason to axe choice (D). (E) The advocate never discusses who would run with and without public campaign subsidies, merely that all campaigns should be subsidized with public funds. Thus (E) is outside the scope of the argument. • In a principle question, the credited response is a restatement of the author’s argument, usually in more general terms. Answer choices that depart from the terms of the argument are normally wrong. • In principle questions, translate the abstract elements of the answer choices to the specific elements of the stimulus.

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• Process of elimination might have been your best approach to this question. You probably quickly eliminated some combination of answer choices (B), (C), and (E). Answer choices (A) and (D) might have caused you a little more trouble because of their length and abstract wording. If a question seems tricky, and you can quickly and confidently eliminate a few choices, guess and move on. If time permits, you can return to it later. 9. (D) The bird-watcher proves that he knows no more about logic than he does about animal tracks when he identifies a typical trait of birds (three toes forward, one back), and then concludes that a track with that trait must be that of a bird. That’s like saying that since most sailors wear a white hat, any particular person with a white hat must be a sailor. As if! Now, if we knew that sailors and only sailors wore a white hat, then that conclusion would be correct; likewise, the stimulus conclusion would work if we knew that only birds made tracks in that 3/1 pattern. But that evidence is absent. Answer choice (D) points out the flaw. (A) As used, “track” is adequately concrete. (B) The bird-watcher takes for granted that birds are animals, and that “typically” they have four toes. No further definition is required. (C) Since the issue is simply whether the animal that made the track in question was a bird or not, the type of bird is irrelevant. (E) has it exactly backwards. The evidence is about birds in general, and the conclusion drawn is about an individual critter. • Try to pre-phrase an answer to Logical Flaw questions whenever possible. Doing so should help you avoid wasting time on implausible answer choices. Wasted time can lead to missed points later in the section. 10. (D) The stimulus begins with the psychologists’ claim that people are more susceptible to psychological problems in the winter than in the summer (seasonal affective disorder). The only support cited for this claim comes from the survey. The psychologists are assuming that the self-reported results of the survey are accurate. The author disagrees with this assumption and uses the word “however” to signal that she disputes the validity of the survey results because she does not believe that self-reported results about the past are accurate. The author, “therefore,” does not believe that the survey results support the existence of the disorder. The author disputes the psychologists’ conclusion by questioning their central assumption that the results of such a survey can be accurate— choice (D).

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(A) The author believes the survey results are suspect, but she never ventures her own explanation of the change in susceptibility to psychological problems across seasons. In fact, in the end she denies that the disorder exists, so why would she offer an explanation for it? (B) is way too broad: Our author questions the existence of such a disorder because she rejects the methodology of this particular survey. That’s not the same as her questioning whether any such variation, under any circumstances, could be labeled a disorder—that would be a few steps beyond this specific argument. In other words, the issue to the author isn’t whether or not such variation across seasons in psychological states constitutes a disorder, as (B) would have it; she out-and-out denies the existence of the variation altogether because she doesn’t trust the survey results. (C) Although the author does not believe that the survey supports the psychologists’ conclusion that the disorder exists, she never questions whether or not the survey sample is representative—she instead questions the survey respondents’ ability to accurately recall how they felt. (E), like (A), implies that the author believes in the existence of seasonal affective disorders, but we know that the author really feels that the survey evidence doesn’t justify the claim that such a condition exists. • Learn to use structural clues such as “however” and “therefore” to help you to understand the way in which an author makes her argument. Much more importantly though, they help you to answer questions quickly and accurately during your test day. • Scope shifts take many forms on the LSAT, some of them can seem particularly amusing. Answer choice (A) has the author arguing over the reasons for the existence of a phenomenon she doesn’t even believe exists, and answer choice (E) has her quibbling with the psychologists over the number of existing cases of something she doesn’t believe exists. Both choices are silly; their logic is comparable to a person complaining “I don’t like this restaurant because it doesn’t serve french fries AND because their french fries are too greasy.” Spotting such obvious inconsistencies between the stimulus and the choices will help you to eliminate wrong choices with greater ease. 11. (B) The argument is a chain of cause-and-effect—a prediction of what the author believes will happen if the city gets rezoned: New water and sewer systems, and then new apartment houses will be built; schools will become overcrowded; overcongested roads will lead to new roads. We learn in the next to last sentence that a bigger tax bite will be needed for those civic improvements. Hence answer choice (B) is a proper inference: If the new apartment buildings (a result of the rezoning) are built, then the tax bite (a necessary condition for the civic improvements that will follow those apartment buildings) will increase.

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(A) is a classic distortion. “Unless [they] band together, the [rezoning] will be approved” means that in the absence of the citizens banding together, the rezoning will go through. We cannot, however, presume that that banding together would necessarily halt the rezoning (and all the subsequent developments). Maybe they would all go through anyway. (C), (D), and (E) The stimulus more or less argues that if the rezoning plan goes through, Glen Hills’ rural atmosphere might be destroyed (by the sequence of events described). We are not, however, permitted to assume that the failure of the plan will ensure the continuation of that rural atmosphere—but that’s just what (C) does. Likewise, if the apartment buildings are built, taxes will go up; but (D) just denies both terms. That’s logically forbidden, as is (E)’s inference that not building the apartment buildings will result in no overcrowded schools or congested roads. • “If X, then Y” cannot be rewritten as “If not X, then not Y.” The fallacy of denying the antecedent is no academic exercise; it’s something that happens in life, and on the LSAT, all the time. Watch out for it. 12. (D) We need to strengthen the argument that the advertising campaign was responsible for the reduction of the number of smokers—a pretty hasty conclusion, considering there’s an obvious competing explanation: cigarette prices are now 20 cents higher. It’s not going out on a limb to speculate that this factor might have played a role in the decline. In making her conclusion, the author assumes that the 20 cent increase played no part in the small decline in smoking, which would be the answer if this were an assumption question. But as you know from class and the Kaplan Previews and Reviews, a central assumption could form the basis of a strengthen or weaken question as well. Break down the assumption, and you have a weakener; shore up the assumption, and you have a strengthener. (D) does the latter: If merchants responded to the tax by lowering the price of cigarettes by the exact amount of the tax, then a price increase drops out as a candidate for the decline, the author’s central assumption is validated, and the argument that the advertising was the cause of the decline is strengthened. (A) is outside the scope. The argument deals with smoking, not tobacco consumption in general. (B) is also outside the scope. The author claims that the number of smokers has been reduced, and so smokers that are merely cutting down don’t count. (C) provides very weak evidence for the notion that the number of smokers has declined, but does not address the cause of the reduction. (E) is mostly neutral, but one could argue that if smokers are relatively poor, then they might be sensitive to the cigarette price increase. The increase would then have more of an impact than the author acknowledged, which would tend to weaken the argument. In any case, whether this choice slightly weakens or is neutral to the argument, you shouldn’t have picked it as a strengthener.

