LSAT
*
PrepTest
June 2007
Explained
© 2008 Kaplan, Inc.
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Section 1: Logic Games
the second is 2, or the first digit is 2 and the second is
4. That’s a Limited Options setup waiting to happen—
we’ll write it all out in a moment.
SECTION I
LOGIC GAMES
Game 1: Product Codes
Questions 1–5
Situation: A company of some kind, where an
employee is generating product codes.
Entities: The digits in the codes. We don’t actually find
out what these are until we look at the first rule, but
that’s fine; it’s enough that we know they’re 0, 1, 2, 3,
and 4.
Action: Again, it’s hard to tell until we get a little bit
into the rules, but if you guessed, “Sequencing,” you
were right on the money.
Limitations: Rule 2 is really something like we’d expect
to see in a Limitation: each digit is used exactly once.
No duplicates, no missing digits.
The Initial Setup: We’ll use our basic Sequencing
sketch with slots and numbers. Just be careful not to
confuse the numbers of the slots with the digits going
into the code!
0 1 2 3 4
1
2
3
4
5
Rule 4 isn’t quite as easy to work through, but it sets
up a similar relationship between another two of the
digits: the third digit is smaller than the fifth digit. There
are too many possibilities to draw them out like we did
in Rule 3, so we’ll just create some shorthand for this
rule. Something like “3 < 5” might not be clear enough
to remind us exactly what we should do when we come
back to it during the questions, so we’ll make the
shorthand just a touch more elaborate: “3rd < 5th.”
Deductions:
The Blocs of Entities that Rule 3 sets up will allow us
to put together our Limited Options setup now:
Option 1:
1
2
1
2
3
4
5
Option 2:
2
4
1
2
3
4
5
Option I leaves the digits 0, 3, and 4 to be used, and
Option II leaves the digits 0, 1, and 3 to be used. We’ll
keep this in mind as we answer the questions—it will
be useful in applying Rule 4. There really aren’t any
Deductions dealing with Established Entities,
Numbers, or Duplications, so we’ll move right along.
The Rules:
Rule 1 and Rule 2 are really much closer to Limitations
than Rules. They give us the Entities, and tell us that
each one will be used exactly once. We’ve already got
that information in our Master Sketch, so we’re already
finished with these rules.
Rule 3, on the other hand, gives us something to work
with: the second digit is exactly twice the value of the
first. Don’t let the math frighten you! Even when there
is a little bit of math on the LSAT, it’s never very
difficult. All we have to do here is multiply (or divide) by
two. As long as you don’t panic, you won’t have any
trouble, and you’ll be well ahead of most people taking
the test, who were thrown off by this rule.
Think for a second about how this could work with the
digits you have, and you’ll realize there are only two
ways for this rule to work: either the first digit is 1 and
The Final Visualization:
Option 1:
1
2
1
2
3
0, 3, 4
3rd < 5th
Option 2:
2
4
1
2
3
0, 1, 3
4
5
4
5
1
Test 4 Explained
The Questions:
1. (A) Must be True / “If” clause
Don’t be thrown off if the first question isn’t an
Acceptability question; the Kaplan Methods will still
answer it.
If the last digit of the code is 1, then we must be in
Option II: otherwise we’d be using that digit twice. So the
first digit of the code will be 2, and the second digit will
be 4. That leaves 0 and 3; and to comply with Rule 4,
we’ll have to make 0 the third digit, and 3 the fourth digit.
(C) works with our sketch from Question 1; in fact, it
works with both of our Limited Options, so we can be
sure that (C) must be true. The digit 2 is always either
first or second, so it must come before the digit 3.
Let’s quickly eliminate the last choices:
(D) Once again, our sketch from Question 1 shows us
that (D) could be false. Toss it out.
And (E) is true in Option II, but could be false in Option
I. Get rid of it as well.
3. (C) Must be True / “If” clause
“Must be true” means true in both Options.
2
1
4
2
0
3
3
4
1
5
As it turns out, we could have answered this question
just based on our first deduction: the first digit must be
2, so (A) must be true and is the correct answer. The
rest of the answer choices all could be or must be false:
(B) Our sketch tells us that 0 must the third, not
second, and that 4 must be second.
(C) If the third digit were 3, the fifth digit would have to
be 4 to avoid violating Rule 4. But the “if” rule in this
question tells us that the fifth digit is one, so (C) must
be false.
(D) and (E) both deal with the fourth digit, and both of
them get it wrong; we already saw that the fourth digit
must be 3, not 0 or 4.
2. (C) Must be True
Always make every possible Deduction when
sketching out a question’s “if” clause—they will
often help you with later questions.
We didn’t really need to fill in all five digits in our sketch
to answer the last question; the first Deduction we
made actually gave us the answer. But having that
sketch filled in might help us eliminate choices in a
later question—like this one. Let’s work through the
choices and see if it helps. Remember, since the right
answer is something that must be true, the four wrong
answers could be false:
(A) 1 might come before 2 in some possibilities—like
Option I—but we saw in Question one that 1 could also
come after 2. Eliminate (A).
(B) Again, our sketch from Question 1 eliminates this
choice—1 was last in that sketch, so it was definitely
after 3. Eliminate (B), too.
Usually, a new “if” rule will point us to one or the other
of our Limited Options, meaning that we only have to
draw one sketch. But this question must be the
exception to that general rule, because this “if”
doesn’t narrow things down for us. If the third digit is
not 0, that doesn’t tell us anything about the first and
second digits. Again, don’t panic—just draw a new
sketch for each option:
Option 1: 0, 3, 4
1
1
3
4
Not O
5
Option 2: 0, 1, 3
2
4
1
2
3
4
Not O
5
That takes care of Step 2 of the Kaplan Method (the
sketch), so we’ll move on to Step 3: the rules. The only
rule we haven’t used yet is Rule 4: the 3rd digit is
smaller than the fifth digit. Thankfully, if the third digit
can’t be 0, there’s only one way this rule could work in
each Option. In Option I, the third digit must be 3 and
the fifth digit must be 4; in Option II, the third digit
must be 1 and the fifth digit must be 3.
Option 1:
1
2
3
1
2
3
0
4
4
5
Option 2:
2
4
1
0
3
4
5
1
2
2
2
2
3
Section 1: Logic Games
In both Options, the fourth digit is 0. That means (C)
must be true, and is correct. The remaining choices all
could be false:
(A) is true in Option I, but false in Option II. Toss it.
(B) is also true in Option I but not Option II. Throw it out.
(D) is the reverse: it’s true in Option II, but not Option
I. Eliminate it anyway.
(E) can only be true if the third digit of the code is 0,
and that’s the possibility eliminated by the rule.
4. (E) Could be True / EXCEPT
Don’t ever test choices in your head—draw out a
quick sketch instead.
We’ll start this question by characterizing the choices
carefully. Four of the answer choices could be the third
and fourth digits of an acceptable product code, but
the correct answer could not. So the correct answer
must violate a rule somehow. That rule will probably be
Rule 4, since we’re dealing with the third and fourth
digits of the code, and Rule 4 is the only one that
affects them directly.
We’ve seen three acceptable product codes in our
previous work. In Question 1, the third and fourth digits
were 0 and 3, respectively. That means that (B) is an
acceptable code, so we can eliminate it. In Question 3,
we saw two codes. In the Option I, the third and fourth
digits were 3 and 0, respectively, and in Option II, they
were 1 and 0. Option I eliminates (D), and Option II
eliminates (C). That leaves (A) and (E).
We’re out of previous sketches to use at this point, but
that doesn’t mean we have to guess, or waste time
staring at the choices wondering what to do. When in
doubt, use your pencil to test the choices. And it
doesn’t matter which one we choose to test, since
we’re down to two choices. No matter which choice we
test, we’ll know which one is correct when we’re done
with it. So try (A): if the third and fourth digits are 0
and 1, respectively, we must be in Option II (otherwise
1 would be used twice). So 2 and 4 are used as the
first and second digits, leaving 3 for the fifth digit. That
sketch would look like this:
2
1
4
2
0
3
1
4
3
5
That sketch follows every rule, so (A) is acceptable
and may be eliminated. That leaves (E) as the correct
answer. If 3 is the third digit and 4 is the fourth digit
(as (E) would have it, then Rule 4 is violated. The fifth
digit can’t possibly be larger than the third with this
choice, so it is unacceptable (and correct!).
5. (E) Must be True
Use your previous work to eliminate choices
whenever possible.
The greatest strength of the Kaplan Method for Logic
Games is that it helps you to work as efficiently as
possible. That’s true not only when you’re setting up
the Master Sketch, but also as you go through the
questions. Think about it—is it more efficient to treat
every question as though it has nothing to do with the
rest of the game, and do the same work over and over
again? Or would you rather use the sketch that you did
for one question to help you answer two or three
others? Obviously, you want to use previous work
where you can, and this question is a great opportunity.
The correct answer is a statement that must be true,
so the wrong answers must be false. In other words, if
we’ve seen a sketch in a previous question where they
were false, we can eliminate them.
(A) is out, since neither of our sketches from Question
3 have exactly one digit between 0 and 1. And Option I
knocks (B) out of the water quickly—there are no digits
between 1 and 2 there. (C) looks okay so far, so we’ll
save it for the moment, and the same is true of (E), but
the second sketch from Question 3 takes (D) out of the
running. That sketch has three digits between 2 and 3.
We’ll finish this game off by trying a sketch to eliminate
either (C) or (E). (C) could be false if there are more
than two digits between the digits 1 and 3. The only
way that can happen is if 1 and 3 are at opposite ends
of the code, and the only place that can happen is in
Option I. There, 1 is the first digit, 2 is the second digit,
and to test the choice, we’ll try putting 3 in as the fifth
digit. That leaves 0 and 4 for the remaining slots. We
can abide by Rule 4 (the third digit is smaller than the
fifth digit) only if the third digit is 0, and that leaves 4
for the fourth digit, like so:
1
1
2
2
0
3
4
4
3
5
(C) could be false, so we can eliminate it. (E) remains,
and must be true. As it turns out, our Options show us
why it must be true—in Option II, 2 and 4 are next to
each other, and in Option I, 2 is the second digit, so
there can be no more than two digits between it and
anything else.
3
Test 4 Explained
Rule 2 is even more complex: either Greed or
Limelight, but not both, is shown on Friday. Moreover,
that film is the last film shown on Friday. We’ll have to
put “ . . . G/L” in the space for Friday.
Game 2: Film Club Festival
Questions 6–10
Situation: A film club is having a festival.
Entities: Three films—G, H, and L—are show on three
days: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
Action: The days make this sound like Sequencing,
and there is a Sequencing element here, but there
could be more than one film on a day, and the films
could be shown more than once. So this is really closer
to Matching. As we go through the Rules, you should
realize that there could be some Sequencing thrown
in—that makes this a Hybrid game.
G H L
Thurs
Fri
…H
… G/L
Rule 3 says basically the same thing as Rule 2, except
that it deals with Saturday, and the movies involved are
Greed and Harvest, not Greed and Limelight. So our
shorthand will be substantially the same as it was for
Rule 2:
G H L
Limitations: Lots of them. Each film is shown at least
once. But no film is shown more than once on any
given day. On each of the three days, at least one film
is shown (notice that there could be more than one!).
The films are shown one at a time.
The Initial Setup: We’ll use a standard Matching setup
since each of the films could be used more than once.
That’ll look like this:
Fri
Thurs
Fri
Sat
…H
… G/L
… G/H
Now it may not look like we’ve got many Deductions
here, but turn negatives into positives and you’ll find a
couple.
Deductions:
G H L
Thurs
Sat
The blank slot in each day’s column will remind us that
at least one film must be shown there. Just don’t
forget that it could be more than one.
The Rules:
Rule 1 is really two rules in one: Harvest is show on
Thursday, and nothing is shown after Harvest. If you’re
really analyzing this rule, you’re probably thinking, ‘but
what about before Harvest is shown?’ Well, the rule
doesn’t tell us anything about that. We should note
that there could be some other movie shown before
Harvest in our shorthand:
There don’t appear to be any Blocs of Entities, or any
Limited Options, but there are several Established
Entities for us to play with. Harvest must be shown on
Thursday; Greed or Limelight, but not both, must be
show on Friday; Greed or Harvest, but not both, must
be shown on Saturday. Those last two
Establishments—and the “but not both” within them—
will be particularly important when we’re trying to figure
out how to make sure all three movies are shown.
They’ll also tell us a couple of things about the
Numbers—Thursday is the only day on which all three
movies could be shown.
Unfortunately, though, we can’t figure out anything
concrete besides what was already in the rules. We’ll
just have to move on to the questions and hope we get
some concrete answers there.
The Final Visualization:
G H L
G H L
Thurs
…H
4
Fri
Sat
Sat
Thurs
Fri
Sat
…H
… G/L
… G/H
Section 1: Logic Games
The Questions:
6. (C) Acceptability
When working through an Acceptability question,
don’t forget to check on the Limitations.
We’ll begin this Acceptability question like every other,
working through the rules to eliminate choices that
violate them. Rule 1 eliminates (D), which has
Limelight last on Thursday. Rule 2 eliminates (B),
which has both Greed and Limelight on Friday; it also
eliminates (E), which has Harvest after Limelight on
that day. Lastly, Rule 3…doesn’t eliminate a single
choice, leaving (A) and (C). But the most common
Limitation on the LSAT gets rid of the last choice for us.
Nearly every game has a Limitation that effectively
says, ‘use all the Entities.’ (A) fails to do so—it would
have the festival forget to show Greed. That’s
unacceptable, so (C) must be the right answer.
7. (A) CANNOT be True
Be prepared to skip early questions and come back to
them after you’ve done more work.
On Test Day, this would be a perfect question to skip.
It’s a “Cannot be True” question, so the four wrong
answers are all things that could be true. Any
possibility in the game—for example, any sketch that
we make to answer a later question—can be used to
eliminate choices in a question like this. The last three
questions in this game all have “if” clauses, so we
should expect to sketch out new possibilities for each
one. Those possibilities could be used to eliminate
choices in this question, which would help us save
time. For the purposes of these explanations, we’ll
plow on ahead and start testing choices, but you
should look for places where skipping a question and
coming back to it will save you time on Test Day.
(A) As it turns out, the correct answer shows up pretty
quickly here: Harvest can’t be shown last on Friday
without violating Rule 2. Let’s quickly eliminate the
rest:
(B) Limelight can be shown on every day of the festival
as long as Greed isn’t shown on Friday.
(C) is a little tougher to eliminate, but it’s still possible.
Greed can be second on Thursday if Limelight is first,
second on Friday if Harvest is first, and second on
Saturday if Limelight is first again.
(D) and (E) likewise take a little bit of time to work
through, but it shouldn’t be too hard to find a
possibility where they’re true. A different film can be
shown first on all three days if Greed is first on
Thursday, Harvest first on Friday, and Limelight first on
Saturday; a different film can be shown last on all three
days if Greed is last on Saturday and Limelight is last
on Friday.
8. (D) Maximum / “If” clause
Read carefully when necessary to be sure you know
exactly what the question is asking.
This question doesn’t ask us for what must, could, or
cannot be true. Instead, it asks us to figure out the
maximum number of film showings that could occur
during the festival. Don’t confuse this with the
maximum number of different orders the films could be
shown in, or the maximum number of possibilities for
how the films could be shown. All the question asks us
for is the greatest possibly number of showings during
the three days. Hopefully, when you noticed that this
wasn’t a common question stem, you slowed down and
read it carefully to be sure you knew exactly what was
going on.
The question is further complicated by an “if” clause.
The new rule tells us that Limelight can’t be shown
after Greed. That rule doesn’t just apply on any given
day; it applies for the whole festival. Once Greed is
shown, Limelight can’t be shown at all, whether that
happens on Thursday, Friday, or Saturday. At this point,
you should re-copy the Master Sketch, and shorthand
the new rule: “L . . . G.”
The rule actually makes our task much simpler. If we
want as many films to be shown as possible, and
Limelight can’t be shown after Greed is shown, we’ll
just put Greed at the very end of the festival and throw
as many showings of Limelight and Harvest into the
earlier parts of the festival as we can. Just make sure
you comply with the rules: if Greed is last on Saturday,
Harvest can’t be shown that day (Rule 3), but Limelight
can be shown before Greed. That’s two showings on
Saturday. If Greed isn’t shown on Thursday or Friday,
the maximum number of showings on each of those
days is two, for a maximum total of six—that’s (D). The
final sketch looks like this:
G H L
(L…G)
Thurs
Fri
Sat
L…H
H…L
L…G
(A) is the minimum number of showings.
5
Test 4 Explained
(B) and (C) don’t quite pick up enough showings,
although you might have picked (C) if you didn’t put in
the last showing of Limelight on Saturday.
(E) is the maximum number of showings that could
occur in the festival before the “if” clause takes effect.
9. (E) Must be True / “If” clause
Think through all the implications of the “if” clause
before moving on to the choices.
The “if” in this question is particularly complex. It gives
us the number of times each of the three films is
shown, but not when they are shown. We’ll have to
figure that last piece out before we’re able to answer
the question.
If Greed is shown three times, it must be shown on
every day of the festival. After all, there are only three
days to begin with. Go ahead and plug Greed in on
each day, and think through what that means—
Limelight can’t be shown on Friday (Rule 2), and
Harvest can’t be shown on Saturday (Rule 3). So far,
our sketch looks like this:
G H L
Thurs
G…H
Fri
Sat
…G
…G
(no L)
(no H)
Harvest is shown twice. Since it can’t be shown on
Saturday, it must be shown on Thursday and Friday.
Limelight is only shown once, on either Thursday or
Saturday. Our final sketch should look like this:
G H L
Thurs
Fri
Sat
G…H
H…G
L? … G
L?
(no L)
(no H)
This will allow us to make short work of the choices.
