#9 - Until he was dismissed amid great controversy, Hastings

[Adam Tyson]

Yes on both counts, Mastering! "Must have been" is a statement of 100% certainty, and in this case the Necessary Assumption also operates as a Sufficient Assumption (it Justifies the Conclusion, to use our terminology). Sometime that happens, and it an also happen with Strengthen questions, where the answer might be a necessary assumption and might also be good enough to justify the conclusion. Not always, not even most of the time, but sometimes these answer choices can cross over in those ways.

[Mastering_LSAT]

Adam, many thanks!

[cgleeson]

Hi,

Funny thing about this question, as soon as I saw A I was like "oh there's the answer". Then I said, "nope, those lsac testmakers want to jam me up"...then I started looking at E, then C. A was a clear cut answer hands down, and I wasted more time trying to prove the right answer was wrong. Does that happen to others as well?

Chris

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

So so normal, Chris. I went through a phase during my studying where I overthought everything, and didn't trust my own logic skills at all. It's hard to adjust your expectations for yourself. At first with this test, I felt like I had no idea what was happening most of the time. So of COURSE I didn't trust myself. But as I improved, that feeling of insecurity about my skills continued, even as my actual skills grew. To fix the disconnect, I started tracking my performance more closely. I would note where I felt confident with an answer choice, and where/why I changed my answer choice from one I liked initially. Forcing myself to actually write out why I decided a strong answer wasn't actually correct forced me to slow down, and see if I was making a mistake, or talking myself out of the right answer.

So much of this test turns out to be a mental test. Knowing your own brain, recognizing when to trust your instincts, and when you are making unfounded assumptions is part of the process here.

Keep at it!

[cgleeson]

Thank you Rachael...I definitely will.

So so normal, Chris. I went through a phase during my studying where I overthought everything, and didn't trust my own logic skills at all. It's hard to adjust your expectations for yourself. At first with this test, I felt like I had no idea what was happening most of the time. So of COURSE I didn't trust myself. But as I improved, that feeling of insecurity about my skills continued, even as my actual skills grew. To fix the disconnect, I started tracking my performance more closely. I would note where I felt confident with an answer choice, and where/why I changed my answer choice from one I liked initially. Forcing myself to actually write out why I decided a strong answer wasn't actually correct forced me to slow down, and see if I was making a mistake, or talking myself out of the right answer.

So much of this test turns out to be a mental test. Knowing your own brain, recognizing when to trust your instincts, and when you are making unfounded assumptions is part of the process here.

Keep at it!

[Adam Tyson]

Yes to both, Mastering! "Must" is 100% certain, and the correct answer would also justify the conclusion. Good job seeing that!