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• The ability to recognize assumptions is crucial, not only for assumption questions, but for other question types as well. This is what we mean when we at Kaplan talk about the synergy that exists between Logical Reasoning question types. When looking for ways to strengthen and weaken arguments, picking up on an author’s unstated central assumption, if one exists, is more than half the battle. • When there are two competing explanations for an event, and you’re asked to support one over the other, a choice that mentions neither, or applies equally well to both, must be wrong. • Scope shifts everywhere!! Choice (B) tries to persuade you that the amount that people smoke is somehow important, when in fact the only relevant issue here is the number of smokers. • Beware of answer choices that attempt to strengthen a fact in the stimulus rather than the argument the author is trying to make. For example, answer choice (C) could be taken as a weak attempt to support the fact that smoking in the locality has declined, but does nothing to impact on the main argument concerning the reason for the decline. 13. (D) A parallel logic question easily reducible to simple algebra. No A (no historical restoration projects) are B (got permits this month). Some C (this firm’s projects) are A (restorations). Therefore some C (the firm’s projects) are not B (didn’t get permits). In the credited answer, A is “films released this season,” B is “Barker’s films,” and C is “got enthusiastic reviews,” the only difference being that answer choice (D) reverses the order in which the evidence is mentioned. (A) No A are B. Some C are D. Therefore—um—up till now, B hasn’t been an issue for E. Ah, forget it. (B) No A are B. Some C are not B. Therefore some D are B. (C) No A are B. Only B are C. Therefore some A are not C. Close but no cigar. (E) fails to give us a “No A are B” statement at all, so we can throw this one out with no further ado. • When can it pay to translate Parallel Logic into algebra? When the stimulus and choices are written in a strictly formal way, in All/Some/None terms—these are terms that can be amenable to reduction to algebra.

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14. (E) Again, we seek a necessary assumption to hold an argument together. First we get a claim, followed by the phrase “whether or not this hypothesis is correct . . .”, which strongly implies that the initial sentence is largely irrelevant. And indeed, the real argument begins with the word “most”—most art criticism is directed at pieces that critics don’t like. The conclusion follows, signaled by “hence”: most art criticism is devoted to work that isn’t great. This argument seems suspect on the face of it simply because the author has failed to demonstrate the necessary connection between these two statements. Just because critics don’t like a piece of art doesn’t necessarily mean that that piece of art isn’t a great work of art. But this conclusion would be valid if we make the connection via the assumption stated in (E), which links great works of art with pieces of art that satisfies critics. Without this connection, the argument is incomplete. With it, the conclusion works: If most art criticism is devoted to art pieces that fail to satisfy critics, and great works of art are those pieces that do satisfy all critics, then it makes sense to conclude that most criticism is devoted to works other than great works of art. (A) changes the scope of the argument with a new term, “intensely,” and does nothing to bridge the gap between art that fails to satisfy and great works of art. (B) The issue is which art works are selected for criticism by the critics The question of whether art works that are truly satisfying to critics are difficult for critics to find has no necessary bearing on this issue. (C) is irrelevant. The power of critics to publicize works of art is not an issue in the argument and doesn’t provide the connection necessary to sustain the conclusion. (D) is out of the scope. The argument in no way hinges on the issue of when works of art are recognized. • Formal logic statements—signaled by words like “most,” “some,” “all,” “none,” etc.— are usually buried within casual-sounding arguments on the LR sections. Sometimes, as in this case, your job will be to recognize how two or more of these statements can be tied together logically with the addition of an intervening assumption.

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15. (B) An initial study of the question stem reveals your need to decide what kind of statement would be countered by the given evidence, which basically states that two different categories of infant have similar “precursors of speaking”: Hearing kids with hearing parents babble audibly, while deaf kids with deaf parents “babble” in signs. Having noticed that, you probably could have pre-phrased nothing more complex than Hearing and deaf kids develop speech differently and come up with (B). The author’s argument—that both categories of infant start to develop speech in much the same way—certainly does counter any claim that a characteristic allegedly necessary for language development is one that only hearing kids possess. According to the author, the deaf kids don’t possess a mature vocal tract and are developing language mighty well, thank you. (A)’s topic is “What are the simplest words in a language?,” something our author never takes up. Also, who says that “babbling” = “names of persons or things”? What a bogus answer choice—no offense if you picked it, but still.... (C) All of the evidence is about how babies babble with adults present, so (C)’s hypothesis is outside our author’s scope. (D) We don’t get enough information about the babbling of either hearing or deaf children, to counter (D)’s claim that babies are unaware of how purposive their babbling is. And anyway, it’s the alleged deaf/hearing distinction, and not babies’ self-awareness, that our author is interested in. (E) Given that the question asks “Which would the argument counter?,” we might have expected a choice to provide the exact opposite, and this is it. (E) is supported by the stimulus text. • It stands to reason: When the right answer counters an argument, the wrong choices must either support that argument (E) or be irrelevant to it (A), (C), (D). This kind of test knowledge, once mastered, can help you avoid mistakes and wasted time. • Scope, scope, scope. Don’t lose sight of how every author narrows down a broad topic. All five choices here deal with babies and language, but only (B) narrows the scope to the “deaf vs. hearing” issue. 16. (A) Reading the stem first tells us that the reasoning is flawed, so you should have been on the lookout for the reasoning error right out of the gate. The individual pieces, the elements that make up the library, were all copied and are therefore unoriginal. Does it follow, then, that the completed library cannot be considered original? Not if there’s something else that confers originality on such a design, such as the creative process involved in choosing the pieces, or in arranging them to form a new coherent whole. In other words, something can be true of the whole without being true of any of the parts, and so the author makes the error described in (A).

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If it’s still unclear, try this analogous example: Assume there are four musicians . . . oh, let’s call them John, Paul, George and Ringo. If none of them is considered a spectacular musician individually, does it follow that if you put them together, the result must be unspectacular as well? Nope; it’s the same issue as the one in the stimulus—we can’t logically assume that something true of parts of a whole must be true of the whole itself. (B) The author does not claim that the specified features are similar in kind to the design of a library in general, and so there is no such generalization. (C) There’s no “unknown instance of a phenomenon” mentioned, so we can stop there. (D) Nope; there is no false “combination of alternatives” made up of alternatives that could be true separately. If you chose this, you have to defend it—what are the alternatives? How are they true individually, and not in combination? If you can’t answer these questions, you can’t select this choice. (E) It’s possible to make conclusions of fact based on reports of aesthetic preferences, and so (E) isn’t a reasoning error at all. In any case, there are no such reports in the stimulus. • Always read the question stem first, and use it to help you attack the stimulus. It always helps to know what you’re looking for before you begin your initial reading. • Pay attention to the specific words found in LR answer choices—often, you can eliminate choices quickly based on a word that simply doesn’t fit the situation. Is a library design a “phenomenon”? Are there “alternatives” mentioned in the stimulus that stand alone but crash and burn when placed together? Clearly not; (C) and (D) should be axed quickly just for including these words. • Pre-phrase your answer whenever you can. Extensive evaluation of the answer choices always takes longer than scanning for the correct response. 17. (B) How fortunate for us; two questions based on a single explanation of a phenomenon, one to weaken that explanation, one to strengthen it. The phenomenon in question is the commercial resurgence of the fantasy genre in North America, specifically the increase in fantasy-fiction books for adults. The explanation, given by booksellers, is that the recent boom in this genre is due to favorable reviews given to these works by book reviewers. It’s not too difficult to pre-phrase a weakener for this explanation—if the buyers of such books don’t read, care about, or base purchasing decisions on such reviews, then this argument is a whole lot of hot air. And that’s exactly what we get in (B). (A) is generally irrelevant, because it leaves out the purchasers of books altogether. What publishers think will receive good reviews is too wishy-washy to have any affect on the argument, no less weaken it. (C) The fact that booksellers are aware of the content of the reviews is also irrelevant; it has no bearing at all on the affect the reviews have on the purchasing public, which is, after all, what the booksellers’ argument is about.