The correct answer is definitely true, and the four
wrong answers all could be false:
(A) could be false. All three films could be shown on
Thursday, or the single showing of Limelight could take
place on Saturday.
(B) could be false. Greed could be the only film shown
on Saturday.
6
(C) could be false for the same reason as (A)—
Limelight could be shown on Saturday instead of
Thursday.
(D) could be false if Limelight is shown on Saturday.
(E) Harvest and Greed must both be shown on Friday—
Harvest must be shown on two of the three days, and
cannot be shown on Saturday. (E) must be true, and is
correct.
10. (D) Complete and Accurate List / “If” clause
Be alert for places where your previous work can help
you.
It’s dangerous to use sketches from earlier questions
to answer later questions that have an “if” clause. But
sometimes the “if” clauses will be similar enough that
you can get a head start on the later question, even if
you don’t use a previous sketch. The “if” in this
question is so similar to the “if” in the last question
that you should be well prepared to work through it.
If Limelight is shown three times, it must be shown on
all three days. This means that Limelight is last on
Friday, and that Greed cannot be shown on that day.
Limelight must be shown earlier than Harvest on
Thursday and earlier than either Harvest or Greed on
Saturday. That gives us this sketch to start:
G H L
Thurs
Fri
Sat
L…H
…L
L…
G/H
no G
Harvest is shown twice, and Greed is shown once.
Greed could be shown on Thursday or Saturday, and
the second showing of Harvest could take place on
Friday or Saturday. The rules don’t help us narrow down
the possibilities any further than we already have, so
it’s time to go to the choices and figure out the
complete and accurate list of films that could be shown
first on Thursday.
You should eliminate (A), (C), and (E) immediately—
Harvest is shown on Thursday, but it must be shown
last, not first.
The only difference between (B) and (D) is whether
Greed can be shown first on Thursday. If it can, then
(D) is correct; if it cannot, (B) is correct. A quick glance
at the rules gives us no reason why the single showing
of Greed cannot take place on Thursday, so (D) is the
correct complete and accurate list.
Section 1: Logic Games
Game 3: Freedom Voyages
GJMMT
Questions 11–17
1
Situation: On a cruise line.
Limitations: Each voyage is to only one of the
destinations; each voyage is in one of seven weeks;
each destination will be scheduled at least once. A
quick head count shows that we’ve got seven weeks
and only four destinations, so at least one of the
destinations will be used more than once.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
4 5
Not J
6
Rule 4 sets up a Bloc of Entities: Guadeloupe is the
destination in the week preceding a cruise to Jamaica.
The easy mistake to make here is to just write “GJ” and
be done with it. Unfortunately, that’s not accurate,
because it would make us think that any time
Guadeloupe is the destination, Jamaica must be the
destination in the following week. To really get this rule
correct, we should state it as an ‘if/then:’ If Jamaica is
the destination in any given week, then Guadeloupe
precedes it:
If J → G J
The Initial Setup: Our basic Sequencing sketch will
work just fine here:
GJMT
3
M…G…M
Entities: The places the voyage will go: Guadeloupe,
Jamaica, Martinique, and Trinidad.
Action: Determining the order in which the cruise will
go to each destination—that’s Sequencing.
2
T
7
And the contrapositive, if Guadeloupe doesn’t precede
Jamaica, Jamaica can’t be the destination in that
week. Of course, this means that Jamaica can’t be the
first destination.
If no G J → No J
The Rules:
Rule 1 eliminates a possibility: Jamaica isn’t the
destination in Week 4. Write in a “not J” under week 4.
Rule 2 gives us an Established Entity: Trinidad is the
destination at week 7. After two rules, our sketch looks
like this:
Rule 5 is one that you might have expected from the
beginning: “No consecutives” is a very common rule on
the LSAT, and can be shorthanded as such.
GJMT
There are a lot of Blocs of Entities in this game, and G
is Duplicated in both of them. Don’t fall into the trap of
adding them together, though—we can’t be certain that
will happen, since J is the trigger for Rule 4. J is also
Duplicated in Rule 1, but again, that doesn’t help us
much. There are no Limited Options to speak of, and
the Numbers rule—that there are two voyages to
Mar tinique—also doesn’t give us any fur ther
deductions. The only concrete deduction we can make
deals with an Established Entity: If T is seventh, it
cannot also be sixth (Rule 5). Joy that down near your
sketch, and move on to the questions.
1
2
3
4 5
Not J
6
T
7
Rule 3 is a bit more complicated: the ship makes
exactly two voyages to Martinique, and at least one
voyage to Guadeloupe is made in between those
voyages. This is really two rules in one. We’ll shorthand
the first rule by adding a second “M” to our list of
entities (always note how many times an entity is used
by writing it that many times in the roster) and
shorthand the second rule by writing “M…G…M:”
Deductions:
7
Test 4 Explained
The Final Visualization:
GJMMT
1
2
Not J
3
T
4 5 6 7
Not J
Not T
M…G…M
If J → G J
If no G J → No J
The Questions:
11. (A) Acceptability
Be sure to pick up a quick point with the
Acceptability question.
Rule 1 eliminates (D), which has Jamaica as the fourth
destination, and Rule 2 eliminates (E), which has
Martinique as the last destination. The “M…G…M”
Bloc is violated in (B), and G does not immediately
precede J in (C). That leaves (A) as the correct answer.
12. (A) CANNOT be True
If you find the right answer early on, move on. Don’t
waste time checking the other choices to make sure.
If the correct answer cannot be true, then all four of the
wrong answers could be true. In other words, if we can
put together a sketch that follows all the rules and it
matches up with one of the choices, we can eliminate
that choice. Unfortunately, without an “if” to start from,
it looks like we’ll have to draw out at least one sketch,
maybe several, to find the correct answer. But as it
turns out, we don’t have to do much work at all. A quick
glance at our Master Sketch shows us that (A) cannot
be true: If T were sixth, it would violate Rule 5. On Test
Day, you should move on once you’ve found an answer
like this, but for now we’ll work through the remaining
choices.
Jot down a quick sketch to test (B): Guadeloupe,
Jamaica, Mar tinique, Guadeloupe, Mar tinique,
Guadeloupe, Trinidad. That works, so (B) could be true.
(C) Again, try sketching: Martinique, Guadeloupe,
Jamaica, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Trinidad.
Looks fine, so (C) could be true. And as a matter of
fact, this sketch works for (D), so we can eliminate that
choice as well.
(E) A little tweak to our sketch for (C) and (D) will
eliminate this one: Martinique, Trinidad, Guadeloupe,
8
Mar tinique, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Trinidad works
just fine.
13. (D) Could be True / “If” clause
Even seemingly insignificant deductions can help get
you to the correct answer.
The “if” clause in this question is pretty simple: plug T
in to week 5 and you’re done with it. But it leads to
some pretty significant deductions. First off, J can’t be
in week 6, since there isn’t room for G in the preceding
week. That’s enough to eliminate (E). But that’s also
where things get a little tougher to nail down. We have
to fit in “M…G…M” and “G J” somewhere; as it turns
out, there are only two possibilities for the former. The
second M must be either fourth or sixth. That’s enough
to get us to the correct answer, (D): M could be the
destination in the fourth week.
(A) If T is in week 1, then there’s no way to fit both
blocs without putting J in week 4 and violating Rule 1.
(B) is wrong for the exact same reason as (A); M can’t
fit into week 2 without forcing J into week 4.
(C), again, would force us to put J in week 4, or else
make us unable to place the M…G…M bloc.
(E) J can’t be the destination in week 6 if G isn’t the
destination in week 5.
14. (E) Must be True / “if” clause
Treat two-part “if” clauses as two separate rules,
each requiring its own deductions.
The “if” clause in this question gives us two new rules,
so we’ll deal with each one separately and then see
what the combination tells us. First, putting G into
week 1 doesn’t immediately give us another
Established Entity, but it does tell us that we could put
J into week 2. It also tells us that Guadeloupe will be
the destination in at least one other week, since the G
in week 1 can’t be part of the M…G…M Bloc.
The second part of the “if” is where we really get going.
If Jamaica is the destination in week 5, then
Guadeloupe must be the destination in week 4 (Rule 4):
GJMMT
G
1
2
3
G
4
J
5
M…G…M
6
Not T
T
7
Section 1: Logic Games
That leaves only weeks 2, 3, and 6 undefined, and we
still haven’t placed the M…G…M Bloc. The only way it
can fit is if the G in week 4 is the G in the middle of the
Bloc. This means that Mar tinique must be the
destination in week 6, as well as either week 2 or
week 3:
GJMMT
G
1
2
G
4
3
J
5
M
6
T
7
M
M…G…M
The M in week 6 is (E). That deduction must be true,
and is the correct answer.
(A) and (C) both could be true, but need not be. If you
wrote down “GJ” back when you were writing the rules,
you might have been fooled into thinking that J must be
in week 2, which would force M into week 3. Having two
answers that both look right is a good indication that
you need to go back and check your work. Really, either
M or T could be the destination in week 2.
(B) could be true as well, but need not be.
(D) If G is the destination in week 6, there’s no room
for the M…G…M Bloc.
15. (A) Must be True / “if” clause
Make as many deductions as you can before trying to
answer the question.
It may not seem like it at first glance, but this “if”
clause gives us enough information to nail down every
single slot. Our initial setup with the new rule added (G
in week 1 and T in week 2) looks like this:
GJMMT
G
1
T
2
3
4 5 6
Not J
Not T
T
7
M…G…M
We still need to plug our M…G…M Bloc in somewhere,
and we also need to find a place for J. As it turns out,
there’s only one way we can do both of those things
and follow all the rules. Remember, G must be in the
week preceding J, and J can’t be fourth; so M must be
the destination in weeks 3 and 6, and “G J” fills the
gap between the M’s:
G
1
T
2
M
3
G
4
J
5
M
6
T
7
This setup makes it a snap to answer the question. (A)
is the only choice that must be true.
(B) and (C) If you didn’t think through the “G J” rule,
these choices might have been tempting, but it cannot
be true.
(D) Sure, we could put G in week 3 and plug “M G M”
in for weeks 4, 5, and 6, but then Jamaica would never
be the destination. That violates a Limitation, which
knocks out a choice as surely as violating a rule.
(E) If you forgot that J couldn’t be the destination in
week 4, you might have chosen this one. Toss it
instead.
16. (A) Could be True / “if” clause
Read carefully to avoid being tripped up by the
question stems.
The words “accurate list” in this question stem might
have fooled you into thinking that you had to list
possibilities. But as it turns out, the LSAT really just
wants to know a possibility for weeks 4 and 5, and
that’s exactly the same as a “could be true” question.
We can approach this like any other “if” question: copy
the Master Sketch, plug in our new “if,” make any
deductions, then work through the choices.
If M is in week 3, we can’t be sure whether the big
Bloc, M…G…M, begins or ends in the third week—
either is possible. We could make a miniature Limited
Options setup, and that’ s not a bad idea when you’re
faced with this situation. But once we’ve made that
deduction, it’s actually pretty quick to eliminate the
choices that violate rules. (C) and (E) don’t work with
the M…G…M Bloc, (B) has J in week 4, and (D) has J
preceded by T instead of G. That leaves (A) as the only
possible answer.
17. (D) Must be True
Sometimes it’s easier to eliminate wrong answer
choices than to try to go straight to the correct
answer.
If the correct answer must be true, then all of the wrong
answer choices could be false. In other words, if we’ve
ever seen a possibility where a choice is false—or if we
9
Test 4 Explained
can quickly jot one down without violating any rules—we
can eliminate that choice. Let’s work through the
choices and see what we can quickly get rid of:
(A) to prove this false, try putting G someplace else,
like week 3, and filling weeks 1 and 2 with other
destinations. This could work if we put the M’s in
weeks 1 and 4; a T in week 2; and “G J” in weeks 5
and 6. That has all of the entities, and doesn’t break
any rules, so (A) could be false.
(B) Actually, the sketch we just made doesn’t have
Martinique in week 2 or week 3, so (B) could be false
as well. It’s never a bad idea to test more than one
choice at a time if you can.
(C) To prove this false, we’ll have to write a sketch with
at least three G’s. That will be difficult with both the “G
J” and “M…G…M” Blocs, but we ought to be able to
manage. How about this one:
GJMMT
G
1
M
2
G
3
M
4
G
5
J
6
T
7
Success! That sketch has three voyages to G, and
doesn’t violate a single rule. (C) is out.
(D) The Numbers will tell you that (D) must be true. If
the ship makes more than two trips to Jamaica, it must
make at least the same number of trips to Guadeloupe.
So for three trips to Jamaica (the minimum number to
prove (D) false), we’d also need three trips to
Guadeloupe. That’s six of the seven weeks, and we
haven’t even added in the two trips to Martinique yet.
We can’t falsify (D) without breaking a rule (or adding
a few more weeks), so (D) must be true.
(E) Let’s make this last one quick. Combine the “G J”
and the “M…G…M” Blocs, and throw a T in the middle
with them for good measure:
GJMMT
T
1
M
2
T
3
G
4
J
5
M
6
T
7
No rules broken there, so (E) can be false. Toss it and
move on.
10
Section 1: Logic Games
Game 4: Rivertown Recycling Centers
If w → n
No n → no w
Questions 18–23
Situation: Recycling centers in Rivertown.
Entities: The Centers (1, 2, and 3) and the materials
being recycled: glass, newsprint, plastic, tin, and wood.
Action: Two sets of entities: a classic Matching game.
Limitations: All five of the materials are recycled
somewhere (“exactly five kinds of materials are
recycled); and each of the centers recycles at least
two, but not more than three, of the kinds of material.
This last Limitation is a clue that the Numbers will be
important in this game, so we should quickly do some
arithmetic to work out the possibilities.
With three centers and at least two kinds of materials
recycled at each center, we’d have a minimum of six
slots—so with five kinds of materials, at least one of
them has to be recycled at two of the centers. There
are several more possibilities, depending on how many
of the centers have three slots, so we won’t waste time
working out any more possible number combinations
until the questions force us to.
The second statement is the contrapositive: If
newsprint isn’t recycled at a center, that center can’t
recycle wood. Remember, this rule doesn’t work both
ways—a center could recycle newsprint without
recycling wood.
Rule 2 is similar, but it deals with centers, not
materials. Anything recycled at Center 2 must also be
recycled at Center 1. Form the contrapositive: if
something isn’t recycled at Center 1, it can’t be
recycled at Center 2.
If at 2 → at 1
If not at 1 → not at 2
And again, we’ll remind ourselves that this is a one-way
rule: something recycled at Center 1 doesn’t have to
be recycled at Center 2.
Finally, Rule 3 gives us some numbers to think about:
plastic is only recycled at one of the centers. Rule 3
also rules out a combination of entities: glass and
plastic can’t be recycled at the same center. We should
write these two rules separately:
The Initial Setup: Our standard Matching table will
work well here. The centers are the concrete entities,
so we’ll put them across the top, and leave the
materials to be filled in:
gnptw
Only 1 p
No
g
p
(2–3 slots each)
Now we’re ready to see if we can combine these rules.
Center 1
Center 2
Center 3
Deductions:
The Rules:
Thankfully, the Rules for this game are pretty simple.
Rule 1 ties two of the materials together: any center
that recycles wood must also recycle newsprint. “Any”
should clue you in that this is an if/then, so we’ll write
it as such:
There really aren’t any Blocs of Entities: Even though
wood and newsprint seem like they move together, we
could have newsprint at a center without having wood.
Similarly, glass and plastic are mutually exclusive, but
that doesn’t allow us to make much of a deduction.
There aren’t any Limited Options, either, nor are we
able to create any Established Entities. We can,
however, make a little bit of headway with the
Numbers. If plastic is only recycled at one of the
centers, and anything recycled at Center 2 is also
recycled at Center 1, then plastic can’t be recycled at
Center 2. We can jot down “no p” in column 2.
The rule connecting Centers 1 and 2 also allows us to
revise the arithmetic we did with the Limitations: Since
11
Test 4 Explained
at least 2 materials are recycled in Center 2, at least
two of the materials are Duplicated. That takes up four
slots, and recycling the remaining three materials even
once will use at least seven slots. So at least one of
the centers recycles three different kinds of materials;
if only one center does so, that center has to be Center
1 or Center 3. We can jot down an extra slot below the
table to remind us that we’ll need it down the line.
Those two Duplicated slots also mean something
interesting for Rule 2: Center 1 can only recycle one kind
of material that isn’t recycled at Center 2, and only if it
recycles three materials and Center 2 recycles only two.
The Final Visualization:
(2–3 slots each)
gnptw
Center 1
Center 2
Center 3
19. (D) Complete and Accurate List
Make a Deduction, earn a point.
It’s a good rule of thumb that every Deduction you’re
able to make in the initial setup will earn you a point
when you get to the questions. That’s the case here.
We noticed that Center 2 can never recycle plastic,
since plastic is only recycled at one center and
anything recycled at Center 2 is also recycled at Center
1; that’s enough to eliminate answers (C) and (E) in
this question. You should have seen upon making that
Deduction that either Center 1 or Center 3 could
recycle plastic, so (D) is the correct choice.
(A) and (B) each have only one of the remaining two
centers; if the Formal Logic in Rule 2 tripped you up,
and you thought that Centers 1 and 2 would always
recycle the same materials, then (B) might have been
tempting, but there’s no reason that Center 1 couldn’t
recycle plastic.
20. (C) Must be True / “if” clause
No p
(+
If w → n
No n → no w
Only 1 p
Be sure to check through every single rule when
making deductions based on a new “if.”
)
If at 2 → at 1
If not at 1 → not at 2
No
g
p
The Questions:
18. (B) Acceptability
The LSAT often phrases familiar question types in
unfamiliar ways.
