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General questions relating to LSAT Logical Reasoning.
 lsat12345
  • Posts: 11
  • Joined: Jun 29, 2019
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#65914
Hello! Wasn't sure where else to post, seeing as no one has asked this yet. In the second LR section of the June 2019 test, I had trouble with 3 questions, and was wondering if I could get an explanation for them.

4 (Coat patterns of cat species). What makes A a better answer than C? Cheetahs not being able to climb up trees would be a good reason for them not to live and hunt in environments with lots of trees.

17 (Lycopene study). What makes A a better answer than D? Just because Lycopene is more abundant in fruits and vegetables, doesn't mean that the people in the study got their lycopene dose from fruits and vegetables. The stimulus never states that they got their lycopene in this way. What if the participants just took pills that contain lycopene (the stimulus doesn't say that lycopene is exclusively in fruit either, which wouldn't disprove that claim).

20 (coal mining). How does the premise that many local businesses depend on natural beauty provide evidence for the premise that heavy coal mining would cause the industry to close?

Thank you!
 lanereuden
  • Posts: 147
  • Joined: May 30, 2019
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#65915
Yeah I agree. Can someone also explain question 18 in LR about Mr Kapp using inferior materials to construct library.
Specifically why A,B,E are wrong and D is right.
 lanereuden
  • Posts: 147
  • Joined: May 30, 2019
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#65916
lsat12345 wrote:Hello! Wasn't sure where else to post, seeing as no one has asked this yet. In the second LR section of the June 2019 test, I had trouble with 3 questions, and was wondering if I could get an explanation for them.

4 (Coat patterns of cat species). What makes A a better answer than C? Cheetahs not being able to climb up trees would be a good reason for them not to live and hunt in environments with lots of trees.

17 (Lycopene study). What makes A a better answer than D? Just because Lycopene is more abundant in fruits and vegetables, doesn't mean that the people in the study got their lycopene dose from fruits and vegetables. The stimulus never states that they got their lycopene in this way. What if the participants just took pills that contain lycopene (the stimulus doesn't say that lycopene is exclusively in fruit either, which wouldn't disprove that claim).

20 (coal mining). How does the premise that many local businesses depend on natural beauty provide evidence for the premise that heavy coal mining would cause the industry to close?

Thank you!
For 20, Let's put it this way...we can clearly see that the role it plays is not the conclusion (neither intermediary nor final conclusion). The conclusion is something like: if coal mining is permitted, we can expect jobs to decrease overall.
Okay, so that's clear. Now, is the business owner hypothesizing that the local businesses depend on our region's beauty? Clearly not.
Now, the tricky part....premise or evidence...seems like a similar notion....so, let's look deeper...A says: direct evidence for a statement that is used to support the argument's overall conclusion
B says it is a premise that is offered as direct support for the overall conclusion of the argument.

Okay...so now...thinking this through...if the businesses depend on regional beauty, then it is clear that businesses would close as a result of that coal mining that de-beautifies the area. (okay, but we are not done. That is to say: businesses closing means what?)Is the conclusion coal mining de-beautifies the area? No. That is a statement that supports the argument's overall conclusion: job will decrease due to coal mining. Make sense?
 lanereuden
  • Posts: 147
  • Joined: May 30, 2019
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#65917
lsat12345 wrote:Hello! Wasn't sure where else to post, seeing as no one has asked this yet. In the second LR section of the June 2019 test, I had trouble with 3 questions, and was wondering if I could get an explanation for them.

4 (Coat patterns of cat species). What makes A a better answer than C? Cheetahs not being able to climb up trees would be a good reason for them not to live and hunt in environments with lots of trees.

17 (Lycopene study). What makes A a better answer than D? Just because Lycopene is more abundant in fruits and vegetables, doesn't mean that the people in the study got their lycopene dose from fruits and vegetables. The stimulus never states that they got their lycopene in this way. What if the participants just took pills that contain lycopene (the stimulus doesn't say that lycopene is exclusively in fruit either, which wouldn't disprove that claim).

20 (coal mining). How does the premise that many local businesses depend on natural beauty provide evidence for the premise that heavy coal mining would cause the industry to close?

Thank you!
I think you are reading 17 incorrectly. Lycopene is not necessarily more abundant in fruits and vegetables. We are only talking about the fruits and vegetables that rich in lycopene (which may be only a handful)
It's like the following analogy:

You are (mis)stating A as follows: Crime rates are generally higher in minority populations....
Question A is saying: In the minority areas in which crime is high....

Clearly, this could only be a handful of areas...not necessarily a majority for sure.

Okay, so now that that is clear, we can continue to why A weakens (regardless of the exact amount in which it exists):

Okay, now presumably, lycopene exists in at least some foods (vegetables and fruits). (Crime occurs among some people of a certain background) Regardless of that fact,
we know that fruits with high lypocene levels (poor people with high crime rates) also possess several other nutrients that can likely reduce the risk of stroke (many of these same poor people with high crime rates are also frequent victims of crime themselves)...Okay..so can we say that Lypocene reduces strokes? (or that poverty causes crime?)

Or is it now possible to say that those other ingredients reduce the risk of strokes? (or that being a victim of a crime is likely to increase the risk of someone committing a crime?)