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(D) is even further removed from the crux of the argument; it totally ignores the main issue of why this type of book has become so popular. (E) is, at best, neutral. At worst, it’s au-contraire —if people pay attention to the reviews, this would provide even another reason (historical) for people to get into this genre. • Take whatever gifts the testmakers throw your way. The question stem out-and-out tells you what you’re trying to weaken—the booksellers’ explanation. So it’s not as if you even have to search for the conclusion; the phrase “some booksellers say that . . .” in the last sentence should have jumped off the page at you. • Don’t be surprised at the appearance of really simple questions; not every one is a logical brain-teaser. Here, the booksellers think that favorable reviews are responsible for the upsurge in the fantasy market. What would weaken this claim? Someone else saying “nope, not true. The readers don’t care about that.” And that’s choice (B). 18. (E) Having thought through the weakener for 17, all we have to do is reverse our thinking to haul in this point: To strengthen the argument, we need a choice that says that book purchasing behavior is influenced by reviews of the kind described in the stimulus. And that sentiment appears in (E): As a result of critic’s favorable reviews, adult book buyers began to see the fantasy-fiction genre as a viable option for their reading pleasure. (A) We have no idea how complex or simple the books in this genre are, and therefore have no way of knowing how the general reading level of the public affects this argument. (B), (C), and (D) all may contribute in their own ways to a general explanation of the recent popularity of fantasy-fiction books, but none offer any support for the booksellers’ specific argument—that the popularity of these books is due in some way to favorable reviews. • Don’t lose sight of the facet of the argument you’re attempting to strengthen or weaken. The booksellers’ argument in this case is not simply that fantasy-fiction books have become popular; they feel that they became popular due to favorable attention from reviewers. If the argument simply concerned the “what” and not the “why” of the matter, then (B), (C), and (D) would be viable choices as well. • Once again, try not to miss out on double question stimuli. It just seems like for every double-question stimulus on this test, the second one was a real breeze after working through the first. If you find yourself running out of time, and you think you might not get to every question on the section, you may consider flipping the pages in search of a two-for-one deal.

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19. (E) Both the stimulus and the credited choice provide a chain of superlatives: The Tyler house (the Oakland roses) is the most famous in the historic district (most beautiful in the garden), and the historic district (the garden) is the most famous in the city (most beautiful in the city) , so the Tyler house (the roses) is the most famous in the city (most beautiful in the city). All of the choices come more or less close, but only (E) strictly follows this model. And of course both the stimulus and (E) are profoundly flawed: It’s quite possible that the fame of some other house in the city eclipses that of the Tyler house, or that flowers in some other city garden are more beautiful than the Oakland roses. The only evidence is the context of the house and the roses; we can’t reason from the relative fame (or beauty) of the house’s (or roses’) surroundings, to the individual itself. (A) and (C) offer incontrovertible logic. Tallness and age—unlike fame or beauty—are not relative. If Mt. Williams is the tallest peak along the coast, and the region’s tallest peaks are along the coast, then Mt. Williams is the region’s tallest. How could any mountain, elsewhere in the region, be taller? And if Susan Coleman is the oldest kid in her family, and all three Coleman kids are older than all other kids in the building, how could any kid in the building be older than Susan? (B) Whew—more tobacco smoking in Greene County than anywhere else?! Anyhow, (B)’s reference to “likelihood” knocks this one out; no such reference to the likelihood of anything happening appears in the stimulus. (D) comes very close, but the middle piece of evidence goes awry. If it read “Since the fish stores in the harbor area have the most exotic fish of any stores in the city....,” (D) would be parallel: What links the terms in the stimulus is the concept of fame (‘exoticness’ here). But the number of fish stores that the middle evidence mentions has no parallel in the stimulus. • Be sure to examine all five choices, especially when the question seems tricky and the answer choices seem close to each other. Many examinees in December, 1995 jumped on (B) and (D) here, and never even got to the credited answer. 20. (A) Compare the first two lines of Morton’s speech (his conclusion) to the last two (the evidence, signaled by the Keyword “since”). All he does is repeat his claim, that success requires a college degree, but he provides no independent evidence for same. We’ve seen this kind of circular logic before, most recently in the first LR section, Q. 2. (B) An example of mistaking correlation for cause-and-effect: “All of the students at Drake Middle School wear uniforms, and they’re all well-behaved; it must be the uniforms that make them behave.” It’s a common error, but it’s not committed here. (C) The argument, such as it is, is general in nature. That Morton ends by mentioning “a person” doesn’t change things—he’s not speaking about one specific person. (D) Morton does consider the counterexamples: He looks at them and finds them wanting; they are only “apparent” counterexamples.

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(E) Morton’s evidence and conclusion are his own beliefs, and do not imply that which “most people believe” in the slightest. • If you can’t pre-phrase the answer to a Logical Flaw question, proceed very carefully as you examine the five choices. Remember that one and only one answer fits the stimulus precisely; the other four must be off, and probably way off. Don’t settle for anything less than a solid choice, and if you don’t spot one, circle the question in the test booklet and come back later. 21. (A) Another assumption question: In this one, the author concludes that the adaptations of early land animals must have developed quickly after the animals left the water and started to live on land. As evidence, the author notes that neither aquatic nor amphibious animals have these adaptations, and all the earliest known fossils have them. Therefore, if the gap between the time animals first started living on land and the time of the earliest fossils was short enough, then the adaptations would have had to develop relatively quickly. If, on the other hand, the earliest known fossils lived a long time after animals started living on land, then the adaptations would have had a longer time to develop, and the author’s conclusion would be in jeopardy. (B) has no bearing on the argument. The author draws a conclusion based on existing fossils; the percentage of animals from the late Silurian period that turned up as fossils doesn’t fit in any way between the fossil evidence and the conclusion drawn from it. (C) is simply out of the scope; the argument concerns adaptations in animals, not plants. (D) The argument discusses adaptations in the evolution of animals from water to land. It need not rely on evidence that this evolution can go in the reverse direction as well, from land to water. Even if some present day water animals did descend from land animals, the author’s argument remains unaffected. (E) If there were amphibious animals at the time, they couldn’t have exhibited the adaptations; the passage tells us than neither aquatic nor amphibious animals had them. • Paraphrase and pre-phrase! The stimulus will give you enough information to answer the question, but rarely in the form that is easiest to understand. The best approach is to put the argument in your own words. Once you have a strong sense of the argument, think of what the answer should look like, and then search aggressively among the choices.