Don’t be fooled by the “accurate account” language in
this question stem. This is a classic Acceptability
question, so we’ll attack it using the rules to eliminate
violators. Rule 1 knocks out (A), where Center 3
recycles wood but not newsprint. Rule 2 gets rid of (C),
where Center 2 recycles tin and Center 1 doesn’t. Rule
3 eliminates (D), where glass and plastic are recycled
at Center 1, and (E), where plastic is recycled twice.
That leaves (B) as the correct answer.
12
The “if” clause in this question is relatively simple:
Center 2 recycles three kinds of material. A glance at
the rules tells us that Center 1 must also recycle three
kinds of material, and that those centers will be
identical. At first glance, though, it doesn’t look like
we’ll be able to figure out anything else.
Unless, of course, you made the Deduction based on
Rule 3, or at least looked back at that rule for this
question. Plastic can only be recycled once, so it can’t
be recycled at Center 2. With this new “if,” Center 2
has the maximum number of recyclables, which means
that Center 1 does as well—and each of those
recyclables is recycled at two centers, so none of them
can be plastic. There is thus only one Center that can
recycle plastic: Center 3. So Center 3 must recycle
plastic, and (B) is correct.
Before you move on, you should also note the next
deduction: if Center 3 is recycling plastic, then Centers
1 and 2 must recycle glass. That gives us this sketch:
Center 1
g
Center 2
g
Center 3
p
Section 1: Logic Games
(A) cannot be true—glass must be recycled at Centers
1 and 2.
(B) and (E) there’s enough room for newsprint alone,
or even wood and newsprint, in Center 3, but neither
must be recycled there.
(D) Tin could be recycled at any of the three centers,
but need not be recycled at Center 3.
21. (D) Could be True / “if” clause
Your previous work can help you answer later
questions.
The “if” clause in this question is very similar to the
“if” clause in the question before it—the only
difference is the number of centers recycling three
kinds of material. In Question 20, Center 2 (and by
extension, Center 1) recycled three types of material.
Now, all three centers are recycling three types of
material, but the deductions we made in the last
question will hold true: Center 3 must recycle plastic,
and Centers 1 and 2 must recycle glass:
Center 1
g
Center 2
g
Center 3
p
We also know that everything recycled at Center 2
must be recycled at Center 1, and vice versa. So (A),
(C), and (E) are all out—each of those choices has
Center 1 or Center 2 as the only center recycling one
of the materials. We’re left to choose between (B) and
(D), determining whether Center 3 can be the only
center to recycle either newsprint or tin. It doesn’t
matter which one we try at this point, since eliminating
one choice means that the other one must be correct.
Let’s try (B): if Center 3 is the only center recycling
newsprint, then the other centers can only recycle
glass, tin, wood, and plastic. But we’ve already seen
that Centers 1 and 2 can’t recycle plastic in this
scenario, and Rule 1 tells us that they can’t recycle
wood without newsprint. So that would leave only glass
and tin in those centers—two kinds of materials, not
three. (B) doesn’t work, which means that (D) must be
correct. Sure enough, if Center 3 recycles tin and
newsprint and Centers 1 and 2 recycle wood and
newsprint, all five materials are used and we’re done.
22. (B) Must be True / “if” clause
You can always have the result of a Formal Logic
statement without having the trigger.
Sadly, our previous work won’t help us here; we’ve
seen glass recycled at every center but Center 3. So
we’ll just have to start with a new sketch. Once we’ve
put g into the column for Center 3, a glance at Rule 3
tells us that we’ve also got to jot down “No p” in that
column—glass and plastic can’t be recycled at the
same center. So the only center where plastic can be
recycled is Center 1; that’s as much as saying, plastic
must be recycled in Center 1.
gnptw
(2–3 slots each)
Center 1
Center 2
p
No p
Center 3
g
No p
Now why does our sketch have plastic in the third slot,
and not the first? How do we even know that there are
three slots in Center 1 at the moment? Simple: Rule 2
tells us that if something is recycled at Center 2, it
must also be recycled at Center 1. There are at least
two things recycled at Center 2, both of which will also
be recycled at Center 1, and neither of which can be
plastic. So the other two slots at Center 1 are taken up
by whatever is recycled at Center 2. If you
misinterpreted Rule 2 to say that Center 1 and Center
2 recycled the same materials, you were in big trouble
on this question.
To finish up, we have to look at what those last two
slots in Centers 1 and 2 could hold. They can’t have
glass, since that would force glass and plastic
together; and since we’re talking about Center 2, they
can’t have plastic. That leaves newsprint, tin, and
wood. But we can’t just pick any two of those three—
Rule 1 tells us that if Center 2 recycles wood, it must
recycle newsprint. That narrows the possibilities down
to two options: Center 2 must recycle wood and
newsprint, or tin and newsprint. Either way, it must
recycle newsprint, making (B) the correct answer.
(A) If Centers 2 and 3 recycled glass, all three centers
would recycle glass (Rule 2); that would leave no center
able to recycle plastic (Rule 3).
(C) Center 2 can never recycle plastic.
13
Test 4 Explained
(D) and (E) Center 2 could recycle either wood or tin
along with newsprint, but need not recycle one or the
other.
23. (A) Complete and Accurate List / “if” clause
Make every possible deduction before moving on to
the choices.
This is that rare question where it’s both possible to fill
in every slot in the game and necessary to do so to get
to the correct answer. That means we’ve got to make
quite a few deductions before we finish. Start with the
new rule, that Center 1 is the only center that recycles
wood. That’s really two separate rules: Center 1
recycles wood; and no other centers recycle wood. Jot
down “w” in column 1, and “no w” in the other
columns.
If wood is recycled in Center 1, but not Center 2, then
Center 1 has to have three slots—two of those are
filled by whatever is in Center 2 and the third is wood.
And if the first two slots in Center 1 are filled by
materials that are also recycled in Center 2, plastic
cannot be among them. So we’ll jot down “no p” in the
column for Center 1. That means the only place left for
plastic is Center 3. Rule 3 then places glass in either
Center 1 or Center 2; it doesn’t matter which one,
because at this point anything that’s recycled in one
center is recycled in the other. So fill in glass in
Centers 1 and 2:
Center 1
g
Center 2
g
Center 3
p
w No p
No p, no w
No w
Wait a minute! We haven’t even looked at Rule 1 yet! If
wood is recycled in a center, so is newsprint, so
newsprint must be recycled at Center 1. And since
we’ve gotten to a point where anything recycled at
Center 1 is recycled at Center 2, newsprint also must
be recycled at Center 2. That leaves just one material
unplaced: tin, which must fill in the last slot of Center
3. Our final sketch for this question is like so:
14
Center 1
g
Center 2
g
Center 3
p
n
n
t
No p, no w
No w
w No p
The list at Center 3—plastic and tin—is (A), which
must be the correct answer. And to think, we got there
making the easiest deduction last. If we hadn’t started
by thinking through the implications of “no w” in
Centers 2 and 3, this question would have been even
harder.
(B) is an accurate list for Center 1, but it isn’t
complete—Center 1 must also have glass. If you were
pressed for time, or got stuck after making the “wood
→ newsprint” deduction, you probably chose this one.
(C) and (E) Tin is never recycled at the same center as
newsprint or glass in this sketch.
(D) Again, this choice is close to what is recycled at
Center 1, but is missing one of the materials.
Section 2: Logical Reasoning
SECTION II
LOGICAL REASONING
1. (B) Main Point
Look for different ways of phrasing the correct
answer.
The LSAT will often test your ability to find a different
way of making certain statements. This is because an
easy way to ratchet up the difficulty level of a question
is to change the phrasing of the correct answer. Even
the easiest questions in the section can ask you to
perform this type of manipulation, and this one is no
exception. A relatively simple statement about
business productivity is the conclusion of this
stimulus: Efforts to increase productivity don’t always
help a business. We phrased that a bit differently than
the stimulus did, and the correct answer choice
phrases it yet another way: Some measures taken by a
business to increase productivity fail to benefit the
business as a whole. That’s (B).
(A) is too broad. The stimulus does tell us why not all
efforts to enhance productivity are beneficial—they
often mean job cuts, which undermine employee
security—but it doesn’t imply that an action must
“enhancing the welfare of the business’s employees”
to be beneficial.
The situation described in (C), where the employees
and the owners are the same people, might alleviate
the problem raised in the stimulus, but it’s not the only
way to do so. Besides, it’s outside the scope of the
argument.
(D) restates the first sentence of the argument, but
that sentence is background information, not the
conclusion.
(E) fixates on a detail from the last sentence of the
stimulus.
2. (B) Parallel Reasoning (Flaw)
You should probably skip a difficult early question.
The difference in difficulty between this question and
the question before it is astonishing. A relatively simple
Main Point question followed by a Parallel Flaw? A
Parallel Flaw question as the second question in a
section? It’s enough to make an unprepared test taker
wish they were trying to go to business school. The
prepared test taker—in other words, the Kaplan test
taker—knows that this is an early trap, and the best
thing to do is skip the question and come back to it.
Nonetheless, we’ll explain it for you before we move
on. The stimulus deals with how much certain dogs
bark. According to the information we’re given,
Labradors bark a lot and Saint Bernards don’t bark very
much. Does it then follow that a cross between the two
would bark moderately? Probably not, and that’s the
flaw in this argument. It looks at two groups that are
the opposite of one another in regards to a certain
characteristic (barks a lot/doesn’t bark much), and
assumes that a combination of the two will produce a
group with an average of that characteristic (barks
moderately). That’s possible, but as any dog breeder
will tell you, it’s not a sure thing. We’ll look for an
answer choice that makes the same flawed
assumption about combining two different groups.
(A) starts well, defining a group with a certain
characteristic—diligent students, who get good grades.
But unlike the stimulus, the second group in (A)
doesn’t always have the characteristic in question—
only “some” non-diligent students get good grades.
That difference is enough to eliminate (A).
(B) Ah-ha! Here we have two groups with opposing
characteristics: Group A is toxic, and Group B is nontoxic. The conclusion attempts to moderate the two
characteristics: a combination of A and B is
“moderately toxic.” This argument follows the same
flawed path as the stimulus, so it is correct. For the
record:
(C) isn’t flawed at all. It combines two groups with
different characteristics into the Perry family, but it
doesn’t attempt to say that every member of the group
will have a combination of the characteristics—it says
that some members will have the characteristic from
Group A, and some members will have the
characteristic from Group B.
(D) also isn’t flawed. Bob is a member of two groups,
so he has the characteristics of each group. There’s
nothing mutually exclusive about knowing shorthand
and calculus, so there’s no reason Bob couldn’t know
both.
(E) The dresses in the closet (the group in the
conclusion) could be Kenisha’s and Connie’s, or they
could belong to other people entirely. Without knowing
that Kenisha and Connie own all the dresses in the
closet, the conclusion in (E) doesn’t follow. But it
doesn’t follow for a different reason than the
conclusion in the stimulus—this is a different flaw, so
(E) is incorrect.
15
Test 4 Explained
3. (D) Inference
Unlike other Inference questions, you can often prephrase an answer to Inference questions that ask you
to complete an argument.
This type of Inference question is very similar to a Main
Point question, except that it asks us to find a
conclusion that isn’t stated. We can do that by focusing
on the scope of the argument and asking what it’s all
leading up to. This argument starts by equating a
century and a life, and noting that people behave the
same way towards the end of each. So (the last
sentence states), just as people at the end of their
lives reflect on their life, people at the end of a
century…reflect on the century. That prediction fits
with the argument’s comparison between a life and a
century, and can be found in (D).
(A) distorts the stimulus; people reflect on what is
ending, which is not always their life.
(B) Fear is outside the scope of the stimulus.
(C) is the opposite of what the stimulus suggests will
happen.
(E) is also a distor tion—there’s nothing in the
argument about second-guessing the events of the
past century.
4. (A) Flaw
Scope shifts are one of the most common flaws on
the LSAT.
It seems like we just can’t trust one company to say
nice things about another company’s products. At
least, this stimulus tells us that we can’t trust Danto
Foods to say nice things about Ocksenfrey’s
prepackaged meals, even when Danto says them
through something called the Connorly Report. All of
the evidence suggests that Danto’s bias against its
competitor influenced the report, so the report’s
conclusions about Ocksenfrey can’t be trusted. It
would be fine if the author just said that we shouldn’t
trust the Connorly Repor t’s conclusions about
Ocksenfrey, but the conclusion of this argument goes a
step further than that—it claims that the opposite of
the Report’s conclusions must be true. That shift in
scope is just as wrong as trusting a consumer report
written by a player in the industry, and is found in (A).
(B) the argument itself doesn’t rely on any sample of
Ocksenfrey’s products. Its evidence and conclusion
both refer to the same products—Ocksenfrey’s
prepackaged meals.
16
(C) may be true, but it has nothing to do with the
argument, which is about Danto’s bias and its effect.
(D) any comparison between Danto’s and Ocksenfrey’s
prepackaged meals is irrelevant to the argument.
(E) The problem with the report was not its hostility to
Danto’s products, but its hostility towards
Ocksenfrey’s products. Thus, (E) distorts the stimulus
and is incorrect.
5. (B) Weaken the Argument
Don’t let outside knowledge influence your answer to
a question.
It’s fairly rare to see a question that deals with a
contentious current issue on the LSAT—the testmaker
understandably likes to avoid claims of bias in its
questions, and avoiding certain topics helps with that
goal. But questions dealing with global warming
occasionally show up, perhaps because the issue is so
prominent. That doesn’t give us license to insert our
own opinions into the question, or even to bring in
whatever facts we may know about the issue. We
should treat this like any other Weaken question—
identify the conclusion and the evidence, find the
assumption, and try to provide evidence against it. We
can go a step further with this particular stimulus,
since it gives us a causal argument—the increase in
average annual temperatures over the last century is
due to the buildup of minor gases in the atmosphere.
Look for any of the classic alternatives to causation:
the causation is reversed (an increase in temperature
caused a buildup of minor gases); some third factor
caused either the buildup of gases or the temperature
increase or both; or the association is merely a
coincidence. (B) suggests that there must have been
some other factor at work, since the warming and the
buildup of minor gases didn’t occur at the same time,
so it weakens the causal relationship and is the correct
answer.
(A) “Industrial pollution” is outside the scope of the
argument, but very much a part of the global warming
debate—don’t let that lead you to select this wrong
answer.
(C) “more solar radiation” is likewise sometimes cited
as a cause of warming in the real world, but if you read
(C) carefully, you’ll notice that it talks about more
radiation in some years than in others, not more
radiation over the last centur y. That yo-yoing of
radiation wouldn’t say anything about the cause of a
steady increase in average temperature.
Section 2: Logical Reasoning
(D) doesn’t link the volcanic dust or the solar radiation
to the buildup of minor gases or the Earth’s warming—
this choice is outside the scope of the argument.
(E) is a 180: if the accumulation of minor gases was
greater over the last century, that makes it more likely
that they were responsible for other anomalous
conditions in the last centur y—like a rise in
temperature. (E) would strengthen the argument.
6. (B) Assumption (Formal Logic)
Translating Formal Logic statements can help you
pinpoint the gap between evidence and conclusion.
None of the evidence in this stimulus follows the
traditional “if/then” format, but it’s all Formal Logic
nonetheless. The first statement gives us something
“necessary” for appointment to the executive board:
an undergraduate degree. Anything “necessary” is the
“then” part of an if/then statement: if someone is
going to be appointed to the board, then they must
have an undergrad degree. We could shorthand this
statement by jotting down something like this:
If App. → U. Deg.
(No U. Deg. → No App.)
The second statement is likewise amenable to
translation: no one with a felony conviction can be
appointed, so if someone has such a conviction, they
won’t be appointed:
If Fel. → No App.
(If App. → No Fel.)
A quick look at the two of these yields a deduction: if
someone is appointed to the executive board, then
they must have an undergraduate degree and no felony
convictions.
If App. → U.Deg and No Fel.
That cer tainly sounds like a reasonable set of
qualifications. Then, in the conclusion, along comes
Murray, who is a candidate for Executive Administrator.
He’s got both an undergraduate and a master’s
degree, but he also has a felony conviction. Our Formal
Logic tells us that Murray can’t be appointed to the
executive board. That is not, however, the same as the
conclusion of this argument—that Murray can’t be
accepted for the position. The conclusion requires a
fur ther assumption: that if someone can’t be
appointed to the board, they can’t be accepted for a
position on the board; in short, that there’s no way to
get a position on the board besides being appointed.
(B) points out this assumption: candidates can only be
accepted to the board if they could have been
appointed to the board.
(A) and (C) might be true, but neither of them
describes Murray, so they can’t link the evidence to the
conclusion, which means they can’t be the argument’s
assumption.
(D) also might be true, but again doesn’t help us
determine why Murray can’t be accepted as Executive
Administrator with his felony conviction.
(E) Regardless of its relevance to the duties of the
position, a felony conviction disqualifies a candidate
for appointment to the board—that’s part of the
evidence. The question is whether disqualification for
appointment is the same as disqualification for the
position itself.
7. (D) Principle (Application) (Formal Logic)
Questions that ask you to apply a Principle will often
involve Formal Logic.
This question asks us to determine which of five
individuals (the five mentioned in the answer choices)
exhibits the most advanced kind of moral reasoning.
We don’t get to debate exactly what kind of moral
reasoning is the most advanced, though; we just have
to apply the ethicist’s description of it. That description
is just two statements, both of which are Formal Logic.
The first tells us that the most advanced moral
reasoning is based solely on abstract principles. That’s
not very clear at all, but it sounds like the ethicist is
fully aware he’s being vague, since he defines this
advanced moral reasoning even further: it is not selfinterest, and it is not a desire to adhere to social
norms and conventions. A summary of the Formal
Logic in these statements would look like this:
If Adv. → Abs.
If Adv. → Not SI and not SN/SC
In short: if someone is applying the most advanced
kind of moral reasoning, they are working from abstract
principles, and from neither self-interest nor social
norms and conventions. Only (D) showcases someone
who acts from abstract principles, so (D) must be the
correct answer.