Hopefully this helps.
 lanereuden
  • Posts: 147
  • Joined: May 30, 2019
|
#65918
lsat12345 wrote:Hello! Wasn't sure where else to post, seeing as no one has asked this yet. In the second LR section of the June 2019 test, I had trouble with 3 questions, and was wondering if I could get an explanation for them.

4 (Coat patterns of cat species). What makes A a better answer than C? Cheetahs not being able to climb up trees would be a good reason for them not to live and hunt in environments with lots of trees.

17 (Lycopene study). What makes A a better answer than D? Just because Lycopene is more abundant in fruits and vegetables, doesn't mean that the people in the study got their lycopene dose from fruits and vegetables. The stimulus never states that they got their lycopene in this way. What if the participants just took pills that contain lycopene (the stimulus doesn't say that lycopene is exclusively in fruit either, which wouldn't disprove that claim).

20 (coal mining). How does the premise that many local businesses depend on natural beauty provide evidence for the premise that heavy coal mining would cause the industry to close?

Thank you!
Okay as to 4, I got it wrong myself. So I am thinking C is wrong (and I certainly could be offering an incorrect explanation hre, but this is my guess/way of thinking) because we have to make too many leaps to get to the idea that climbing matters for the purposes of living or hunting. We are assuming that climbing is necessary to hunting/survival...when no such suggestion is made.

choice A explicitly makes this leap for us. That is, it speaks directly to one of the two concerns mentioned (hunting). And it sensibly explains the paradox-- (actually, it seems to me like this is akin to the nature v. nurture debate)--anyhow, it explains it by suggesting they genetically inherit the spots from the large cat species and have developed a hunting strategy that conforms more to open plains than to forested, secluded areas where stealth may matter.
 lanereuden
  • Posts: 147
  • Joined: May 30, 2019
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#65919
It'd be great if someone from PowerScore could more officially endorse my way of thinking about these above questions (and also answer my question on question 18, if possible)?
 lanereuden
  • Posts: 147
  • Joined: May 30, 2019
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#65920
Can someone also explain why 25 ecological terms like invasive species...how A is incorrect
Also can someone explain why 26 employee: vernon's behavior is last month's incident...why E is right and D is wrong?
 lsat12345
  • Posts: 11
  • Joined: Jun 29, 2019
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#65921
lanereuden wrote:
lsat12345 wrote:
Okay, now presumably, lycopene exists in at least some foods (vegetables and fruits). (Crime occurs among some people of a certain background) Regardless of that fact,
we know that fruits with high lypocene levels (poor people with high crime rates) also possess several other nutrients that can likely reduce the risk of stroke (many of these same poor people with high crime rates are also frequent victims of crime themselves)...Okay..so can we say that Lypocene reduces strokes? (or that poverty causes crime?)

Or is it now possible to say that those other ingredients reduce the risk of strokes? (or that being a victim of a crime is likely to increase the risk of someone committing a crime?)

Hopefully this helps.
Having trouble deducing the relevance of that minority/crime analogy, but regardless, that still doesn't address the issue I posed in my question. I see the error I made that you pointed out, I didn't read answer choice A well enough as I was writing my post. Regardless, I don't think my misreading negatively affected the relevance of my question. The handful of fruits and vegetables in question could have all the lycopene in the world, that doesn't mean that the subjects in the study consumed them. D addresses this, A does not. Like I said earlier, what in the stimulus should convince me that the subjects got their lycopene dosage from fruit rather than a supplement?
 lsat12345
  • Posts: 11
  • Joined: Jun 29, 2019
|
#65922
lanereuden wrote:
Okay...so now...thinking this through...if the businesses depend on regional beauty, then it is clear that businesses would close as a result of that coal mining that de-beautifies the area. (okay, but we are not done. That is to say: businesses closing means what?)Is the conclusion coal mining de-beautifies the area? No. That is a statement that supports the argument's overall conclusion: job will decrease due to coal mining. Make sense?
Again, this doesn't address my question. You're right to say that a region that depends on beauty would close as a result of de-beautification, but that even further strays away from answer choice A. In fact, that would make me more apt to believe that "heavy coal mining forces them to close" would support "local businesses depend on beauty," not the other way around as answer choice A suggests.
 lsat12345
  • Posts: 11
  • Joined: Jun 29, 2019
|
#65923
lanereuden wrote:
we have to make too many leaps to get to the idea that climbing matters for the purposes of living or hunting. We are assuming that climbing is necessary to hunting/survival...when no such suggestion is made.

choice A explicitly makes this leap for us. That is, it speaks directly to one of the two concerns mentioned (hunting). And it sensibly explains the paradox-- (actually, it seems to me like this is akin to the nature v. nurture debate)--anyhow, it explains it by suggesting they genetically inherit the spots from the large cat species and have developed a hunting strategy that conforms more to open plains than to forested, secluded areas where stealth may matter.
Using your same reasoning, I could argue that A makes just as big a leap. How do we know that having spots is conducive to increased stealth? It could very well be a coincidence that lions that live on plains have plain fur. I also don't see how the claim can be made that the argument suggests that cheetahs inherited the spots from large cat species.

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