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22. (E) The reasoning to be criticized here is the author’s claim that Jerome is being disingenuous when he, Jerome, cites cost as the reason for declining Melvin’s vacation invitation. Why must Jerome be lying, or perhaps fudging? Because, says the author, Jerome cites cost every time Melvin tenders the invite. Well come on, so what? Maybe the combined cost of the trip plus the lost wages is always the one and only reason Jerome says no to these impromptu jaunts. The author simply fails to take Jerome at face value, as (E) points out. Once again, the imputation of bad motives to a person without proper evidence is shown to be faulty. (A) No attack on Melvin is being planned, so none need be “forestalled.” (B) Melvin’s the one making the offers. It’s Jerome’s refusals that are the topic of the argument. (C) If Jerome does prefer vacations planned in advance but simply fails to mention that to Melvin, that actually tends to support the author’s suspicion that Jerome is fudging things. (D) Tempting, perhaps, but the author doesn’t say that cost can’t be Jerome’s only reason, she says it can’t be the real reason. It’s the adequacy of the explanation that’s in question, which brings us back to (E). • It’s logically wrong to impute bad motives to someone without legitimate evidence. So many of us commit that error in everyday life that the LSAT is always interested in testing it—usually in wrong answers, but here as the focus of the question. 23. (C) What a stem! First recognize that we’re looking to justify Jamie over Arnold. Then paraphrase the rest of it, and recognize that the issue is: When does an airline have a moral obligation to reimburse a bumped passenger? The stem gives us the beginning of a governing principle, and we have to find the appropriate finish. Arnold believes that the answer to the question “When should the airline pay?” is “In my case, dammit,” because he was bumped from a flight and missed a meeting. Notice what Arnold casually tosses in: Of course, the flight I was bumped from was canceled. Jamie’s response is essentially, Gimme a break: You can’t use that missed meeting as an excuse, because you would have missed it even if you had boarded the first (canceled) flight. Now: The stem begins the principle in a positive sense: “An airline is morally obligated to compensate” etc. But of course Jamie doesn’t support Arnold’s claim. So the right answer—follow this, now—will have to be a condition that is necessary for compensation, but that Arnold’s situation fails to meet! And that’s what we get in (C). Arnold wasn’t forced to take a later flight solely because of the overbooking. Had the first flight not been overbooked, Arnold couldn’t have taken off anyway; and thus this particular instance of bumping need not be compensated. (A), if attached to the stem principle, might seem on a quick first read to support Arnold’s view. But overbooking was not “the only reason [Arnold was] forced to take a later flight.”

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The cancellation of the earlier flight was another reason, and certainly the more compelling reason. So Arnold’s case doesn’t fit this principle—we can’t use it to draw a conclusion. (B) provides a condition necessary for compensation that Arnold’s case meets: There was a reason for his later flight other than a weather cancellation. So (B) supports Arnold’s claim. (D) and (E) Both choices can be tossed the moment you read “Even if.” An “even if” clause defines a condition that is not to be considered in applying a principle, as for instance: You should get up and take out the garbage for your mom even if you’re watching TV at the time. Any “even if” clause applied to the stem principle will work out in Arnold’s favor, because it will lead his being compensated. Since we want to support Jamie over Arnold, both choices are dead wrong. • When a stem is highly complex—as this one is, and also Q. 24’s, below—remember Kaplan’s advice for complex stems, rules, and text in other sections: Don’t try to “swallow it all in one gulp.” Take it one phrase at a time, in manageable doses; paraphrase carefully. And be sure that you get to all the other, easier questions first, so that you don’t sacrifice any quick points for a tougher one. 24. (E) This one turns out to be a Paradox question even though it’s not formally announced as such. It does seem a bit paradoxical that Korva’s population went up and yet its percentage of federal revenues declined; after all, revenue sharing is pegged to population, isn’t it? Well, yes and no. As the author describes it, the $ is divvied out in terms of percentage of total population, not sheer number. Korva can easily have gotten a smaller % of the cash despite its population increase, if Mitro or Guadar or both also saw a population increase, and by a greater proportion. Which is what (E) states. To test this, use the Kaplan Denial Test: If (E) is false—if neither of the other regions saw a greater percent increase in population than Korva—then the paradox deepens. (A) Even if Korva does have the smallest of the three regions’ populations, its population last year did increase, and without knowing what happened with the population of the other two regions we have the paradox that Korva’s money decreased while its population went up. (B) provides information about Korva’s change only. The issue is why Korva got a smaller piece of the pie than did Mitro and Guadar, and choice (B) doesn’t address that any more than (A). (C) could have been true, but need not. The smaller % of cash awarded to Korva can be explained so long as either of the other two regions saw a greater percentage population increase. That’s what correct choice (E) is all about. One of the two regions, Mitro or Guadar, could have had a stable percentage of total population, or even a drop. (D) Contrary to choice (D), Korva could have had the greatest numerical population increase, and still the paradox would remain. The revenue dollars are pegged to percent of increase.

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• The Kaplan Denial Test works nicely on Paradox questions as well as on Inference and Assumption questions. In all cases, the right answer—if denied—must contradict the text. (A wrong choice, such as answer choice (D), can be denied with no effect on the argument; see above.) Try denying the choices to see whether you have picked a winner. 25. (E) More fossils, and more beetles, too! The last time they were in the paradox of question 2. No paradox here, just another assumption. This stimulus describes a pretty nifty procedure: The research team first establishes the temperature tolerances of current existing beetles, and then finds and dates fossils of the same beetle species. The purpose is to establish maximum summer temperatures for particular years in Britain by matching the tolerances of existing beetles to the places and periods determined by the fossils. If a current species X beetle can withstand a maximum of 90 degrees, and a fossil of a species X beetle is traced to a county in Britain, 15,000 years ago, the researchers would conclude that the maximum temperature in that county 15,000 years ago was 90 degrees. But the researchers are assuming that the tolerances of the beetle species studied haven’t changed in the interim time period. The argument therefore needs the assumption in (E)—if the tolerances have changed, the whole connection is shot to hell and the researchers can no longer use their findings as a reliable indicator of temperature conditions in bygone years. (A) is irrelevant. Even if beetles functioned better in cold weather, the research team could still use their presence to set maximum temperatures as long as their tolerances have not changed. (B) Why would this be necessary to the argument? The fossils of various species found in the same place could belong to the same time period without causing a problem for the researchers. (C) is an irrelevant comparison. Presumably, the process of dating beetle fossils needs to be reliable, but it need not be more reliable that the process of dating other organisms in order for this argument to remain valid. (D) is long and wrong. The highest actual temperature couldn’t have been higher than the temperature tolerances for any one of the beetles known to have lived there. If the highest actual temperature was an average of the highs for each beetle, this would necessitate that it was higher than some beetles’ tolerance (unless all the tolerances were exactly equal), which, according to the setup of the study, is impossible. • Always try to pre-phrase your answer. Some questions are simply not amenable to pre-phrasing, but others, like this one involving a fairly blatant assumption, are. When you have an inkling of what you’re looking for, you can save time by scanning the choices aggressively, looking for the one that matches your prediction. In this one, you may have been able to skip past the nightmarish (D) if your scan revealed that (E) was the ticket.