17
Test 4 Explained
(A) Bobby responded to a social norm, the idea that
failing to contribute to charity would make him look
stingy.
(B) Wes was acting out of self-interest when he
contributed to charity, since he hoped his contribution
would influence his employer’s opinion of him.
(C) Donna, like Bobby, was responding to fear of being
seen as violating a social convention.
(E) Leigh also acted according to social pressure, and
not due to an abstract principle.
8. (A) Inference
“Complete the argument” Inference questions are
very closely related to Main Point questions.
A glance at the end of this argument shows that we’re
trying to complete a sentence that begins with the
Conclusion Keyword, “thus.” It should be clear that we
need to determine the conclusion of the argument to
answer this question correctly, and that means we
should probably think through a variation on Kaplan’s
One Sentence Test: if we were to sum all this up in one
sentence, what would that sentence say? We’ve
already got the beginning of the sentence, so it
shouldn’t be too hard to figure out the end. Let’s look
at the earlier parts of the argument to see where they
lead.
First we learn that the electric car isn’t widely used
because of technical problems—but once those
problems are solved and electric cars are popular, auto
emissions will drop and the associated environmental
degradation will drop along with them. But, the author
warns, the power for all those electric cars doesn’t just
come out of thin air. It comes from coal plants, nuclear
plants, and dams, all of which come with their own
environmental problems. So, the author leads us to the
point that the electric car isn’t a panacea; even if it
reduces auto emissions, it could lead to environmental
damage from other sources. The end of that last
sentence should be something like (A), pointing out
the negative environmental consequences of the
electric car.
(B) The argument never links environmental damage to
lack of popularity, so this choice doesn’t fit what we
already know.
(C) is true, but it’s a detail from the very beginning of
the argument. The author would have to take us in a
circle to make this the conclusion of his argument, and
he doesn’t do so.
18
(D) and (E) have the same problem: we know that the
electric car has some environmental problems that not
everyone has considered, but we don’t know anything
about the net effect of that problem. The argument
never forecloses the possibility that total emissions
will drop or that net environmental degradation will
decrease.
9. (E) Weaken the Argument
You can always weaken a prediction by stating that
the present circumstances will change.
Time machines haven’t been invented yet, so there’s
no way to know for certain what will happen in the
future. All we can do is make educated guesses based
on present and past circumstances. Those guesses
necessarily assume that the present and past
circumstances won’t change enough to affect the
prediction, and we can weaken any prediction by
showing that the circumstances are changing. The
circumstances in this argument deal with video game
sales. It’s no surprise to lean that most video games
were purchased by people in their early teens—think
about who plays most video games. And once we learn
that this age group is shrinking, it’s easy to predict, as
the author does, that video game sales would drop. But
that assumes that the past circumstances will stay the
same—that people in their early teens will continue to
account for the overwhelming majority of video game
sales. We could weaken this argument by showing that
another age group will pick up the slack, and (E) does
just that.
(A) strengthens the prediction, by suggesting that
other age groups will not make up for declining sales to
people in their early teens.
(B) could also strengthen the argument, but to be sure
of that we’d have to assume that video game rentals
move in tandem with video game sales. In fact, the
reverse could be true—if fewer people rent video
games, more people might buy them. But without
knowing for sure how rentals affect sales, we can’t say
that (B) affects the argument at all.
(C) could strengthen the argument as well—new
entertainment options might make people less likely to
play video games.
(D) the number of different types of games available
isn’t necessarily relevant to how many of those games
are actually bought.
Section 2: Logical Reasoning
10. (B) Main Point
The One-Sentence Test can help you find the
conclusion of an argument.
Ask yourself: what one sentence of the argument would
the author refuse to get rid of? Once you’ve found that
sentence, you’ve found the conclusion of the
argument. Here, the first sentence is the crucial one:
scientists should use double-blind techniques
wherever possible. The rest of the argument tells us
why: they help prevent bias from creeping into the
experimental results. That evidence provides even
more…er…evidence that the first sentence was the
author’s conclusion. (B) restates that conclusion, and
is correct.
(A) restates the beginning of the last sentence, and
(D) restates the end of it. These are both evidence in
favor of the author’s conclusion, not the conclusion
itself.
(C) The argument hints at this idea—if it weren’t true,
we wouldn’t need double-blind techniques in the first
place—but doesn’t make it into a conclusion.
(E) is true, according to the argument, but the author
goes a step further in his conclusion than this choice
does.
11. (C) Role of a Statement
Be sure you know how the statement in question
relates to the rest of the argument.
The LSAT tries to ratchet up the difficulty level on this
question by using a lot of difficult vocabulary. Phrases
like “extemporaneous eloquence” aren’t as easy to
grasp as we might like, but that doesn’t mean we can’t
understand them or the argument as a whole. The
basic premise here is a complaint that all of us have
heard: TV and the internet (the electronic media) are
destroying the intellectual abilities of our population.
But the statement in question points out an important
fact: when literary culture arose, people complained
that it destroyed certain intellectual skills that had
been valued in oral culture. The author uses that
statement to conclude that the fears of intellectual
devastation aren’t necessarily valid, and that it’s more
likely that our culture is simply developing different
intellectual skills. The statement in question is an
example that supports the conclusion; that’s closest
to (C).
(A) gives us the exact opposite of what we’re looking
for. If this choice were correct, we’d expect the
statement in question to begin with a Keyword that
suggests support, like “for example,” instead of the
Contrast Keyword, “but.”
(B) the statement does help to illustrate a general
hypothesis, but not the one cited in (B).
(D) goes a touch too far—the author says that the
cultural change is “probably” not a bad one, but (D)
tries to claim that he’s proving the common complaint
false. That scope is just too broad.
(E) The statement in question is never dismissed, as
(E) would have it.
12. (A) Parallel Reasoning
To form a paraphrase of the answer in a Parallel
Reasoning question, sum up the argument using the
broadest terms possible.
Suddenly, the LSAT has become philosophical,
wrestling with the idea of keeping conflicting promises.
The conflict arises between a promise to keep a
confidence and an unspoken promise to tell the truth;
if someone asks a question that can’t be answered
truthfully without breaking the confidence, then it’s
impossible to both tell the truth and keep the
confidence. Ultimately, the author’s argument
regarding these two promises boils down to a very
simple assertion: if it’s impossible to do two things at
once, there can be no obligation to do both of them all
the time. Notice that we didn’t have to stick to the
scope of keeping confidences and telling the truth, so
we can use that assertion to test the answer choices.
We quickly find the right answer in (A): it’s impossible
to both say what you want at all times and be civil at
all times, so there can’t be an unlimited duty to be civil
and an unlimited right to say what we want. The two
things can’t always happen at the same time, so we
can’t be obligated to do both of them all the time—this
argument makes the same assertion as the stimulus.
(B) There are two problems with this answer choice.
First, it doesn’t arrive at the conclusion that it’s
impossible to keep two obligations at once; and
second, there’s never any hint that there are two
obligations in the first place, since there’s no proof
that politicians must be popular. Either of these would
be enough to say that the argument isn’t parallel.
(C) is just too uncertain. The stimulus deals in
absolute obligations, but (C) is concerned with what
might happen in either of two different scenarios.
That’s not parallel.
(D) and (E) both take an argument through two Formal
Logic statements and uses the contrapositives to draw
a conclusion. But the conclusion in (D) tells us that
19
Test 4 Explained
either of two things must be true, and the conclusion
in (E) says that the initial trigger can’t happen—both
are different than the stimulus’s assertion that two
things cannot both be true.
13. (C) Assumption
Beware of irrelevant comparisons in the answer
choices.
We learn quite a bit about aluminum soft-drink cans in
this stimulus—for instance, all standard aluminum soft
drink cans contain the same amount of aluminum, and
the amount of material other than aluminum in the
cans is negligible. We also learn a bit about two groups
of standard aluminum soft drink cans—L and M. It
turns out that group L was recycled to form 50% of the
aluminum in group M. The author uses that fact, plus
the facts about the amount of aluminum in the cans, to
conclude that group M must be twice the size of group
L. That makes a certain amount of sense, since all the
cans hav the same amount of aluminum in them, and
group M has twice the amount of aluminum as group
L…or does it? Look closely at how group M is
described: half of the aluminum in group M “was
recycled from” group L. That doesn’t say that group M
contains twice as much aluminum as group L; it only
says that half of the aluminum in M was recycled from
group L. How does the author then conclude that group
M contains twice as much aluminum as group L? She
must be assuming that the recylcing process reclaims
and reuses all of the aluminum in standard soft drink
cans. We find that assumption in (C).
(A) The argument has nothing to do with recycling the
aluminum from group M—only the amount of recycled
aluminum from group L.
(B) draws an irrelevant comparison between the quality
of recycled aluminum and unrecycled aluminum.
(D) So what? The cans in group L were recycled into
group M, whether they’d been recycled before or not.
Their history has nothing to do with the author’s
argument.
(E) is another irrelevant comparison between
aluminum soft-drink cans and other types of soft-drink
cans.
apparently rougher on it than heating it on the stove.
Heating milk to 50 degrees Celsius (about 120
Fahrenheit) in a microwave destroys half of the
lysozyme in the milk, while heating milk to the same
temperature on a stove retains nearly all of its
lysozyme. So clearly, the author concludes, the heat
isn’t the culprit, the microwaves are. And there we have
a classic causal argument, and a hint as to how to
weaken it.
The author argues that the microwaves are the culprit,
and that heat can’t be. To weaken that argument, all
we have to do is find some evidence in favor of the
alternative—something that suggests that heat might
be behind the destruction of the lysozyme. And if heat
is really to blame, then there has to be some
difference between heat in the microwave and heat on
the stove, to account for the fact that heating milk to
the same temperature by different methods leads to
different results. (E) gives us both a difference
between conventional heat and microwave heat, and a
reason why the heat from the microwave could behave
differently: microwaving a liquid creates hot spots
within the liquid, spots that are much hotter than the
final temperature. That gives us a way in which heat
could still be responsible for destroying the lysozyme in
milk, as long as lysozyme doesn’t really start to break
down until it gets hotter than 50 degrees Celsius. Then
the hot spots in the microwave would lose their
lysozyme, but the milk on the stove wouldn’t get hot
enough to start losing any. (E) would weaken the
argument, and is thus correct.
If anything, (A) strengthens the argument, by showing
that more microwaves destroy more lysozyme. In any
case, it doesn’t show any difference between
microwave heat and conventional heat.
(B) The possibility of adding enzymes to replace those
lost through heating doesn’t tell us what caused their
loss in the first place.
(C) starts off well, suggesting that a conventional heat
source heats milk more slowly than…a hotter
conventional heat source. No difference between
conventional heat and microwave heat means that
there’s nothing here that weakens the argument.
(D) The taste of milk exposed to different kinds of heat
is well outside the scope of the argument.
14. (E) Weaken the Argument
15. (D) Assumption
Keep an eye out for causal arguments in Weaken
questions.
Beware of choices that restate the evidence.
Warm milk is a classic cure for insomnia, and it’s
certainly tasty. But heating the milk in the microwave is
With all of the panicked stories about bird flu flying
around in the past few years, it’s a surprise that more
20
Section 2: Logical Reasoning
flu questions haven’t shown up on the LSAT. The
testmakers finally managed to put one together here,
but with Kaplan’s techniques innoculating your work, it
shouldn’t even be harsh enough to give you the
sniffles. The question outlines a new government
program designed to avoid the most serious cases of
the flu: everyone defined as a high-risk individual will
get a flu shot every year. But the vaccination only works
against a single flu strain, the strain deemed most
likely to be prevalent that year. So, the author
concludes, all of the high-risk individuals will have to
get vaccinated for a different strain of the flu every
year. But that’s only true if we make a key assumption:
the strain of the flu that is deemed most likely to be
prevalent will be different every year—if the most
prevalent strain doesn’t change from year one to year
two, then year one’s vaccination should still work a
year later. (D) points out this assumption.
(A) The number of high-risk individuals is irrelevant,
since the evidence tells us that all of them get the
vaccine annually.
(B) The likelihood of an epidemic might have
influenced the government’s policy decision, but it
doesn’t connect the evidence about that program to
the conclusion about multi-year vaccinations.
(C) merely restates the evidence: the vaccine only
protects against one strain of the virus.
(E) Side effects are outside the scope of the
argument.
16. (D) Point at Issue
The correct answer to a Point at Issue question must
fall within the scope of both speakers’ arguments.
Taylor is understandably skeptical of the researcher’s
claim that exactly 61 percent of information transferred
in a conversation is communicated through nonverbal
signals. Essentially, his argument is that the number is
far too precise to be taken seriously, because such
exact claims can never be scientifically established.
Sandra, on the other hand, is much more credible of
scientific claims—she notes that many scientific
disciplines are extremely precise, so their precision
isn’t a reason to doubt them. But notice what Sandra
doesn’t mention: the claims of the researchers at the
local university. Her argument implies that she’s not
ready to dismiss their claim just because it’s precise,
but she only speaks about scientific claims in general.
The Kaplan Decision Tree will help us find the right
answer, by focusing on the scope of each speaker’s
opinion and asking whether they’d disagree on each
choice. Let’s use it to run through the choices:
Taylor has an opinion on (A)—he doesn’t think it’s
possible for research to make such a precise claim.
But Sandra doesn’t mention anything about this
specific claim, so we can reject (A) as outside the
scope of her argument. The same analysis gets rid of
(B) and (C): Sandra has no opinion about the precision
of research on verbal and nonverbal communication,
only on the precision of certain scientific disciplines.
(D) Taylor thinks that all mathematically precise claims
are suspect, and Sandra argues that many scientific
claims can be both precise and inherently valid. Both
speakers have an opinion on (D), and those opinions
differ: we’ve found the correct answer.
We can quickly dispatch (E) to finish the question off:
Sandra doesn’t mention “inherently suspect claims,”
so she can’t have an opinion on them or what they
mean for most scientific claims.
17. (B) Flaw
Flaw questions are closely related to Assumption
questions.
With people like this author in charge of hospitals, it’s
no wonder that health care costs so much. He’s willing
to trust a bunch of computer experts at a conference
to tell him what the highest priority of his hospital
should be. The assumption underlying his trust of the
experts is simple: that these experts know what
they’re talking about! If he’s listening to computer
experts with regard to setting up the hospital’s
database, then his assumption would probably be
valid. But who ever heard of asking computer experts
how to run a hospital? That would be like asking a
doctor how to write a chess program— there’s no
reason to think that you’re more likely to get a right
answer from them than from anybody else. (B) points
out this flaw: the hospital executive is relying on
experts whose expertise doesn’t apply to the decision
he’s trying to make.
(A) The causes of the problem are never discussed in
the argument. Neither is any inference about
property—that’s (E). Both of these choices are outside
the scope of the argument.
(C) and (D) both refer to flaws that commonly appear on
the LSAT: drawing a conclusion from an unrepresentative
sample, and drawing a conclusion about causation from
evidence of a correlation. While there’s a good chance
that these flaws will appear somewhere on this test, they
don’t appear in this problem.
21
Test 4 Explained
18. (B) Inference
Don’t strain to predict an answer in Inference
questions; just test each choice to see whether it
must be true.
It’s refreshing to hear global warming discussed in
terms of the scientific method, rather than in the
political terms that usually accompany the issue.
Perhaps that’s why the testmaker chose to include this
question. Anyway, the author points out that the
scientific method is designed to test hypotheses by
attempting to prove that they are incorrect, and that
succeeding in disproving a conventional theory is the
most prestigious accomplishment for a scientist. Thus,
it’s not surprising that a number of scientists are
attempting to disprove the conventional wisdom
regarding predictions of global warming—the surprising
thing is that none of them have yet succeeded.
We could make all sorts of predictions for where else
the argument might go, or what else must be true
according to the author. But our time will be better
spent combing through the answer choices for
something that must be true based on the statements
we already have:
(A) There’s no evidence that scientists involved in the
global warming debate, on either side, haven’t been
acting in accordance with the accepted standard. This
choice is outside the scope, and is thus incorrect.
(B) The stimulus does indeed point out a substantial
motive for scientists to discredit the global warming
hypothesis: the recognition that would come with
success in doing so. (B) must be true, and is the
correct answer. Let’s quickly eliminate the last
choices:
(C) is far too extreme—there’s no evidence that global
warming is true, only a lack of evidence that would
prove it false.
(D) Alternative hypotheses are outside the scope of
the stimulus, which deals only with the conventional
hypothesis.
(E) is also extreme: the stimulus says that a desire for
recognition is a driving force behind global warming
resarch, but not the primary force.
19. (A) Strengthen the Argument EXCEPT
Characterize the choices whenever you see an
EXCEPT.
The historian concludes that the Land Party succeeded
in the Banestrian elections of 1935 because it
22
specifically addressed the problems of agricultural and
small business interests, which were facing particularly
deep economic problems that year. The evidence in
favor of his conclusion is that the Land Par ty
specifically targeted those groups; those groups were
particularly hard hit economically in 1935; the location
of those groups in rural and semi rural areas; and the
fact that 1935 was the only time the Land Party ever
won a national election. Four of the answer choices will
strengthen the connection between those disparate
pieces of evidence and the conclusion about why the
Land Party won the national election in 1935, while the
correct answer will either weaken that connection or do
nothing to it. Let’s test the choices:
(A) Urban groups are outside the scope of argument,
as are attempts to reach them. In fact, the argument
states that the Land Party targeted other areas of the
country in its victory. (A) doesn’t make the conclusion
any more likely to be true, so it is the correct answer.
All of the other choices will strengthen the argument.
Let’s look at how.