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SECTION IV: READING COMPREHENSION

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Passage 1—Zora Neale Hurston (Q. 1-8) Topic and Scope: Zora Neale Hurston; specifically, different assessments of her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Purpose and Main Idea: The author’s purpose is to explain why Hurston’s novel has only recently received widespread praise, her main idea being simply that the development of new strands of literary criticism accounts for this turnaround. Paragraph Structure: ¶1 introduces the passage’s basic question: Why was such an important and eventually influential novel dismissed when it first appeared? ¶2 says that the novel was misunderstood and condemned, especially in the Black literary community, because it was out of step with the Black “protest fiction” of the time. ¶3 explains that the rise of feminist and Afrocentric literary criticism has been behind the new appreciation of Hurston’s novel. The Big Picture: • Passages like this one—where topic, scope, and purpose become clear early on—are a good place to begin work on the Reading Comprehension section on test day. Passages that begin with a lot of unfocused details are best left for later in the section. • This passage features a classic structure that you’ll surely see on test day. A “problem” is presented up front; and the rest of the passage is devoted to probing and “solving” this problem. • Book review passages often mention different authors and different works. Keep them straight in your mind—the questions will probably test to see that you’re aware of the differences between/among authors and books. The Questions: 1. (E) Lines 15-18 say that Wilson’s work, “unlike” Hurston’s, was totally ignored upon its publication. But, like Hurston’s work, it has recently been the object of literary inquiry. (A) The passage doesn’t say when Wilson’s book was published, so we can’t conclude that it was written at the same time as Hurston’s novel. Moreover, Wilson's work didn’t receive any critical attention. (B) According to the passage (lines 1-5), it’s Hurston’s novel that has heavily influenced the writing of later Black women.

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(C) This passage is mostly concerned with the literary establishment’s tardy appreciation of Wilson’s novel, not with the public, but even the few references to the public suggest that (C) is off. Readers were put off (lines 36-38), “and the novel went quietly out of print” (line 40)—not signs of wide readership. (D) Lines 15-18 make it clear that Wilson’s novel was published. • Although this is an inference question, you don’t really have to infer anything. You just have to read lines 15-18 carefully. On test day, you’ll find that many inference questions don’t require you to do more than read carefully. • Harriet Wilson is mentioned only once (in lines 15-17). Read the lines around such a reference carefully, for that’s where you’re most likely to find the correct answer. • A one-word Keyword signal such as “unlike,” line 15, can have the power to unlock an entire question. Find and use the Keywords you're given! 2. (B) ¶2 mentions that Hurston’s book went out of print because it wasn't understood by much of the Black literary establishment and readership. (It was Harriet Wilson’s novel, not Hurston’s, that was relegated to obscurity because of critical neglect.) (A) Au contraire. Hurston’s novel received a lot of flak from reviewers when it appeared. (C) Afrocentric interpretations of Hurston’s novel, ¶3 reveals, are a more recent development. (D) ¶s 2 and 3 make it clear that Hurston’s work doesn’t belong to the genre known as “protest fiction.” (E) The passage says that the book received mixed reviews from White and Black critics. There’s not enough information to conclude that “most” reviewers gave it a less than positive reception. • Question stems sometimes don’t point you to a specific part of the passage. When this happens, your best approach is to go through the choices one-by-one, without trying to pre-phrase an answer. 3. (C) This choice captures the author’s topic (Hurston’s novel); scope (earlier versus later assessments of her novel); and purpose (to explain why Hurston’s novel has recently won acclaim). (A) focuses on a detail in ¶2. (B) According to the author, Afrocentric literary critics have also helped to bring Hurston’s novel to prominence. Besides, this passage also discusses why Hurston’s novel wasn’t well-received initially—an aspect of the passage that (B) doesn’t address.

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(D) Hurston’s novel was trashed by some early literary critics precisely because it wasn’t “protest fiction.” (E) focuses on a detail in ¶3. • The correct answer to a global question must be broad enough to encompass the contents of the entire passage. Watch out for choices that focus on individual details or ¶s. 4. (E) According to lines 52-56, the recent rise of Afrocentric literary analysis has brought to light Black folklore traditions as represented in literature. (A) distorts a detail in ¶3. Indeed, the only thing we’re told about Gates is that he has written perceptively about Hurston’s novel. (B) and (D) are beyond the scope of the passage, which is about literary criticism of Hurston’s novel. We aren’t told much about Black novelists as a group. For all we know, Black novelists writing before or during the 1940s did use folklore in their works. (C) Again, we don’t know what other Black authors were doing; so, we can’t conclude that Hurston was the first to incorporate Black folklore into a novel. • Don’t rely on your memory to answer detail questions. Go back to the passage and reread to make sure that you’ve got the details straight. • During your work on the questions, keep remembering the purpose of each paragraph—the result of the “roadmap” you assembled during the reading. Here, ¶4's scope of “recent developments” should frame your consideration of what's going on in lines 52-56.

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5. (C) ¶2 strongly implies that Wright’s Native Son fell into the genre of “protest fiction,” which explored the issue of racism in the United States. In other words, whereas Hurston’s novel concentrated on the life of one individual in the Black community (lines 39-40), Wright’s novel focused on the entire community. (A) Since Wright’s book fit into the dominant genre of the era, it’s highly unlikely that it got a worse reception than Hurston’s novel, especially since we’re told that Wright's novel was “much acclaimed.” (B) Au contraire. Wright’s novel is far more typical of mid-century Black writing than Hurston’s. (D) We can’t say that Wright’s book has got more folklore in it than Hurston’s, because the passage doesn’t tell us exactly what’s in his book. Except for the one reference, Native Son is outside the scope of the passage. (E) No comparison is possible between Wright’s book and Hurston’s on the issue of feminist and Afrocentric attention, because the passage doesn’t provide us with feminist and Afrocentric comments on Wright’s novel. • Many inference questions will contain wrong choices that fall outside the scope of the text. Here, choices (A), (D), and (E) are all outside the scope. • Wrong answers often blow up the importance of a detail. Notice how, in this passage, Native Son is only dragged in as a single simple point of comparison with These Eyes..., yet Q. 6's wrong choices all imply that the passage has much more to say about Wright's novel than that. 6. (B) Lines 29-33 say that Black writers of the 1940s believed that Black literature should fall into the “protest fiction” genre—that is, they believed that it should tackle the issue of racism against Blacks. The novel outlined in choice (B) has just such a focus. (A), (C), (D), and (E) None of the novels in these choices focuses on racial discrimination. (D)’s “unjust working conditions” is not the same as racial discrimination. • One or two questions on test day may ask you to apply information in the passage to an “outside scenario.” If you don’t see the idea that the question’s testing right away, move on to another question. There’s no sense wasting time; the answer to this sort of question won’t be found in the passage. Come back to it later if you’ve got time.

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7. (C) In ¶2, the author notes that some mid-century reviewers dismissed Hurston’s book because it doesn’t deal with racism, the issue that interested them. In ¶3, the author notes that later reviewers, influenced by feminism or Afrocentrism, applauded the book because it deals with issues of concern to feminists and Blacks. Hence, the author is likely to agree with the notion that literary critics’ “ideological perspectives and assumptions about the purpose of art” color their analysis of art. (A) and (D) The author would probably disagree with these statements. After all, she largely attributes the early demise, as well as the later revival, of Hurston’s novel to the efforts of literary critics. (B) The author doesn’t discuss any “experimental” works of fiction, whatever that term means. Thus, there’s no telling what she’d have to say about how literary critics initially view them. (E) is too strong. True, the author notes that literary critics make much of the ideological premises of a book; but there’s nothing in the passage to indicate that she thinks that they hone in on this aspect of a work above all else. • Most passages will have one or two challenging questions. Don’t let them bog you down. Remember, you don’t get extra credit for answering hard questions correctly: All Q's are worth the same. Do all of the easy questions first; then come back to the tougher ones if you’ve got the time. 8. (B) The passage is mainly about the reassessment of Hurston’s novel that grew out of new forms of literary criticism. (A) What misconception? (C) distorts the contents of the passage. True, the author discusses early and more recent critiques of Hurston’s novel; but she doesn’t attempt to “reconcile” them. (D) What conventional approach? (E) What new discovery? • If you got Question #3, you should’ve gotten this one. When two questions probe the same issue, use the answer to the easier one to help you get the tougher one.

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Passage 2—”Hard” Cases in Law (Q. 9-15) Topic and Scope: The concept of “hard” (tough; controversial) legal cases; specifically, to what extent such cases are “legally determinate,” defined by the author as “decidable under existing law.” Purpose and Main Idea: The author’s purpose is to compare two legal thinkers' views of the law as a means of evaluating when and how controversial cases can be decided under existing law. By the end, certainly in the final sentence, we see that the author finds merit in both views but, in the main, finds Hart's conception of the open-endedness of legal terminology to be both persuasive and useful. Paragraph Structure: ¶1 presents some fundamental terminology and definitions—”hard” cases and “determinate”—as it lays out the passage’s fundamental issue: How can hard cases be decided? ¶2 belongs to Hart: his conception of law as legal rules with “opentextured” general terminology; an extended example; and the suggestion that some cases need to be decided on moral or political, rather than strictly legal, grounds because their terminology isn't specific or determinate enough. Dworkin is the focus of ¶3: To him the law isn't just Hart's rules, but also includes principles, and the two work in tandem to render “legal indeterminacy”—the deciding of cases on other than legal grounds—a non-issue. ¶4, as noted above, is comfortable with both concepts—both rules and principles—as the author forges a middle ground, deciding finally that there do exist difficult cases and a branch of law where things are simply not cut-and-dried, and judges must exercise some discretion. The Big Picture: • This passage is a strong candidate for being left until last: It's dense and difficult from the first few lines. Most students find this kind of windy text to be more manageable if it's approached after a lot of easier points are under one's belt. • Don't be nervous when a passage seems to involve a lot of intricate field-specific jargon, as this passage does. If the jargon important enough, then it will be clearly defined. • It is quite possible that you successfully attacked all or a majority of this passage's 7 questions without really knowing what the author was talking about. Don’t worry, because that is quite common. The beauty of LSAT Reading Comprehension is that if we get the gist of what's being discussed in a passage, we get a strong handle on the questions posed.

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The Questions: 9. (C) Dworkin's concept is legal principles; Hart's is open-textured legal rules; ¶4 indicates the author's level of comfort with both; and (C) sums it all up and gets the topic and scope right, to boot. (A) begs the question of the topic and scope—the determinacy of “hard” cases—and comes down squarely on the side of the need for resolving all cases through law alone, something the author rejects. (B) is the choice for those who grab ¶1 and not much else. The definition of “hard” cases is a jumping-off point for the real issue of how such cases are to be decided, and (B) mentions none of that. (D)'s negative judgment of Dworkin's concept of legal principles is not supported by the author—indeed, the author embraces the concept in ¶4. (E) is a pretty radical distortion of this passage's content and tone. Hart's definition of legal terminology as “open textured” implies (quite sensibly) that language has some inherent flexibility of meaning—even legal language—and that judges need to exercise some judgment as a result; but all of that is a far cry from accusations of “inherent inconsistency” and “defects and gaps in the law.” • As long as you recognize the “middle ground” between Hart and Dworkin that the author is trying to forge in ¶4, you should be able to reject the four uncredited choices without straining for full comprehension of the text. • We must always be conscious of topic and scope, and never more so than in global questions, where dozens of wrong choices can be put by the wayside simply because they deviate from the author's broadest terms of argument. 10. (C) This choice nicely paraphrases lines 40-41. (A) sounds like a plausible definition of the term “legal principles” on its face, but it has nothing to do with Dworkin or, indeed, with anything else in the passage. (B) Legal principles, as defined by Dworkin, don’t explain legal rules: They coexist with them, within the body of established law (see lines 35-37). (D) Dworkin believes that law exists outside of legal rules. (E) Dworkin seems to be opposed to the notion that some cases need judicial discretion (lines 42-45), so he would not coin the term “legal principles” to mean cases that required same.

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• You're pointed to ¶2 by this stem, but again, you don't necessarily need chapter-andverse understanding of ¶2. When you're asked for a definition, as you are here, ignore distractions and just concentrate on the definition that the author provides. 11. (D) The answer comes from the final sentence—as well as the realization that rules are Hart's concept, principles are Dworkin's, and the author is trying to effect a synthesis of the two in the final paragraph. The “penumbra of both rules and principles,” of course, is (lines 1516) the place where things are not cut-and-dried and determinate. (A) The author never posits which—rules or principles—is appealed to more often in hard cases. (B) “Official recognition,” whatever that means, has nothing to do with this “think piece” on legal determinacy, the author's effort to work out a theory of one part of the law. (C) Far from arguing that rules have been superseded by principles, the author believes that both exist in the law. (E) No, the author hints strongly that those cases “in the penumbra of both rules and principles” (lines 56-57) will, in fact, require judges' discretion for their decidability. • Even when you can't quite pinpoint where in the passage an answer is to be found, you can be bold in rejecting choices (such as answer choice (C) and answer choice (E) here) that are wildly at odds with the author's point of view. 12. (D) This choice sums up lines 18-22. (A) and (B) are off because the word “vehicle” is a term, not a rule or principle in and of itself. (C) and (E) Au contraire, “vehicle” was chosen precisely because it does not necessarily have one settled meaning (C), because it's Hart's concept in action (E). • Don't strain too hard on “purpose of a detail” questions. Try to take them at face value. 13. (B) This answer comes directly out of lines 8-11, which tie Hart's concept to the standard law and describe Hart's ideas as “clear” and “persuasive.” (A) “Clear” and “persuasive” don't imply that a work or theory covers a topic “exhaustively.” No evidence for this one.

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(C) and (D) are each half-right, half-wrong. Interesting, sure; plausible, o.k.; but “impractical” or “unwieldy”? It's unlikely that a theoretical think piece like this one would traffic much in practicality anyway; but if anything, the author does seem to see practical and workable (as opposed to “unwieldy”) value in Hart's concept (see ¶4). (E) Hopelessly wrong. No matter how far back in history Hart's work dates—and of course we get no info to that effect—the author seems to find it relevant and well worth studying. • Don't just answer tone questions in a seat-of-the-pants way. Scour the passage for explicit textual support for your choice. 14. (B) Some examinees, thrown by all of the heavy-duty terminology in ¶1, failed to see that “determinate” is clearly defined by lines 6-7 and paraphrased in (B). Very straightforward. A demonstration of how one's frame of mind can make or break a particular LSAT question. (A) Penalties—sentences, punishments, etc.—are way beyond the scope of this investigation. (C) The concept of judicial discretion doesn't come into the passage until much later, and then only in passing. This choice picks up on some terminology from the previous sentence (lines 1-3) but is otherwise incoherent. (D) defines “indeterminate” pretty well. (E) No reference to codified procedures can be found anywhere near line 6. • Frame of mind is so important. Remember that if you're struggling with a passage's dense ideas or difficult jargon, so is everyone else; and trust that a general sense of the issues involved should be enough for at least the lion's share of the questions. • Remember, too, that even difficult passages come equipped with less than challenging questions. Like this one.