(B) strengthens the likelihood that the Land Party’s
efforts to target agricultural and small business
interests would bear electoral fruit, and (C) bolsters
the connection between the economic problems in
those areas and the Land Party’s success. (D) points
out that the Land Party was the only party addressing
the issues of certain voters that helped them win the
election, (E) strengthens the correlation between
those voters’ economic distress and the likelihood that
they would vote. All of these choices strengthen the
ties between a specific piece of evidence and the
conclusion the historian draws from it.
20. (E) Method of Argument
An author will often proceed by pointing out a flaw in
a position she opposes.
Whenever the LSAT begins with the formulation “soand-so claims that…” you should expect the author to
contradict the claim somehow. After all, if they weren’t
going to contradict a claim, they’d make it themselves,
instead of pointing out who is responsible for such a
ridiculous idea. This argument is no different. Gamba
begins by outlining Muñoz’s claims: that the Hopewell
Neighbors Association opposes the new water system,
and that this means the city opposes it. She then goes
on to shred Muñoz’s evidence for his claims. As
Gamba tells us, it turns out that less than 10% of the
350-member Association even voted on the water
system, and that even then the vote was pretty close—
it came out 15 to 10 against the water system. The 15
Section 2: Logical Reasoning
opposing votes are less than 1% of the membership of
the association, and Gamba tells us that such a small
sample doesn’t accurately represent the views of the
association, much less the town as a whole. If the word
“represent” in the conclusion turned on a light bulb in
your brain that said, “representativeness,” you
probably got this question correct very quickly. (E)
recognizes that Gamba points out the flaw of
representativeness in Muñoz’s argument.
(A) Perhaps the reason that so few members of the
Association voted on the water measure is that people
with certain views were more likely to vote, as (A)
suggests, but Gamba never brings this up in her
argument.
(B) Gamba also never mentions the possibility of
statistical manipulation.
(C) Gamba never gets down to arguing about whether
the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the
conclusion—she denies the truth of the premise
Muñoz uses, that the Neighbors’ Association
overwhelmingly opposes the water system. That also
shows that the evidence in question is not “impossible
to disconfirm,” as (D) would have it.
21. (A) Flaw
Certain common flaws appear regularly on the LSAT.
After a long section of difficult questions, a simple Flaw
question that employs one of the most common logical
fallacies on the LSAT has to be refreshing. As is often
the case with arguments involving drivers, this author
sounds like he’s not far out of high school. His friends
are all worried that he’ll get into an accident because
he’s such a reckless driver. Yet he’s convinced that all
he has to do is trade in his sports car for a minivan,
and he’ll be less likely to have an accident, since
minivans and sedans have low accident rates
compared to sports cars. What he doesn’t realize (and
what should be obvious to us) is that accidents are
caused by drivers, not by cars. Drivers of minivans tend
to be more cautious than drivers of sports cars, so
minivans have a lower accident rate than sports cars.
The author won’t be able to take advantage of that
accident rate unless he starts driving like the typical
minivan driver instead of the typical reckless sports car
nut. He’s fallen into a classic logical flaw: mistaking a
correlation (minivans have low accident rates) for
causation (driving a minivan causes fewer accidents).
That’s (A).
(B) was the flaw in Question 20! Even though there is
a mention of a statistic, there’s no sample here—the
rate of accidents for different types of vehicles comes
from data about all accidents.
(C) is a pretty good definition of the flaw of Possibilty
vs. Certainty, but that flaw isn’t present here.
(D) also mentions a common flaw that isn’t present in
the argument: Necessity vs. Sufficiency.
(E) No source, well-informed or otherwise, is cited in
the argument.
22. (D) Inference
An Inference on the LSAT is something that must be
true based on the information in the stimulus.
As is often the case, this Inference stimulus doesn’t
contain a full argument. We simply get a series of facts
and have to try to link them together to find a
deduction, or look for an answer choice that restates
part of the stimulus. The correct answer will be a
statement that must be true based on the information
we’re given, and the four wrong answers will all be
statements that could be false.
The stimulus itself is a series of disheartening facts
about the news media and local politics. The news
media doesn’t cover local politics, and local politics are
conducted in secret; these two factors each work to
isolate local politicians from the electorate. This
isolation reduces the chances that residents can
influence local politics, which discourages their
participation, which (we can guess) leads to a vicious
circle where there is less and less participation in
democracy. As soon as we’re finished mourning the
death of the republic, we’ll work our way through the
choices:
(A) goes too far. Perhaps, if politicians were less
isolated, resident participation would be more likely to
elicit a response than it is now, but we can’t be sure
that the response would be likely.
(B) adds an opinion to the stimulus that isn’t really
present. The author might agree with this statement,
but for all we know, he might also think that less
resident participation is a good thing! Without any
statements one way or another, we just can’t be sure.
(C) is too extreme. A positive official response is
clearly a factor in resident participation, but it need not
be the most important factor.
(D) The rarity of media coverage of local politics is
cited as a factor that isolates local politicians from the
electorate, and this isolation discourages resident
par ticipation…so adding more coverage of local
politics would reduce the isolation, which would reduce
the discouragement. (D) ties together different pieces
23
Test 4 Explained
of the argument in a way that logically follows, so it is
correct.
(E) We can quickly eliminate this last choice as
extreme. Isolation from the electorate discourages
participation; there’s no evidence that if we reduced
the discouragement, the isolation would also drop.
23. (C) Assumption (Formal Logic)
Watch out for different ways of phrasing Formal Logic
statements.
The “if” in the first sentence should immediately clue
you in that you’re dealing with Formal Logic. So we’ll
start translating statements and looking for ways to
combine them right away. First, we learn that if an
action is reasonably expected to increase the
aggregate well-being of the people affected by it, then
it’s morally right (notice how we were careful about the
order of the “if” in that statement). This translates as:
If WB up → Right
And the contrapositive: If something isn’t morally right,
then it doesn’t increase the well-being of those
affected by it.
If not Right → WB not up
The next statement is a bit more complicated, since
it’s an “if and only if.” That’s really two statements in
one, and it’s the only time that a statement and its
reverse are true. An action is morally wrong if it is
reasonably expected to reduce the aggregate wellbeing of those it affects; and if it is reasonably
expected to reduce the aggregate well being of those it
affects, it is morally wrong. Those statements (and
their contrapositives) look like this:
If Wrong → WB down;
If WB not down → not Wrong
If WB down → Wrong;
If not Wrong → WB not down
The author uses these statements to conclude that if
an action is reasonably expected to leave the
aggregate well-being of the people it affects
unchanged, then it’s morally right. There’s just one
problem with that statement—actions that leave the
well-being of those they affect unchanged are outside
the scope of the original statements, which only deal
with actions that change the well-being of those they
24
affect. The only way to link that evidence to this
conclusion is by making an assumption about when an
action is morally right—and the only way to connect
neutral actions to the evidence about actions that
affect the well-being of the population is by simply
assuming that if an action isn’t morally wrong (in that
it doesn’t negatively affect the well-being of people it
affects), then it must be morally right. (C) does just
that, giving us a reason why neutral actions would be
morally right.
(A) merely restates a piece of evidence, that an action
is morally wrong only if it is reasonably expected to
reduce the aggregate well being of the people it
affects. Something that’s already stated in the
argument cannot be the author’s assumption.
(B) comes close, because it tells us that even actions
that do not affect the aggregate well-being of their
targets cannot be both right and wrong. But it doesn’t
give us a reason why those actions would be right.
(D) restates another part of the stimulus, but the mere
fact that such actions exist doesn’t tell us whether they
are right or wrong.
(E) is yet another restatement of par t of the
evidence—if an action has good consequences (in
other words, if it increases the aggregate well-being of
the people it affects), then it is right.
24. (A) Principle
A Principle question asks you to rephrase the gist of
the argument in general terms.
Auto manufacturers have a problem. They get all kinds
of consumer information about whether certain parts
of their cars work well for consumers, but that
information isn’t as helpful as actual interaction with
consumers. The reason why not is simple—consumer
information can tell them what the problem is, but not
how to fix it. Interaction between designers and the
consumers is, we’re told, “superior” to survey data.
The natural conclusion is that the interaction helps the
designers determine the best way to correct problems
with their cars. (A) restates this conclusion in broad
terms: consumer input on the proposed modifications
can help designers do their jobs well.
(B) It’s true that car companies solicity consumer
informaion, but that’s not the point of the argument.
Choices that focus on a detail instead of the argument
as a whole will never be the right answer to a Principle
question.
(C) Market niches are outside the scope of the
argument altogether.
Section 2: Logical Reasoning
(D) If consumers aren’t consulted during the design
phase, it’s possible that a car will end up with
unappealing features, but nothing in the argument
suggests that it’s a given. (D) is thus too extreme.
(E) Both of the design features mentioned in the
argument—seats
and
controls—are
internal
components of a car, contradicting (E).
25. (C) Paradox
Get as much information as you can from the question
stem.
The stem for this question doesn’t just tell us that it’s
a Paradox question; it also tells us exactly what the
paradox is. Before we even look at the stimulus, we
know we’re trying to explain a difference in the amount
of innovation into different art forms, painting and
sculpture, in nineteenth century France. From the
stimulus, we learn that there was far more innovation
in painting than there was in sculpture. The reason
appears to be the desires of the academy of art. We
learn that the academy was the main sponsor of
French art in the nineteenth century, and that it
discouraged innovation. Our job is to figure out why the
academy’s sponsorship discouraged innovationin
sculpture, but wasn’t able to do so in painting. We find
a reason in (C): due to the relative costs of their
media, painters didn’t need nearly as much money as
sculptors, so they could create unsponsored works. In
other words, the academy of ar t could control
sculptors, but there were a large number of
independent painters who were doing most or all of the
innovating.
(A) and (B) would actually deepen the paradox, since
it would suggest that the academy would have greater
ability to discourage innovation in painting than in
sculpture.
(D) The overlap between sculptors and painters is
irrelevant; we’re concerned with the amount of
innovation in each art form as a whole, not the
innovations of individual artists.
(E) Decreasing financial support might explain why
artists were more dependent on the academy of art,
but it would, if anything, only deepen the paradox of
innovation in one supported art form and not another.
25
Test 4 Explained
SECTION III
LOGICAL REASONING
1. (C) Principle (Application)
Familiar question types will sometimes be phrased in
unfamiliar ways.
At first glance, this might look like a Parallel Reasoning
question, but it’s really asking you to apply a Principle,
the analysis in the second paragraph. Only one of the
answer choices will be subject to the same analysis.
This application does have elements of parallel
reasoning (it’s asking you to find a similar situation),
but there’s no reason to waste time struggling with the
distinction just find the answer choice that conforms to
the general idea that people may sacrifice
comfort/pleasure for the sake of appearances. (C) fits
both pieces: the couple sacrifices cost & taste
(comfort & pleasure) in favor of impressing their
friends (appearances).
(A) is missing the “sacrifice” element.
(B) is also missing the sacrifice; in fact, the decision is
based in part on comfort.
(D) here at last we find the missing element of
sacrifice, but the second piece, “in favor of
appearances”, is absent.
(E) again, no sacrifice, though the element of
“appearances” is present.
2. (A) Paradox EXCEPT
Characterize the choices carefully in EXCEPT
questions.
Here, the four wrong answer choices will all help to
resolve the Paradox. The oddball correct answer will
either have no effect or aggravate the confusion.
Job one in a Paradox question is always to identify what
seems to be wrong. Here, Jimmy bought a new,
allegedly more efficient gas water heater, but his bills
went UP. What does that mean? Either the new water
heater doesn’t compare as favorably with the old one
as Jimmy had hoped, or there’s some other factor
driving up his gas bills. All of the choices except (A)
provide an alternative explanation as to why Jimmy’s
gas bills have increased (and so are readily
eliminated); (A) is in keeping with what we would have
expected from the new, higher efficiency water heater
and it does nothing to explain the higher bills.
(B) More usage = higher cost; that’s one outside factor
that could explain the increase. Eliminate.
26
(C) Again, increased usage explains the increased
cost. Eliminate.
(D) Higher rates could mean a higher gas bill even
though Jimmy’s usage might have decreased—another
outside factor that resolves our confusion. Eliminate.
(E) Just like (B) and (C), (E) explains the increased
cost by giving us a reason for increased usage.
Eliminate.
3. (E) Point at Issue
The key to every Point at Issue question is that BOTH
speakers must have addressed the issue set forth in
the correct answer.
You might well be able to predict the answer to this
question—Carolyn says this thing on display isn’t a
portrait at all, while Arnold says it’s “a maximally
realistic portrait”. That’s (E). If you didn’t see that, the
Kaplan Decision Tree makes quick work of this one.
(A) Carolyn doesn’t mention “art.” Eliminate. (In fact,
Arnold doesn’t either, but there’s no reason to get that
far.)
(B) Carolyn doesn’t address whether or not it’s Quinn’s
work, either; Eliminate.
(C) Carolyn takes a position on this, so keep it on the
first pass. Does Arnold talk about a “recognizable
resemblance”? He does not, so eliminate the choice.
(D) Carolyn doesn’t take a position on this directly—
does she do so implicitly by pointing out that it’s
replicated DNA? That question is a distraction we don’t
need to deal with: if she does implicitly address the
issue, her conclusion is yes—and so is Arnold’s.
There’s no disagreement.
4. (E) Flaw
Boil down an argument to its true elements; don’t be
distracted by extraneous information.
As always in an argument-based question type, start by
breaking the argument into its components. The crux of
this one is concentrated in the last two sentences of
the stimulus. The conclusion is that motivational
posters at these corporations won’t boost employee
motivation to work productively. Why not? The only
evidence submitted is that most are already motivated
to work productively. But the goal was to “boost”
motivation, not to create it. The fact that it already
exists doesn’t preclude an increase. That’s a perfect
match for (E). This question lends itself very well to
Section 3: Logical Reasoning
prediction and you shouldn’t have to analyze answer
choices, but for the record:
(A) The argument addresses only those companies
that are using the posters, so (A) is outside the scope.
(B) Again, outside the scope—since we’re only
concerned with whether THESE corporations will
achieve their goal through the use of these posters,
representativeness is irrelevant.
(C) We’re concerned only with one beneficial effect:
motivating employees to work productively.
(D) Also outside the scope; we’re not concerned with
actual employee productivity, but with motivation.
5. (C) Assumption
Assumption questions are always vulnerable to
prediction, and it’s the best protection against
getting tangled up in wrong answer choices.
Conclusion: The entomologist who thought the ants
were carrying food to another colony was wrong.
Evidence: Later research showed that they were
emptying their own colony’s dump site.
Notice that the evidence doesn’t say anything about
food—the assumption has to bridge that gap. Does the
fact that they were emptying their dump site mean they
weren’t bringing food? Only if the dump site didn’t
contain food. That’s a match for (C).
(A) Irrelevant comparison; all we’re concerned about
was whether or not the ants might have been bringing
food.
(B) Outside the scope—whether or not the ants were
“making gifts” and whether or not they were carrying
food to the other colony may be two very different
questions; in addition, the answer choice asserts only
lack of evidence, not an actual lack of capacity.
(D) So? The ants in the receiving colony are outside
the scope of this argument, which focuses on the
behavior of the carrying ants.
(E) Does retraction mean he was wrong? Nope, just
that he either changed his mind or thought it politic to
say that he had. (E) might be distracting because it’s
just the kind of thing we’d view as evidence in the real
world, but remember that we’re not just asked to find
something that makes the conclusion more likely;
we’re asked to find the answer choice that tightens the
link between the evidence and the conclusion. This
answer choice doesn’t provide any kind of bridge.
6. (B) Principle
Boil the fact situation in a Principle question down to
its elements and you’ll have your prediction in hand.
Summarize the key points in the stimulus: Jablonski
did a nice thing for the community, and it benefited her.
Don’t make the mistake of getting caught up in the
details of the driver’s ed program. Find the answer
choice that matches the key elements: do a good turn
and maybe you’ll get something good in return. (B)
matches that perfectly: altruistic actions = nice thing;
positive consequences = benefit to her. All of the
pieces fit, and we have a match! For the record:
(A) may be tempting because it’s on topic, but that’s
often a trap. Where’s the nice thing here? Where’s the
payoff? The absence of either is reason enough to
eliminate.
(C) Again, easy to fall into the relevant subject matter
trap, but Principle questions are about generalizing.
Again, there’s no beneficent action and no payback.
Eliminate.
(D) Close, but “usually” does this answer choice in; we
only have one example here, and can’t draw any
conclusions about how often this sor t of thing
happens. Contrast with the correct answer choice,
which says “sometimes”.
(E) Outside the scope—there’s nothing about the
success of the action here, only how the community
responded. Eliminate.
7. (B) Point at Issue
In Point at Issue questions, stay focused on the
Kaplan Decision Tree—it’s very easy to get distracted
by answer choices related to one argument or the
other if you’re not methodical.
Start with Antonio and run through all the answer
choices, eliminating any that he doesn’t take a position
on. Then, walk through any remaining choices and see
if Marla’s taken a stand. In this case (as in many Point
at Issue questions), the third step, asking whether
their opinions on a point disagree, merely confirms that
the only answer choice remaining after the first two
passes is correct.
(A) Antonio takes a position on this—he ties taking
great chances with “joy of spontaneity”. Keep it on the
first pass. Marla doesn’t state a position on
desirability, though, so eliminate this one in round two.
27
Test 4 Explained
(B) Correct. Antonio says it means “never deviating
from the middle course”; Marla says “never” taking
risks is immoderate in itself. For the record:
(C) Antonio doesn’t mention embracing other virtues;
Eliminate.
(D) How often? Antonio didn’t mention that. Eliminate.
(E) “Moderately spontaneous”? Antonio doesn’t
acknowledge that there’s any such thing, so he
certainly can’t take a position on its desirability.
Eliminate.
8. (E) Flaw
Use the bonus information in your question stem. This
one tells you what kind of flaw you’re looking for:
something the ad fails to consider.