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15. (E) This choice as written basically just sums up two lines, lines 46-47, but that fact shouldn't unduly trouble you: After all, ¶4 is where the passage's individual discussions of Hart and Dworkin is heading—it is, therefore, the most important ¶—and lines 46-47 do encapsulate ¶4. So despite (E)'s evocation of only two lines, they are the most important lines and can stand acceptably as the author's purpose. (A) Nonsense. The in-practice role of the legislative branch is about as far removed from this passage's concerns as can be. (B) is an issue that was raised and disposed of in ¶1. The topic may be “hard” cases, but the scope moves away from their definition to their determinacy, something that (B) ignores but (E) exploits. (C) paraphrases lines 38-41, but these lines aren't nearly as all-encompassing as lines 46-47. And in terms of the author's main purpose, Dworkin certainly doesn't deserve the pride of place that (C) assigns him. (D) If anyone is in the “critiquing Hart” business, it's Dworkin and not our author, who is trying to synthesize the views of the two thinkers. • When working with global questions, make a special effort to pre-phrase an answer, in order to avoid being sidetracked by tangential issues.

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Passage 3—Impose a CO2 Tax? (Q. 16-21) Topic and Scope: A tax on CO2 emissions as a way of reducing air pollution; specifically, whether and how governments should impose such a tax. Purpose and Main Idea: The author’s purpose is fairly clearly announced in lines 17-19, and expanded in lines 44-45—overall, he wonders, what are the issues involved in imposing that pollution tax? A flat-out conclusion that the tax is, or is not, desirable would act as a strong main idea, but the author falls short of providing one; he sees the upsides and downsides of the idea, but makes no final recommendation. Paragraph Structure: ¶1 announces the issue quite blatantly, and the rhetorical question (lines 3-7) sets the tone for the rest of the inquiry: Why impose a CO2 tax rather than any number of other ways to control pollution? The rest of ¶1 describes the advantages of the tax. ¶2 explores the uncertainty (announced in lines 17-19) over how high a tax would need to be, to be effective; and then the new issue it introduces, that of cooperation between nations, turns out to drive ¶3. That ¶ lists the difficulties in convincing all nations to impose the tax, a topic that segues neatly into ¶4's consideration of the pros and cons of unilateral imposition of the CO2 tax. The Big Picture: • Not every passage contains a “main idea.” Don't strain to find one. Some passages (like this one) simply explore the pros and cons of an issue, or lay out a narrative with no real persuasive purpose. The best clue that a passage can be boiled down to one “big idea” is the presence of a question explicitly asking for one. • Not every passage contains a main idea, but every passage has a purpose. Every author has a solid reason for writing what she does. Explore that, first and foremost.

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The Questions: 16. (B) The details of the tax come up in ¶1, where we're told that “a carbon tax would vary with the type of fuel” (lines 12-13). “Type” isn't immediately visible among the choices, so we need to look to two lines earlier, where we see that the type of fuel is pegged to the amount of pollution each creates—choice (B). (A) Tricky, because it sounds superficially plausible; but it's unsupported by anything in ¶1, or anywhere else for that matter. (C) and (E) The size of the CO2 -burning industries, and the number of users, are never discussed. These choices seem to have been jury-rigged to fill out the set of five. (D) Economic implications aren't mentioned until ¶2, and even then they're described as being uncertain, so how could the author believe that they would cause the variance in the amount of the tax? • Your pre-phrased answer may not always appear among the choices. Instead of forcing a choice to fit, go back to the text and reread the relevant paragraph. You may have missed something. 17. (A) Nothing could be clearer than line 22's Keywords “for example,” indicating that what it's an example of can be found just earlier. And indeed, (A) is an easy paraphrase of lines 1921. (B)'s reference to “most accurate information available” is puzzling at best, and misleading at worst: Right after presenting the example, our author (in lines 27-34) makes it clear that the writer's information is highly speculative in nature. (C) No, the stats are cited approvingly. (D) Incentives for emissions reductions are the topic of ¶1, not ¶2. (E) Read carefully! Lines 22-27 don't show how to calculate an effective tax; they show the results of such calculations. Exactly how the writer came up with those figures is never discussed by our author. • Never stop looking for, and relying on, Keywords.

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18. (A) A difficult question—difficult because it's based on a dense part of the passage, and because it's logic-based—worth skipping over in your first pass through the passage and questions. The premise of the tax, as outlined in ¶1, is that the highest-polluting fuel would be taxed the highest, an incentive to fuel users to switch to less-polluting (and, inferably, lower-taxed) fuels and to reduce energy use altogether. But if (A) is true, if the highesttaxed and highest-polluting fuel is the cheapest, then that would be a disincentive to switch according to plan. Industry might well stick with the more damaging fuel and pay the higher tax on it, because doing so could result in net savings. (B) The Toronto Conference doesn't come up until several lines later. Besides, if as (B) says, all fuels would be taxed higher, then that would have no effect on the conclusion in question. (C) Irrelevant distinction that fails to affect the likelihood of industry substituting lesspolluting fuels for the higher-taxed ones. (D) and(E) sound so similar that some examinees may smell a rat, and suspect that one of them must be right and the other wrong. But whether it's gas or coal that proves to provide less CO2 than was once thought, we are still no closer to damaging the author's conviction that industry will be moved to switch fuels after the tax is imposed. • The LSAT shouldn't be fought as a siege. Never dig in your heels and dwell on one particular difficult question—especially when there may be many easier questions just around the bend. Circle the toughie, and go on for now. 19. (B) As noted above, this one sums up the topic and scope and the author's overall movement through the passage. (A) ¶2 only. (C) Lines 27-34 only. (D) Answered by lines 1-3. Then what? This one misses the entire thrust of the passage. (E) Never discussed. Too specific and technical for this kind of general-audience piece, anyway. • This, like all other global questions, warrants reference to the entire passage as a whole. Anticipate that wrong choices will be too narrow, or irrelevant to the issues at hand.

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20. (C) This one requires an understanding of the sweep of ¶4—and the whole sweep, because if you stop reading at line 48 you probably end up choosing wrong choice (D). Up to line 48, the author describes the benefits of a country imposing the tax on its own, but thereafter lays out the negatives. In the end, the conclusion that as a result of unilateral action, probably more CO2 would enter the atmosphere than before, strongly suggests that the author votes “thumbs down” to a unilaterally-imposed tax, and for the reason summed up neatly by (C). (A) has the thrust of the discussion 180 degrees off. The rest of the world would initially benefit, but the taxing country would be harmed. (B) Au contraire, other countries would benefit—at least initially. (D) Again, a tempting choice if one goes no further than line 48. (E) The whole idea of countries being “inspired” to do positive and idealistic things is markedly absent from ¶4. • A good rule of thumb: When you think you've found your answer in the text, read on just a little bit further, to see whether an unexpected but relevant shift occurs nearby. 21. (E) Look just prior to line 41 for the definition of the “free rider” effect: What we get is a country refusing to cooperate in a group venture, and profiting rather than being punished for its include-me-out attitude. That's the position (E)'s shepherd is happily in, continuing to graze his sheep on fields that everyone else is eschewing in favor of purchased feed. (A)'s city is trying to negotiate a good deal for itself—not exactly selfless or altruistic, but not an individual stepping to its own beat against the wishes of others. (B) Self-interest ($) motivates this guy, but again, he's not benefiting from his refusal to go along with everyone else. (C) Here's someone Doing The Right Thing despite the apathy of his neighbors. (D) Read carefully! The homeowner's purchase of bottled water is a different approach to the problem of contaminated groundwater from that of his neighbors and their fund, but does not amount to his profiting from going in a different direction. • Analogy questions can be tricky. Get support from the text, and don't settle for a choice that seems to relate to the given situation; demand a close fit.