The conclusion set forth in the ad is that Fabric-Soft is
the most effective fabric softener available. What’s the
evidence to support that? 99% of consumers preferred
the Fabric-Soft towel to one washed without it. There is,
of course, a significant difference in the key
terminology in the evidence and that in the conclusion:
the evidence compares towels washed with Fabric-Soft
to towels washed without it. The conclusion compares
Fabric-Soft’s effectiveness to that of all other fabric
softeners. What’s wrong with that? Well, we don’t have
any information about the other fabric softeners. Our
speaker overlooks (or, more likely, glosses over) the
question as to whether Fabric-Soft was compared to
the rest of the fabric softeners. That’s (E).
(A) Outside the scope; we’re looking only at the link
between the study conducted and the conclusion that
Fabric-Soft is “most effective”
(B) Also outside the scope; Fabric-Soft’s effects on the
environment have nothing to do with its effectiveness.
(C) Cost also falls outside the scope.
(D) Again, whether or not it’s worth the cost has
nothing to do with effectiveness.
9. (D) Assumption
Don’t let slight changes in formatting distract you—
an Assumption question is about finding the Evidence
and Conclusion and bridging the gap, no matter what
the stimulus looks like.
The language of the question stem reveals that this
Assumption question is vulnerable to the Denial Test.
It’s asking for an assumption the argument depends
upon, or one that MUST be true in order for the
argument to hold water. Still, predicting should be your
28
first line of attack. The conclusion is that the
Tasmanian tiger no longer exists. Evidence? No one in
the area has found any evidence of its survival. The
first thing that jumps out at you might be the
assumption that lack of evidence means lack of
tigers—that’s a classic logical fallacy. That’s not
exactly the answer that the testmakers are looking for,
but (D) gives us a specific reason that lack of evidence
in the area might not mean the tigers no longer exist.
If you recognized that relationship and picked it out
quickly, great; if not, the Denial Test works here. What
if the tiger DID move to another region? Then the lack
of evidence of the tiger’s continued existence in THIS
region is irrelevant, and the conclusion can no longer
be true. (D) must be the author’s assumption.
(A) What if this isn’t true? The Tasmanian tigers might
have ceased to exist for some other reason, so it’s not
a necessary assumption; Eliminate.
(B) What if there are no scavengers who can destroy
all traces of the tiger? Well, then, we should have seen
some trace of them if they were still around, just like
the author said. (B) actually weakens the argument by
providing an alternative explanation for the lack of
evidence; Eliminate.
(C) What if there was one who hadn’t? Would that
invalidate the argument? Would it be necessary that
every naturalist had looked for the data to be valid? Of
course not. More importantly, this distracts from the
hole we already identified—the gap wasn’t in the data,
but in drawing the conclusion that the tigers had
ceased to exist simply because no one had seen
traces of them in the area.
(E) If this wasn’t true, and experienced naturalists had
been reporting sightings, what would happen to the
argument? Since the argument is based on the lack of
evidence such as carcasses and tracks, it would have
no effect at all; (E) is outside the scope.
10. (E) Inference
Ordinarily, you should move straight to evaluating the
choices in an Inference question; but if a prediction
jumps out at you, feel free to scan for it.
Advertisers have found that people will develop more
positive attitudes about things when they’re pictorially
linked to things those people already have positive
feelings about. This question lends itself very well to
prediction. Since it’s an advertiser’s job to engender
positive feelings in his market, what’s he likely to do?
That’s right—create pictorial links to things people
have positive feelings about. That’s (E).
Section 3: Logical Reasoning
(A) The stimulus didn’t tell us anything negative about
prose, only that it worked better when there were also
pictorial links. Eliminate.
(B) Distortion—it’s the associations we need to create
pictorially; it’s the advertisers’ methods, not their
products, which are at issue.
(C) Both television and magazines can include visual
images, so this is an irrelevant distinction.
(D) Nothing in the stimulus leads us to believe there’s
a benefit in negative associations or contrast.
11. (E) Assumption
An Assumption is something that MUST be true in
order for the argument to hold water.
The author’s conclusion is that mercury levels in
saltwater fish are higher now than they were 100 years
ago. How does he know? His evidence is that the
mercury in a seabird’s feathers comes from the fish he
eats, and that live birds have more mercury in their
feathers than seabirds stuffed in the 1880s. You can
predict the assumption generally as “nothing has
happened to diminish the mercury in the stuffed birds’
wings”. A slightly more specific version of that
prediction is (E).
(A) Might be tempting at a glance, and the hasty may
be penalized here; it is a weakener, not an assumption.
(B) Maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t, but either way,
it doesn’t affect the link between the mercury content
in the birds’ feathers and the conclusion that fish have
a higher mercury content today.
(C) Just like (B), this may or may not be true, but it has
no bearing on the link between the evidence and the
conclusion.
(D) would be more appropriate as the answer to a
weakening question; both it and (A) provide alternative
explanations for the lower mercury levels in the stuffed
birds’ feathers.
12. (D) Main Point
Don’t make a question harder than it is; if there’s one
thing you know how to do by now, it’s break an
argument into its component parts.
Find the conclusion, find the choice that matches, and
move on to spend your time on questions that require
a greater investment. “it is more likely that” provides a
nice flag, and the conclusion follows: it is more likely
that the similarities are coincidental. More likely than
what? Than that one plagiarized the other. (D) is a
perfect match—and if you kept your attention tightly
focused on the conclusion, the wrong answer choices
will be far less tempting.
(A), (B), and (C) are mentioned in the stimulus, but
not as the conclusion. If you’ve identified the
conclusion up front and stay focused on it, you should
be able to eliminate these choices quickly.
(E) summarizes the whole argument, but just doesn’t
answer the question you were asked. This question
provides a great illustration of the power of reading the
question stem, understanding what the question is
asking of you, and then focusing in on that issue.
13. (B) Strengthen the Argument
The correct answer to a Strengthen question need not
prove the argument, only make the conclusion a little
more likely to follow from the evidence.
The therapist tells us that cognitive psychotherapy is
likely to be more effective than forms that focus on the
unconscious. Why? Because only conscious beliefs are
under the patient’s direct conscious control. Identifying
the assumption will provide us a loose prediction for
our strengthener: the therapist assumes that it’s more
effective to work with those beliefs that are under a
patient’s direct conscious control. The argument would
be strengthened if we could confirm that assumption—
and that’s exactly what (B) supplies. The stimulus may
be intimidating in terminology and in that most of it is
one long sentence; that’s all the more reason to stay
focused on the components and resist the temptation
to get sucked into the technical aspects.
(A) is a weakener—if changing unconscious beliefs is
the key to solving at least some psychological
problems, then the assumption that working with
conscious beliefs is more effective is undermined.
(C) is outside the scope; the stimulus only compares
cognitive psychotherapy to forms of psychotherapy that
focus on changing unconscious beliefs and desires.
(D) blurs the issues: the stimulus concerns itself with
comparing a type of psychotherapy that focuses on
conscious beliefs/desires (cognitive) with others that
focus on unconscious beliefs/desires. We aren’t told
about any hybrids
(E) looks good going in, but takes a twist at the end in
“cannot be controlled effectively without the aid of
psychotherapy”. Since we’re comparing two types of
psychotherapy, the second clause takes this choice
outside the scope.
29
Test 4 Explained
14. (C) Principle
Always know what you’re looking for before you
attack the answer choices.
There’s a lot of talk about open-source software and
how it works in the first two thirds of the stimulus, but
the “reasoning” referenced in the question stem all
takes place in the last sentence—be careful not to get
tripped up in the details. Open-source software better
matches the values of scholarship; scholarship is
essential to universities; therefore, universities should
only use open-source software. Why? Attack this just
like an assumption question...the conclusion is that
universities should only use open-source software, and
the evidence is that open-source software better
reflects the values of scholarship, which is important
to universities. Like an assumption, the correct answer
will tie the “reflects the values of...” to “should only
use”.(C) does that.
(A) directly contradicts the author’s conclusion—he
wants universities to use the software that reflects the
values of scholarship, not necessarily the most
advanced or efficacious.
(B) also contradicts the author’s asser tion that
universities should use only open-source software. This
one is a bit sneakier, though, since the first half of the
stimulus does indicate that open-source software
doesn’t require a fee to customize (as proprietary
software does). Open-source apparently is less
expensive, but the author’s preference isn’t based on
cost.
(D) is a trap for the careless reader—the first four lines
appear dead-on, but then a twist at the very end: who
said anything about efficient?
(E) is outside the scope; the author talks only about
reflecting the values of scholarship; there’s no
indication that proprietary software might somehow
“block the achievement of the goals of academic
scholarship”.
15. (C) Weaken the Argument
Every LSAT question has one correct answer and four
terrible ones.
Pay no attention to the phrase “most seriously” in a
Weaken stem; one answer choice will weaken the
argument and the other four will not—it’s not a
balancing test. Begin by breaking down the argument.
We learn that psychological treatment lasting more
than 6 months is more effective than shorter-term
treatment. This conclusion is based on a survey
30
reporting that 20% of people who received treatment
for 6 months or less said it “made things a lot better”,
compared with 36% of those who received longer
treatment. In essence, more of those who stayed in
treatment longer said it worked. To weaken the idea
that those numbers mean longer-term therapy works
better, all we need is another reason that the 6-monthplus group reported better results. (C) gives us just
that—it isn’t that longer-term therapy works better, but
that people more often opt for longer-term therapy if
they feel it is working.
(A) “Made things worse” is outside the scope; we’re
looking for an alternative reason for the greater number
of positive responses among the 6-month-plus group.
(B) A variation on the old numbers/percentages scope
shift—since the data was reported as a percentage of
each group, the raw numbers don’t matter. Eliminate.
(D) An irrelevant comparison; presumably this would
be true across both groups, and so wouldn’t explain
why one group rated the treatment more successful
than the other group. Eliminate.
(E) We’re interested in the reason for the discrepancy
in positive ratings, not a reason for people to remain in
treatment longer. If anything, (E) strengthens the
argument, since the recommendation might show,
more effective to undergo longer-term treatment.
16. (B) Inference
Inference questions that ask for the logical
conclusion to the argument are good targets for
prediction.
The language gets a little tough here; just take it piece
by piece. Nations aren’t persons. Thus, they don’t have
moral rights and responsibilities. BUT, for a nation to
survive, its citizens have to think it does. All that
means that if citizens recognize that a nation has no
moral rights and responsibilities, it won’t survive; or, if
it’s going to sur vive, citizens have to think
(erroneously) that it does have some moral rights and
responsibilities. That’s (B).
(A) Introduces a new element; the answer choice that
“logically completes” the argument will be based on
the evidence provided in the argument. Eliminate.
(C) Draws a conclusion from one statement within the
argument; we’re specifically asked here for the logical
conclusion to the argument itself. Eliminate.
(D) Outside the scope; the argument isn’t about value
judgments.
Section 3: Logical Reasoning
(E) The “always” in this answer choice is too Extreme—
it also takes us beyond the scope of the argument,
which is about one particular belief.
17. (B) Assumption
The difference between the language of the evidence
and the language of the conclusion reveals the gap the
Assumption must fill.
As always, begin by breaking the argument into evidence
and conclusion. In this case, the conclusion is in the
first sentence: to maintain a healthy back, it’s important
to exercise the muscles on opposite sides of the spine
equally. The evidence is that balanced muscle
development is necessary to maintain a healthy back.
The last four lines of the stimulus tell us why that’s true,
but we already have the core of the argument here and
don’t want to be distracted by those details.
It might seem clear from a common sense perspective
that exercising both sides equally is important to
balanced development, but that’s one of the traps in
some assumption questions: we’re prone to make the
assumption right along with the author. What we are
actually told about the connection between equal
exercise and balanced development is, well, nothing.
The author assumes a connection—and that assumed
connection is set forth in (B).
(A) is wrong all over. The author says balanced
development is necessary, not sufficient, and the
answer choice goes beyond the scope of the argument.
Although (C) focuses on exercise rather than muscle
development, it’s wrong for all the same reasons as (A).
(D) is too extreme; the words “irreparably damaged”
should have sent up a big red flag.
(E) “Daily” comes out of nowhere; it’s outside the
scope.
18. (B) Flaw
Always be on the lookout for classic flaws.
The author concludes that it’s likely to be widely
accepted that it’s sometimes morally right to obstruct
the police. That’s a surprising conclusion, and as we’d
expect in a Flaw question, the evidence supporting it is
tenuous: it’s widely accepted that we have a duty to
protect our families from harm, and so most would
agree that parents would be right to hide a child falsely
accused of a crime. In three short sentences we’ve
moved from “obligation to protect family” to “morally
right to obstruct police”. But the stimulus makes no
mention of other moral obligations that might come into
play; for example, there might be a moral obligation to
obey the law, or to work within the legal system to
resolve false accusations. (B) points out this oversight.
(A) The author hasn’t really drawn a “broad
generalization” in his conclusion; he said “sometimes”,
and that could mean only under ver y narrow
circumstances.
(C) Justice is outside the scope, unless we’re assuming
it’s synonymous with “morally right,” and we have no
basis in the stimulus for that assumption. In any case,
this is the direct opposite of the idea the author is
advancing.
(D) is too Extreme. The author qualified his conclusion
with “sometimes”, and limited it to cases of false
accusation. He might recognize a moral obligation to
obey the law, and simply be balancing moral obligations
and finding the duty to protect family more powerful.
(E) The evidence we’re presented says “if the person is
known...to be falsely accused”. Don’t argue with that;
our analysis is of the validity of the conclusion must be
based on the evidence we’re presented.
19. (A) Strengthen the Argument
Never lose sight of the tight connection between
Strengthen questions and Assumptions—identify the
Assumption and most of your work is done.
The conclusion is neatly identified for us by “Thus” in the
last sentence: governmental intrusion into our lives isn’t
likely to decline substantially in a democracy. Why not?
Because we elect people who promise to solve
problems, and those solutions require intrusion (at least
in the form of taxes). As always, there’s a gap to be
bridged, but this time it takes place within the evidence
itself. One piece of the evidence talks about promises to
solve problems, the other about the solutions
themselves. Our author sees continued intrusion as
inevitable because that’s what it will take for the
politicians we elect to keep their promises...but we have
no evidence that they will keep their promises. That’s
the author’s assumption, and (A) points it out.
(B) Weakens the argument by breaking the link between
the promises and the “inevitable” intrusion.
(C) is outside the scope; our concern is about whether
or not politicians will follow through on their promises,
thus necessitating the intrusion of taxes.
(D) is an irrelevant comparison; we’re interested only in
democracies.
(E) Whether politicians believe in their promises is
outside the scope; we’re only concerned with action.
31
Test 4 Explained
20. (C) Parallel Flaw
Parallel Flaw questions are both manageable and
vulnerable to a methodical approach so long as you
don’t get tangled up in the facts and lose sight of the
structure.
The argument in the stimulus concludes that “we”
should take a certain action (accept the proposal to
demolish the train station) because people with
questionable motives say otherwise. The most efficient
means of attacking this one is to recognize the flaw: a
position isn’t necessarily wrong just because it’s
endorsed by people whose motives you question. That’s
a match for (C), If piece by piece analysis is required:
(A) “Nevertheless” lets us know this author wants to act
in spite of possible opposition, not because of it.
Eliminate.
(B) No “other side” is presented at all in this choice.
Eliminate.
(D) Proposes conceding to the people who object, not
acting because of their opposition. Eliminate.
(E) Just like in (B), there’s no outside voice in play here.
Eliminate.
21. (B) Weaken the Argument
Just like Strengthen questions, Weaken questions are
tied tightly to Assumptions, so begin just as you would
in an Assumption question.
The author concludes that the consumption of meat will
soon be morally unacceptable. She bases this
conclusion on the facts that we use up 16 pounds of
grain to produce one pound of meat, and that grain could
feed a lot more people; moreover, the population is
growing and grain production is leveling off. In essence,
there’s going to be less grain to go around, and it can
feed more people as grain than as meat.
The author’s ruling against meat relies entirely on the
investment of grain, and that’s where we’ll find the gap
in her argument: she assumes that meat can’t be
produced without that investment of grain. If we can
show that it is possible to produce meat without using up
grain people could be eating, it will weaken the
argument—and that’s what (B) does.
(A) is outside the scope; our author is concerned with
morality, not preference. Eliminate.
(C) is a 180: it strengthens the argument by eliminating
a possible argument in favor of meat eating. Eliminate.
(D) The author introduces a number of factors impacting
the viability of investing grain in meat: yields leveling off,
32
farmland going out of production, and population growth.
(D) addresses only one aspect of one of those factors,
and not the investment of grain that meat requires.
(E) Outside the scope, and the word “solely” is the tipoff: the author never suggested eating only grain; she’s
concerned with eliminating meat consumption. There are
many food sources that don’t fall into either category.
22. (C) Inference (Formal Logic)
When confronted with a Formal Logic question,
translate and combine the statements sentence by
sentence.
The first three sentences are pretty straightforward, if
you break them down one at a time:
If the cost of coffee beans continues to increase, the
Coffee Shoppe will have to raise prices. (If CB up → P up)
If the Coffee Shoppe has to raise prices, either it will add
non-coffee products or coffee sales will decline. (If P up
→ NC or CS down)
If it adds non-coffee products, profitability will decrease.
(If NC → Pr down)
The last sentence takes a bit more work, but the
investment is worth the payoff:
The Coffee Shoppe can avoid a decrease in profitability
only if coffee sales do not decrease.
That means: profitability will not decrease only if coffee
sales do not decrease. Translate “only if” into “then,”
and we get, “if profitability does not decrease, then no
coffee sales will not decrease.” (If Pr not down → CS not
down)
The contrapositive of this last statement (If CS down →
Pr down): if coffee sales decrease, then profitability will
decrease too.
Combine all these statements, and it looks like the
Coffee Shoppe is in trouble; if the price of coffee beans
keeps going up, it will have to either add non-coffee
products or increase the price of coffee, and either way,
its overall profitability will drop. That’s (C). Let’s test this
against the choices:
(A) is a classic reversal. We know that if coffee bean
prices continue to increase, profitability will decline, but
the reverse is not necessarily true. Eliminate.
(B) Likewise, we know that certain events will trigger a
decline in profitability, but nothing here precludes other
causes.
(D) is all right except that it says “decrease” where it
should say “increase.” This is a trap for the careless
reader.
Section 3: Logical Reasoning
(E) Coffee sales increasing isn’t referenced at all in the
stimulus, nor is it the necessary result of anything we’re
given.
23. (D) Flaw
The same flaw can be accurately described in a number
of different ways; be prepared to be flexible in the
phrasing of your prediction.
The argument is brief and to-the-point. The author
concludes that promises made in candidate speeches
are selfishly motivated and unreliable. His evidence is
that they’re motivated by the desire to get elected. That
explains “selfishly motivated,” but “unreliable” is an
entirely new element introduced in the conclusion. The
author apparently assumes that any promise made for
personal gain is unreliable. There are a number of
different ways that could be presented as a flaw. For
instance, “the author assumes without justification that
promises made for personal gain are inherently
unreliable.” In this case, (D) is phrased in “overlooks the
fact” terms, but the core meaning is the same as our
prediction.
(A) Another trap for the skimmer—this answer is a
perfect match for our prediction, except that it says
“reliable” where it should say “unreliable”.
(B) Is too extreme: “unreliable” doesn’t necessarily
mean “never kept”.
(C) Cause and effect plays no role in this argument;
don’t be fooled by the fact that an answer choice
restates a familiar flaw. Stay focused on your prediction.
(E) Whether a candidate is “worthy of office” is outside
the scope; this argument is concerned only with the
reliability of promises made in campaign speeches.
24. (E) Principle (Strengthen)
A Principle that “helps to justify the argument” is a
Strengthener phrased in general terms.
The phrasing is a little tricky here, but a moment’s
investment to untangle the double negatives and
sentence structure will set it right. The sociologist
concludes that those who think people aren’t born evil
but can be made evil by institutions are wrong. His
evidence is that institutions are just collections of
people. Thus he seems to assume that the collective
cannot form the individual person—that is, that the
institutions must be shaped by the people in them, and
not vice versa. In this case, as in many Principle
questions, the principle and the assumption are one and
the same, and as in Strengthen questions, providing
evidence for that assumption is enough to strengthen the
argument. (E) provides evidence for the “rule” the
sociologist relies on without stating directly: the
collective doesn’t determine the characteristics of the
members.
(A) is an irrelevant comparison; the question at hand is
the ability of institutions to make people evil.
(B) is undoubtedly true, but what does it have to do with
the question as to whether institutions can make people
evil? Or the more general issue about the collective
impacting the individual? (B) is far too general.
(C)’s optimism and (D)’s societal values are both
outside the scope of the argument.
25. (A) Flaw
Necessity vs. sufficiency is one of the most common
flaws on the LSAT.
Just like in Reading Comprehension, when an author
starts out by saying, ‘some other people think X,’ you can
be sure he’s going to disagree with X. This author
doesn’t break the pattern. The anthropologists claim that
humans couldn’t have survived without evolving the
ability to cope with different environments, and the
author attacks them for it. His reasoning is that another
species that also had that ability to adapt died out.
There’s a classic flaw (necessity v. sufficiency)
screaming to be recognized here. The anthropologists
never claimed that any species that could adapt to
diverse environments was guaranteed survival, only that
adaptation was one essential factor in prehistoric
humans’ survival. (A) points out that mistake.
(B) Starts out looking good, but takes a twist. The
argument doesn’t take for granted that a related extinct
species shared the characteristic; it presents that fact as
evidence.
(C) “Exactly the same conditions” is far too exteme,
especially since we’re talking about “diverse natural
environments.”
(D) is probably tempting, since it explains the
discrepancy the author is hung up on. But the argument
isn’t really about Australopithecus afarensis at all, but
about whether its extinction proves that adaptability to
diverse natural environments was unnecessary to the
survival of early humans. (D) misses that point.
(E) We don’t have the same result occurring in two
cases; one species survived while the other became
extinct.
33
Test 4 Explained
SECTION IV
READING COMPREHENSION
Passage One: “Poetry and Fiction”
Paragraph 1 jumps right into the Topic—the division
between poetry and fiction in the U.S. The Scope and
Purpose won’t become clear until later in this
Humanities passage, but the first paragraph does
narrow the topic for us a bit by focusing in on writers
and how they’ve perpetuated the division between
fiction and poetry.
Paragraph 2 suggests a possible reason for the
division: U.S. culture doesn’t think much of
generalists. We also get a good taste for the author’s
perspective in the last sentence, “...as if ability in one
field is diluted or compromised by accomplishment in
another.” That should clue you in that the author thinks
ability is not diminished by involvement in multiple
fields, and starts to suggest the Scope of the passage.
Paragraph 3 starts with another strong indication of the
author’s view, the Keyword “Fortunately.” Our author
thinks it’s a good thing that the boundaries are starting
to break down. The rest of the paragraph (and, indeed,
the rest of the passage) is devoted to the example of
Rita Dove, an author whose work blends elements
traditionally associated with poetr y and those
traditionally associated with fiction. Here, the Scope
and Purpose finally come into sharp relief. The Scope,
or aspect of the poetry/fiction rift our author is most
concerned with, is the move toward the breakdown of
the barrier between the two, as represented by Rita
Dove. The author’s Purpose is simply to illustrate the
trend toward breaking down the poetry/fiction divide
that Rita Dove exemplifies. The author’s attitude
seems to suggest that he advocates for further
breakdown of the barrier, but the rest of the passage
doesn’t quite go that far. Rather than advocating
anything, the last paragraph simply explains how Dove
bridges the gap between poetry and fiction in her work.
Roadmap:
¶ 1: Rift b/t poetry and fiction; supported by
poets & fiction writers
¶ 2: Why? U.S. suspicion of generalists
¶ 3: Fortunately (author) breaking down; Rita
Dove ex.
¶ 4: How Dove blends genres/bridges gap
34
1. (E) Global (Main Point)
Use your Roadmap to predict the answer to a Main
Point question up front—never jump into the answer
choices blind.
Reviewing T/S/P and our Roadmap, what’s the primary
thing the author wants us to know? The rift between
fiction and poetry is diminishing, as Rita Dove’s work
illustrates. That’s a match for (E), and for the neutral
illustration that finishes the passage.
(A) is a distortion: The author makes no claim that the
blending of elements is the reason Dove’s work has
been well received.
(B) The particular elements of Dove’s writing are just
details. A list of subsidiary details will never be correct
when a question asks you for the main point of the
entire passage.
(C) Lyrical use of language in narrative fiction is just
one illustration of the crossover between genres, not a
main point.
(D) is too narrow—there’s no mention of the
poetry/fiction rift that forms the foundation for the
passage.
2. (D) Logic (Parallel Reasoning)
When asked to draw a parallel, generalize the
references piece of the passage before examining the
answer choices.
The first thing we need to do is go back to the passage
and get a nutshell version of what the author says
about Dove’s literary achievements. Our Roadmap tells
us that’s probably in Paragraph 4. There, the author
tells us that Dove uses techniques typically associated
with poetry in her narrative fiction and vice versa. Our
correct answer, then, will be about crossing genres,
drawing elements from two different ones. That most
closely matches (D), in which a choreographer
combines elements of two very different types of
dance.
(A) The combination element might be tempting, but
this ultimately distorts the author’s point—Dove’s
writing doesn’t combine ‘traditional and nontraditional’
methods.
(B) “Theoretical knowledge” is outside the scope of
the passage.
(C) There’s no true blending here; instead, one
medium is consciously used to promote another.
(E) There aren’t two genres here, either; guitar solos
aren’t exactly a depar ture from rock. (E) also
Section 4: Reading Comprehension
introduces the element of work that’s not original,
something that doesn’t come into play at all in the
passage.
3. (A) Detail
“According to the passage” is your cue to research
the relevant text—don’t operate from memory.
The author talked about widely held views in the U.S.in
both of the first two paragraphs. There are only two
possibilities: from the first paragraph, that poetry
should be lyrical and elliptical while fiction is rooted in
character and narrative; from the second paragraph,
we’re suspicious of generalists. Scan the answer
choices for either of those things. (A) is a match for
the last sentence of the first paragraph.
(B) Distortion—the author discusses the differences
between the genres, but he never makes a value
comparison
(C) Another distortion; the first paragraph says they
tend to be operated independently, but says nothing
about the balance.
(D) “Most aesthetically effective” is too strong; the
author does speak favorably of the outcome when
fiction—at least, Dove’s fiction—incorporates lyrical
elements, but makes no comparison.
(E) Distortion—it’s U.S. culture the author says is
suspicious of generalists; this is a trap for test takers
who skim the answer choices or who try to rely on
memory to answer detail questions.
4. (E) Inference (Author’s Attitude)
Zero in on the piece of the passage where the author
revealed himself.
We could probably answer this question based on just
one word of author opinion—that “fortunately” where
he talks about the turning tide. From that, we can tell
that the author’s not a fan, and he’s glad to see it
changing. We only get author opinion in two other
places, and in the final paragraph it’s about the appeal
of Dove’s work, which won’t help us answer this
question. But in paragraph 2 he let us know that he
thought the U.S. culture’s suspicion of generalists—
which he believes feeds the rift—was unfounded.
That’s one of those “attitudes and presuppositions
underlying the rift” that pop up in (E).
(A) The author isn’t perplexed about what caused the
rift; he tells us in the second paragraph.
(B) “Astonishment” is a strong word, and we have no
reason to believe that the author thinks academics are
unaware.
(C) There’s no sign of ambivalence; the author makes
his position on the division crystal clear.
(D) The final sentence of the passage announces that
one writer, at least, bridges the gap.
5. (D) Detail
Use your Roadmap to help you find the answer to
Detail questions.
Conveniently enough, we have a paragraph that we
labelled “Why?”, so we know right where to find the
author’s view of the cause. Paragraph 2 tells us that
the author believes our skepticism about generalists is
behind the division, and we find that in (D).
(A) Beware of answer choices that sound true, but
don’t come from the passage. Our author never makes
this claim, so it’s outside the scope of the passage.
(B) The author does tell us that the programs for
poetry and fiction are usually segregated, but he
doesn’t say (or imply) that it’s the cause of the rift. In
addition, “other literary fields” is outside the scope—
this is just about fiction and poetry.
(C) Entirely out of left field: the author doesn’t blame
publishers, doesn’t mention pressure, and “best”
doesn’t come into play at all.
(E) Maybe it is—or maybe that’s the perception—but
our author doesn’t advance that view.
6. (B) Logic (Function)
Context is everything in determining the purpose of a
particular line, detail, or example.
In order to understand the author’s purpose in
mentioning a par ticular experience, we have to
understand the purpose of the passage as a whole and
of the paragraph in which the reference occurs. This
particular experience is mentioned in the midst of the
longer example of Dove, and comes on the heels of a
description of how she couldn’t understand the
aversion to blending genres. The Germany reference
simply builds on that, providing some background and
context for her different perspective on crossing genre
lines. That’s (B).
(A) The author specifically references U.S. attitudes,
but there’s no indication that this perspective is
common to English speaking societies; in any case, the
35
Test 4 Explained
focus of the paragraph in which this detail falls is on
the shift away from the clear division.
(C) Again, the paragraph is about the shift away from a
hard poetry/fiction dividing line; it’s not about Dove’s
skills in general.
(D) The focus isn’t on Dove (or human interest), but on
the trend away from clear fiction/poetry boundaries.
(E) We have no indication in the passage that Dove
believes this to be the origin; she references growing
up reading both genres.
7. (A) Inference
When an Inference question is wide open, with no
direction in the question stem, work from the answer
choices.
You should be able to predict an answer for most
Reading Comprehension questions, even Inference
questions. But when an Inference stem doesn’t give
you any clues to help you research the passage, that
doesn’t mean you need to work from memory or guess
at the correct answer. Use the Hot Words or other
clues in the answer choices to guide your research, like
so:
(A) Correct—in paragraph 4, the author refers to each
of the works he mentions as either poetry or fiction,
even while describing how it incorporates elements of
the other. For the record:
(B) is a distortion. The author talks about these
elements in paragraph 4, but he’s focused on the value
of the blend, not comparing one to the other.
(C) is too extreme. “Without precedent” is a tip-off;
such strong language is rarely warranted in an
Inference question. Here, the passage itself says
nothing so categorical; although he doesn’t specifically
reference another writer who blends elements of the
two genres, he indicates that the division overall is
breaking down.
(D) is a comparison that’s outside the scope; the
author doesn’t set up any “better than” relationships
among the various types of writing and hybrids he
discusses.
(E) It seems reasonable that they might, but beware
that kind of thinking! The only place the author talked
about other forms like drama was in the reference to
Dove’s experience in Germany, and that isn’t tied in
specifically to the writers who successfully cross the
fiction/poetr y boundar y—it’s just an example of
boundary crossing.
36
8. (A) Inference
Don’t let unfamiliar formatting in a question stem
throw you off; stay focused on the familiar.
The format of the question is a bit unusual, but take a
moment to understand what it’s really asking: What
would the author be likely to say about the future of
U.S. literature? That’s just a standard Inference
question, and one we can answer pretty quickly using
our Roadmap. The author says it’s “fortunate” that the
division is deteriorating; he says Dove is “one
example” of writers bridging the gap. What does he
expect from the future? Apparently, a continuation of
that trend. That’s (A).
(B) Markets are outside the scope.
(C) goes too far; the author doesn’t talk about the
specifics of the relationship between the two or about
one or the other as primary—we only know that he
thinks the boundaries are coming down.
(D) Contradicts the passage—that’s the trend the
author says we’re finally breaking free of.
(E) Extreme and outside the scope; the focus
throughout the passage is on the writers, not the
audience.
Section 4: Reading Comprehension
Passage Two: “Scientific Research on
Music”
In a comparative passage, our work with the passages
is somewhat abbreviated—there’s less text in each
passage, so less to cull through to discern the key
points. There’s also an added element, though: after
determining Purpose and Main Idea for each passage,
we have to understand the relationship between the
two passages, and understand it explicitly. This
passage has six questions and every one of them
focuses in some way on the relationship between the
passages. That understanding will be critical. We’re
told up front that both passages relate to research on
music.
Passage A begins with a question that reveals the
Scope of the passage for us: the question as to
whether music and language developed together. The
paragraph structure is straightforward: Question in
paragraph 1; data indicating the similarities (and one
discrepancy) in paragraph 2; conclusion in paragraph 3
that it is likely that music and language evolved
together, but that language is the primary driver of
natural selection.
Purpose: To set for th evidence that music and
language likely developed in tandem.
Main Idea: Given the common neurological basis for
music and language, it seems likely that they
developed together as brain size increased, but music
developed “on the coattails of language.”
Passage B starts out with a quote and isn’t quite so
clear, but we get a strong statement of the author’s
belief before the end of paragraph 1: music has
evolutionary benefits in the bonding of mothers and
infants. The second paragraph is devoted to evidence
of that use, and paragraph 3 to the possible
evolutionary benefits.
Purpose: To argue that the ability to produce music has
evolutionary benefits related to emotional bonding
between mother and child.
Main Idea: Music is likely a bonding mechanism that
has conferred evolutionary advantage.
Remember that our work isn’t done—define the
relationship between the passages before moving on!
The author of passage A believes that music developed
in tandem with language, but regards music as almost
an unnecessary side effect of language with no
evolutionary benefit. The author of passage B believes
that music represents a useful ability that confers an
evolutionary benefit by solidifying the mother/infant
relationship. The authors thus differ on the major part
of their conclusion regarding the evolutionar y
significance and advantages of music ability in
humans.
Both passages have the same topic (music) and both
are concerned with the development of musical ability
in humans, but the data presented differs greatly:
Passage A focuses on neurological data, while the
author of Passage B concerns himself primarily with
human behavior.
9. (C) Global
In a comparative passage, the relationship between
the passages will often be key to answering Global
questions.
Although the question refers to both passages, it’s only
asking you to use the work you’ve already done, just
like every other Global question in the RC section.
We’ve already determined that the question both
passages are concerned with is how/why our musical
abilities developed. If you don’t let yourself get drawn
into analyzing the answer choices, it should be quick
work to scan and pick out (C).
(A) Too broad—we’re concerned specifically with the
development of music; there are presumably many
advantages of larger brain size outside the scope of
these passages.
(B) The bonding issue is only addressed in passage B,
so this can be quickly eliminated; if it required a closer
look, it could also be knocked out because the focus of
even passage B isn’t on why humans behave this way,
but on why we evolved musical abilities.
(D) This question is answered in Passage A (though
not passage B), but only in the interests of answering
the larger question posed in the first paragraph—it’s a
supporting detail, not the purpose.
(E) Again, this can automatically be eliminated
because it’s discussed only in one passage, but even
there it isn’t the focus of the passage.
10. (B) Detail
Relying on memory is even riskier than usual in
Comparative Reading, because there’s always the
chance of remembering familiar language but not
which passage it appeared in.
(A) Bonding between humans is mentioned only in
passage B. Eliminate.
37
Test 4 Explained
(B) Correct—and it’s easy to overlook. Passage A
doesn’t delve deeply into the emotional ramifications
of music as Passage B does, and it’s easy to gloss
right over the reference in the second sentence of the
first paragraph.
(C) Only passage A provides neurological data.
Eliminate.
(D) Only passage B, which addresses the bonding
value of music. Eliminate.
(E) Passage A only; Eliminate.