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Passage 4—African Drought (Q. 22-27) Topic and Scope: Sub-Saharan West Africa’s drought; specifically, a hypothesis that explains why sub-Saharan West Africa has been caught up in a long and severe drought. Purpose and Main Idea: The author’s purpose is to describe and assess a widespread hypothesis (the “cooling” theory) about the cause of sub-Saharan West Africa’s drought; the author’s main idea is that this hypothesis is unconvincing. Paragraph Structure: ¶1 sets out the basic hypothesis: A cooling of the Northern Hemisphere has caused the drought. ¶s 1 and 2 explain the reasoning behind this hypothesis. Essentially, atmospheric dust has reflected sunlight away from the ground, lowering the Northern Hemisphere’s air temperature, which, in turn, has affected wind patterns, ultimately leading to less rainfall in sub-Saharan West Africa. Moreover, this detrimental development, proponents of the hypothesis believe, might be long term. ¶3 shifts gears from description to opinion. In this ¶, the author basically says that the hypothesis is refuted by the meteorological facts. The Big Picture: • This passage contains a mass of details. Don’t worry about assimilating all of them during a first read through. Instead, get a sense of each ¶’s purpose. This way you’ll know instantly where to find the details that you may need. • It’s sometimes easier to grasp a complicated scientific process if you create a picture of it in your mind. Passages like this one that have long descriptions of a process are very susceptible to this strategy. Even non-meteorologists and non-geographers can get an adequate sense of the cooling hypothesis if s/he pictures the process mentally. • Tough passages often have easy questions. Don’t blow off a tough passage because you think that you won’t be able to answer any of the questions. You’ll be sacrificing some easy points if you do.

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The Questions: 22. (B) This choice encompasses the passage’s topic (African drought); scope (a widespread hypothesis about the cause of the drought); and purpose (to describe and take issue with this hypothesis). (A) Au contraire. The author says that the “cooling hypothesis,” which is based on the role of atmospheric dust, is “not well supported” by the meteorological facts. (C) focuses on a detail in ¶2, not the passage as a whole. (D) Like (C), this choice focuses on a detail in ¶2. Besides, this view is held by proponents of the “cooling hypothesis.” It’s not the author’s view. (E) is beyond the scope of the passage, which offers no information about when the African drought is likely to end. • The two most frequent “trap” choices on global questions are choices that focus on details, and choices that go beyond the scope of the text. Watch out for them. 23. (B) In ¶3, the author says that the “cooling hypothesis” is “not well supported”; and he offers a number of meteorological facts that appear to undermine it. But he knocks the hypothesis in a very restrained tone. That’s why “cautious skepticism” is a better description of his attitude than “vehement opposition” (A). (C) The author’s not “ambivalent” about the hypothesis. Lines 48-50 suggest that he gave it some credence at some point, but that's only the slightest of suggestions. (D) and (E) suggest that the author’s a proponent of the hypothesis. That clearly isn’t the case. • When you’re asked about the author’s attitude, you’ll generally be able to eliminate three choices with relative ease. Of the last two, the more moderate one will usually (but not always) be correct because most LSAT passages, if they are opinionated, contain moderate opinions appropriate to scholarly discourse. And should some author's opinions be vehement, the evidence for that vehemence will be clearly placed in the passage for all to see.

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24. (D) Lines 33-34 is where this “circumpolar vortex,” so called, is first mentioned; and what “is causing” (line 32) it? Lines 30-32 tell us. Expansion of the circumpolar vortex, according to those who endorse the “cooling hypothesis,” occurs when there’s a growth in the temperature differential between the tropical latitudes and more northerly latitudes. (A) focuses on the tropics exclusively—no can do. (B) distorts a detail in ¶2. If anything, the circumpolar vortex might expand if there’s heavier than normal snowfall for an extended period. (C) is beyond the scope of the passage, which doesn’t mention temperature differentials between water and land. (E) The significant difference is between the tropical latitudes, on the one hand, and the middle and high latitudes, on the other. • When students complain about “detail questions,” this and Q. 25 are their nightmares. Both are prime examples of why it’s important to go back to the passage for details. All of Q. 24's choices might have looked convincing at first glance, and only by rereading lines 29-34 could you confidently zero in on choice (D). 25. (A) Note that the question asks specifically about Northern Hemisphere landmasses, not about the Northern Hemisphere in general. That makes the information in lines 8-12 relevant here, and clearly those temperatures declined after 1945. (A) just describes that the other way round: Temps were higher, before. Incidentally, information in lines 58-63 isn’t relevant because it refers to the Northern Hemisphere in general. (B) Since we’re not given actual figures, we have no way to compare the pre-1945 period to the 1980s. All we know is that temperatures were warmer in both eras than they were between 1945 and the early 1970s. (C) Lines 8-12 state otherwise. (D) and (E) We aren’t given the actual data that would permit either comparison. • This question, like Q. 24, is very difficult; it may be arguable which is the hardest in the entire Reading Comprehension section, but it's surely one of these two. Thus, either or both are good candidates to tackle after you’ve completed all of the other questions (unless, of course, you happen to see an answer right away). Remember, questions like these one aren’t worth more than easy questions; so, don’t waste a lot of time on them if you don’t see a quick path to the answer.

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26. (D) ¶1 sets out the “cooling hypothesis,” which addresses the cause of the African drought; the rest of ¶1—as well as all of ¶2—describes the hypothesis and its supporting evidence; and ¶3 disputes the hypothesis. (A) An opposing point of view—the author’s—isn’t presented until the end of the passage. The formal hypothesis comes first. (B) The author’s view and that of proponents of the “cooling hypothesis” aren’t reconciled; they’re simply discussed. (C) The author questions the “cooling hypothesis,” but he never “amends” it. As far as we know, he simply rejects it. (E) What second theory? The author doesn’t offer one of his own. • If you’re asked about the “organization” of the passage, think about its structure before you browse among the choices. This type of question lends itself well to prephrasing. 27. (E) Lines 36-40 indicate that those who endorse the “cooling hypothesis” believe that the subSaharan drought has been caused by a shift in normal wind patterns. This shift, they contend, has kept monsoon rains from reaching the sub-Saharan region. Thus, they would probably say that the return of such rains means that wind patterns have returned to normal. (A) Au contraire. According to supporters of the “cooling hypothesis,” an increase in ice and snow coverage would be likely to keep the rains at bay. (B) Au contraire aussi. Again, according to hypothesis advocates, such a development would likely perpetuate the sub-Saharan drought. (C) Hypothesis advocates never directly link conditions in the tropics with sub-Saharan rain. (D) Another au contraire choice. Lines 36-40 identify this development as part of the causal chain of sub-Saharan drought. • Questions that test relationships will often contain au contraire choices. The best approach to questions like this one is to go back to the passage, reread the relationship, and then pre-phrase an answer. When a choice matches your prephrased answer, you can be confident that it’s correct.

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