11. (D) Inference
To identify a likely point of disagreement, we need to
know what both authors think about the issue.
This question might lend itself well to prediction; the
authors have addressed the question of musical
abilities very differently, which means that the pool of
issues we’ve heard addressed by both of them are
fairly small. They disagree about the reason for the
development of musical ability: Author A sees it as a
tag-along to language which doesn’t serve much if any
purpose of its own, while Author B thinks it’s an
important evolutionary benefit. (D) paraphrases this
particularly well.
(A) We have no idea what the author of passage A
thinks about this. Eliminate.
(B) Passage B doesn’t tackle the neurological data at
all, so we can’t draw conclusions about what Author B
thinks about this. Eliminate.
(C) Passage B says directly that brain size evolved
rapidly; passage A says only that it evolved. That’s a
difference, but not a disagreement—we don’t know
that Author A thinks about the rate of increase.
Eliminate.
(E) Mother/infant bonding isn’t mentioned in Passage
A. Eliminate.
12. (C) Inference
The correct answer in a “likely to agree” question
must be inferrable from each passage independently;
lack of evidence of disagreement is not sufficient.
Like Q. 11, this question requires us to focus in on
something addressed by both authors. This time,
though, their positions will agree. Again, the area of
overlap between the two passages is small, so this
might be predictable, but it’s also easily vulnerable to
elimination. Let’s work through the choices:
(A) Author A doesn’t take a position. Eliminate.
38
(B) Author A doesn’t take a position. Eliminate.
(C) Correct. Although the authors interpret the role of
brain size increase differently, each points to a role
that development had in the evolution of musical
ability. For the record:
(D) Author B didn’t talk about neurological system at
all. Note that passage A doesn’t address exactly the
question asked here, either, but you shouldn’t waste
time making that fine distinction when the answer
choice can be readily eliminated based on the
complete lack of reference in passage B.
(E) Neither author addresses the “why” of this
discrepancy, though Author A does mention it.
Eliminate.
13. (E) Logic (Principle)
Use your LR skills to answer parallel question types in
RC.
We’re looking for a general idea that underlies both
passages. Principle questions are usually naturals for
prediction, but it might be a little tough in this case.
Still, we can rely on the fact that the principle must
underlie both passages: that is, anything that is
mentioned in only one of the passages is out, and the
principle will probably deal with the relationship
between the passages. Both passages come to
conclusions about the evolutionary significance of
music, and the likelihood that music conveyed
evolutionary advantages. We might predict something
like “modern traits can be explained on the basis of the
evolutionary advantages they might convey.” (E) is the
closest to that prediction, and has the additional
advantage of referring to modern-day humans, another
overlap between the passages.
(A) If this principle was embraced by our authors, how
would we know? Well, they’d be talking about nonhuman animals as part of their data. That’s not
happening, so we have no evidence that either believes
this. Eliminate.
(B) “All human capacities” should send up a red flag
right at the outset; this is close to the principle that is
ultimately correct, but is too extreme. Eliminate.
(C) Neurological facilities are addressed in passage 1
only. Eliminate.
(D) Again, passage 2 does not address the
neurological basis. Eliminate.
Section 4: Reading Comprehension
14. (A) Global (Relationship)
The relationship between the passages should be
clear in your mind before you ever attack a question.
Don’t re-invent what you’ve already done.
We noted up front that the data presented by the two
authors was very different in nature; their conclusions
differed as well. The key difference is their view of the
evolutionary significance of evolution; even though the
answer choices are general, knowing that they
fundamentally disagree on their main point eliminates
all but one of the choices. (A) sums up the relationship
neatly.
(B) Passage B actually sets out to answer a slightly
different question—the question as to whether music
has evolutionary benefit. Eliminate.
(C) Passage B doesn’t support passage A—it reaches
an entirely different conclusion. Eliminate.
(D) Both authors are clear and consistent in the
presentation of their cases; if anything, passage B is
more strongly worded, since Author A uses language
like “it would seem”. Eliminate.
(E) We’ve already determined that the conclusions
differ. Eliminate.
39
Test 4 Explained
Passage Three: “Intellectual Property on
the Web”
Beware of familiar topics! Intellectual property on the
Internet, the Topic of this Laww passage, is a hot topic
and nearly everyone has an opinion; remember to stay
focused on what’s presented in the passage, not your
own opinions.
Paragraph 1 sets forth the conflict: Some owners of
intellectual property rights feel stronger protection is
required, but web users fear this will limit the potential
of the Internet. We leave the first paragraph with a
strong sense of the Scope (the conflict over
strengthening copyright law: intellectual proper ty
owners want stronger copyright, and Web users worry
that stronger copyright will destroy the Web). The
author’s purpose doesn’t emerge right away, but we
can guess that he’ll probably take a side.
Paragraph 2 explains the root of the issue: Linking. He
also poses what he sees as the underlying question in
the debate over increased protection—is linking to
someone else’s web page copyright infringement at all?
Paragraph 3 provides a long analysis, by analogy, that
demonstrates the author’s view that linking to a web
page is not copyright infringement, ending with a strong
statement of author’s opinion: Changing copyright law
to further protect owners would impede development of
the web and is ill-advised. This is where we pick up the
author’s Purpose: to analyze the need for increased
copyright protection and advise against it.
Roadmap:
¶ 1: Conflict b/t interests of owners and web
users; tighten copyright law?
¶ 2: Problem: Linking—is it copyright
infringement?
¶ 3: Telephone analogy; not copyright
infringement; author’s view—d/n change law
15. (A) Global (Main Idea)
Don’t allow yourself to be distracted by details in
addressing a Global question.
The passage sets up a critical question in the debate
over the need for increased copyright protection: are an
owners rights even infringed by someone linking to his
web page? His answer is that they are not, and thus
there is no reason to increase protection. (A) sums
that up nicely.
40
(B) goes further than the passage does—there’s no
talk of amplifying free exchange, only the risks of
limiting, and the argument is confined to the
development of the web, not “a democracy”. The
author might agree to this “unless,” but it’s outside the
scope of the passage.
(C) is a Faulty Use of Detail. Don’t fall into this trap
because the passage mentioned specifically.
(D) is far too broad. The passage isn’t about resolution
of problems concerning intellectual property rights in
the electronic age generally, but about one specific
issue.
(E) The author does argue against changing the law,
but (E) has the focus in the wrong place, on balancing
interests rather than on whether or not there was
copyright infringement at all. This is a Distortion.
16. (A) Logic (Function)
The key to a Logic Function question is context.
Knowledge of the word itself won’t help; go back to
the text and determine how it’s used before tackling
the answer choices.
The referenced text says that unless copyright law is
“strengthened”, some owners will not be protected.
The immediate counterpoint is that web users don’t
want their access reduced. So “strengthened”, here,
means to create additional limitations on access.
That’s a match for (A).
(B) and (C) Worldwide restrictions are outside the
scope of the passage, as are penalties for copyright
infringement.
(D) and (E) Again, enforcement is not an issue, nor is
the legitimacy of current intellectual property law; the
passage focuses on the desire for additional
restrictions in the law, and the arguments against them.
17. (E) Inference
Use the information contained in the question stem to
guide your research.
The author told us a few things about documents
placed on the web in paragrah 3: they’re still controlled
by their owners (lines 41–42), linking to them isn’t
copyright infringement (42–44), and we restriictions on
access to them “would compromise the openness of
the Web,” as would copyright infringement litigation
(49–51). (E) is a match for the last point.
Section 4: Reading Comprehension
(A) The opposite of our author’s view—he explicitly
states that copyright laws should not be strengthened.
Eliminate this 180.
(B) is a fairly subtle Distortion: the passage says that
password protection would compromise the openness
of the Web “somewhat,” not that it would “significantly
dimishing the potential of the Web to be a widely used
form of communication.”
(C) Our author has provided a suggested means of
limiting access, so he can’t agree that limiting access
is impossible.
(D) contradicts the authors view.
18. (C) Logic (Parallel Reasoning)
Before attacking a question that asks you to draw a
parallel, go back to the passage and get a firm handle
on the original text.
The author sees tightening the laws as far more
damaging to the potential of the Internet than
password protection; password protection restricts
access and creates some limitations on free exchange
and development, but it’s better than changing the law
and creating even greater limitations. The correct
answer will deal with the relationship between a legal
and non-legal, self-help solution to unrestricted access.
The only choice that does so is (C)—prohibiting a sport
is a restrictive legal remedy, and relying on participants
to play safe is a self-help remedy that allows greater
access.
(A) only addresses the password issue (the self-help
remedy), not the relationship to strengthening current
copyright laws (the legal remedy). Eliminate.
(B) Might be tempting at first, since it’s two different
plans of attack on restricting the same activity, but
they’re both laws—in our original scenario it’s law
versus letting owners create their own protections.
(D) Where’s the self-help from our initial scenario?
Eliminate.
(E) Again, the restriction here is analogous to the
password protection option, but the law option is not
addressed by unrestricted access. Eliminate.
19. (B) Inference
An Inference is something that must be true based on
the information in the passage.
Where there’s no direction in the stem of an Inference
question, we have to work with the answer choices.
Don’t just start skimming the passage; we should use
material in the choices to guide us back to specific
parts of the passage that will tell us whether the
answer choice is supported by the passage or not.
Without further ado, let’s get to work:
(A) ”Creators of links to Web pages” and “owners of
intellectual property” are discussed as two different
groups in paragraph 3, but the passage gives no
reason why there couldn’t be people who are members
of both groups. Eliminate.
(B) Correct! The author’s analogy in ¶3 is aimed at
establishing that control remains in the hands of the
owner and linking is thus not copyright infringement,
which hinges on distribution. For the record:
(C) Privacy rights aren’t at issue; this is about
copyright infringement. Eliminate.
(D) Contradicts the author’s view, illustrated by his
analogy in paragraph 3. Eliminate.
(E) Totally outside the scope; the issue here isn’t
format but control.
20. (E) Detail
A long question stem means a lot of information to
direct your research—use it rather than being
intimidated by it!
The “outgoing messages left on telephone answer
machines” are discussed starting on line 31. Revisit
these lines to see where the author’s focus is: on the
owner being the one who makes the message available
to anyone who chooses to access it, which is reflected
in (E).
(A) The author doesn’t really care that both telephones
and Web pages are electronic means of
communication. Eliminate.
(B) Not only does the author not address legal
protections for phone messages, he states that no
unauthorized distribution takes place. Eliminate.
(C) The author’s reference to instantaneous
distribution is in paragraph 2, not related to the phone
message analogy. Eliminate.
(D) Recording isn’t at issue; the issue is access and
distribution. Eliminate.
21. (D) Logic (Function)
The author’s purpose for including a detail or example
can always be predicted from the context.
The author offers the telephone analogy as a means of
illustrating that no unauthorized distribution occurs
when one provides a link to an existing web page.
41
Test 4 Explained
That’s (D), although the answer is phrased in more
general terms.
(A) Remember the context—the whole passage is
about whether increased copyright protections are
required for web pages. The second medium is relevant
only as an analogy. Eliminate.
(B) The analogy is offered in support of the author’s
position, not the other side. Eliminate.
(C) The author uses the analogy more to illustrate that
there is no legal problem than to suggest that it’s an
old one. Eliminate.
(E) Quite the opposite is true—the author offers the
opinion that it wasn’t a problem with phones and it’s
not a problem now. Eliminate.
22. (D) Detail
Use the information in the question stem to direct
your search—research is a time saver when it’s done
efficiently.
Current copyright law is discussed primarily in the 2nd
paragraph, and the exact phrase appears only in line
20. That line gives us only one piece of direct
information—copyright holders can sue for
unauthorized distribution. That’s (D).
(A) distorts the author’s view: there are some new
issues with content on the web, but current law clearly
prohibits unauthorized distribution (the issue is what
that means).
(B) Contradicts the author’s view that the
owner/publisher controls access.
(C) is a trap for those prone to bringing in outside
knowledge—the profit issue is batted around a lot in
the debate over copyright issues, but it’s NOT
mentioned in this passage!
(E) The author advocates leaving copyright law as it is,
not loosening its restrictions further.
42
Section 4: Reading Comprehension
Passage Four: “History of Irish
Landscape”
The first paragraph of this Natural Science passage
introduces limitations on the traditional study of the
development of Ireland—the fact that accounts of the
landscape are scarce, and where they do exist, they
are incomplete. That provides our Topic—the historical
Irish landscape—but Scope and Purpose are still wide
open.
The second paragraph introduces a supplemental
source of information that will eventually become the
Scope of the passage—studies of fossilized pollen
grains, and what they can tell us about changes in
vegetation and thus the landscape. The paragraph
outlines how pollen grains can tell us about the
landscape, which will serve as a guide to the rest of
the passage.
Paragraphs 3 and 4 provide examples of how pollen
grain information has changed beliefs about some
aspects of historical land development. Don’t worry too
much about the details of these paragraphs—you can
come back to them if a question asks you to.
Finally, paragraph 5 notes that the pollen system isn’t
without its own limitations and gives an example. It’s
not until the end that we can be sure of the author’s
Purpose, which is largely informative: to explain the
impact of a new information source on our
understanding of the evolution of the Irish landscape.
The answers to Global questions must reflect this
neutral objective: the author doesn’t advocate a
particular viewpoint, he just informs us that studies of
pollen grains can be useful tools.
Roadmap:
¶ 1: Tracing changes in Irish landscape; limits
on using historical records
¶ 2: New source (fossilized pollen) supplements
¶ 3: Example of misunderstanding set right by
pollen data: cereal in C.D.
¶ 4: Example #2: flax
¶ 5: Limitations on pollen info (madder)
23. (A) Global (Main Point)
Predict Global questions explicitly, with a sentence—
relying on a general understanding of the passage is
not enough.
We’ve already broken down this passage, and it’s all
about the fact that fossilized pollen records can help
make more accurate determinations about the
landscape development. A strong prediction will note
both the strengths of pollen record analysis and the
limitations mentioned in ¶5. That’s a match for (A).
(B) is a Distortion—this takes in only the pollen
information in paragraphs 3 & 4 and adds too much of
the historical documents in paragraph 1.
(C) Identification of ancient plant species? We’re
interested in the development of the landscape.
(D) is a Faulty Use of Detail and is not even an
accurate description of some of the details it cites.
(E) “Severely limited” is too Extreme, and the tone of
(E) is all wrong: the author presents the pollen analysis
as a valuable additional tool, although it has some
limitations. Plus, ¶5 tells us that the species/genus
limitation only applies to some plants.
24. (B) Detail
Think through the clues the stem is offering you and
make use of them.
The question asks for a view pollen data has “provided
evidence against”. There are only 2 possibilities, one
in paragraph 3 and one in paragraph 4. Look them up.
Paragraph 3 refutes the view that soils weren’t
successfully tilled and cereals cultivated before the 7th
century, and paragraph 4 refutes the view that flax was
cultivated in Down before the 18th century. (B) is a
match for the paragraph 3 example.
(A) The moldboard plough is referenced in the same
paragraph and example, but isn’t part of what the
pollen evidence contradicted.
(C) The evidence presented relates to the period
predating the plough, not after.
(D) That’s a fact—the new information related to how
early people had figured out a way to till the rough soil.
(E) is a tempting 180, because this is the information
provided by the pollen fossils—but it’s not what we were
asked for. We were asked for the view the pollen fossil
evidence argued AGAINST, not what it argued FOR.
25. (D) Logic (Function)
Questions with line references require context. Don’t
limit yourself to just the line mentioned, but be willing
to delve into the rest of the passage as needed.
There are two references to the “documentary record”
cited in the question stem, but they both refer back to
an earlier part of the passage: the “fragmentary
record” provided by “documentary sources.” (line 4).
43
Test 4 Explained
This is the record that the fossil data is supplementing;
it’s the history that was recorded at the time, much of
it military and commercial. That’s (D). Usually your
research into context won’t take you to a completely
different part of the passage, but here, being willing to
look at more than just the cited lines pays off big for
the few test-takers who are ready to do it.
(A) and (B) The pollen evidence is supplementing the
documentary record, not comprising it.
(C) “Current historians” kills this one—the
documentary record was created during the relevant
time period, not reconstructed later.
(E) Again, “current historians” nixes this one; we’re
looking for records from the actual time and events.
26. (E) Detail
Use your previous work—we’ve seen the content of
this question before in another format, and that’s not
unusual.
Although the language is different, all we’re being
asked for is another idea that was debunked by the
pollen evidence. We found two when researching Q.
24: soils weren’t successfully tilled before the 7th
century, and flax was cultivated in the County Down
before the 18th century. The first was the answer to Q.
24, and the second is a match for (E) here.
(A) The seventeenth century is mentioned only in
connection with recordkeeping, in the first paragraph.
(B) Close, but it wasn’t “anywhere in Ireland”—just a
specific location where the soil was hard to till.
(C) Nope—our author says right from the outset that
they were “selective”.
(D) Madder is mentioned, but in the context of the
limitations of the pollen evidence (last paragraph)—we
don’t find conclusive information about it through the
fossils.
27. (C) Logic (Function)
Use your Roadmap in questions that refer to whole
paragraphs.
A simple look at the purpose of each paragraph in the
context of the overall purpose of the passage answers
this question. We can predict that the last paragraph,
which talks about the limitations of pollen fossil data,
is intended to qualify the second paragraph, which
introduces pollen fossil data as a valuable new
addition to the analysis of the development of the Irish
landscape. That’s (C).
44
(A) The last paragraph doesn’t support the idea set
forth in paragraph 2, but explains its limitations.
(B) “Problem” might be tempting, but this one isn’t
going to be solved; it’s simply a limitation on the
information that’s available through this method.
(D) is Outside the Scope—the author never argues
against the view that the pollen fossil is a valuable
addition to the record.
(E) No procedures in the last paragraph, just some
qualifications.
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