[34iplaw]

Hey! New to forum… not sure if the best place to post this.

I scored fairly high on my cold diagnostic in the RC/LR sections, so I have a generally good idea of like “hey, that sounds dubious” or “hey, that sounds wrong.”  The book seems to help me put a name to some of these things.  I’ve currently read and done the drills through the end of section six.  I find myself being frustrated with the matching drills.  I noticed that my wording was fairly consistently off [especially the first LR drill with the forgot to consider // takes for granted] but always on the right flaw.  I saw the note earlier on that the exact phrasing [use of forgot to consider / takes for granted] seems like it can be somewhat interchangeable.  Is this an issue for the test?  I think this is why I struggled with the matching.

Also, would we likely see something like #12 from pg. 89 on the LSAT?  I found the issue, but it seems like it could be interpreted in different ways.  Would we be more likely to see some extra verbiage like slashed *most* salaries by 6%?

Overall, main issue: should I be really hung up over the difference between TFG / FTC?  They seem to be two sides of the same coin.  Example: pg. 77 in 2016 edition about monkeys and whales.  Aren’t TFG ability to compose music is representative of overall intelligence the same as saying FTC there could be other metrics that are more useful in determining overall intelligence?

[34iplaw]

Sorry – I saw that you addressed this issue somewhat in a post or two down!

It seems that they are two sides of the same coin.  I suppose the only other things I would still wonder is that : should I be getting hung up if my wording isn’t the same?  How about the matching drills?

Finally, I am still bit curious about the wording on #12 from pg. 89.  I feel like I’d be fine on the test given the context of the question, but are there many questions on the LSAT where they sort of leave out what could be critical wording?  Or, in general, should we assume that it isn’t all unless explicitly stated.

[Mike Kim]

Hi there — welcome to the forums and great q’s —

Here are some thoughts — I hope you find them helpful and if you have any follow up q’s let me know —

1) As you alluded to, there is a significant difference between understanding a flaw and coming up with a way to describe that flaw. All of the reasoning flaws that appear on the LSAT can be phrased in a variety of ways, and, the more the challenging the problem, the more likely it is that they will describe flaws using different wording than you might expect.

So, (a) it is important to know that there is a difference between understanding the flaw and understanding a way to describe it, (b) you want to work on being flexible in terms of describing flaws, and, as (c) an added benefit, being able to think about flaws from a variety of angles often allows you to see or understand flaws better than you might otherwise. All of this will be described in much greater depth as you get deeper into the book.

2) Yes you are right in thinking that fails to consider and takes for granted can be thought of as two sides of the same coin. There isn’t a right or wrong between the two.

3) In terms of the Problem #12 from page 90 — perhaps I’m missing something that you are seeing, but I don’t see that it is missing any critical wording. A word like “most” would certainly make the flaw a more obvious one, but harder problems have more subtle issues, and to me, this is an example of such a situation — without adding in additional assumptions, or wording such as “from each individual employee’s salary,” the premise, as given, doesn’t guarantee the conclusion.

“Yatoo corporation has slashed the amount it pays in salaries by 6 percent this year.” “Amount it pays in salaries” describes an overall amount, and we can’t make the assumption that this applies equally to each employee.

“Jan has slashed the amount she spends on groceries” — doesn’t mean we can assume she has cut the amount spends on each piece of grocery by an equal amount.

“Tom has slashed the amount of time he spends with his friends” — doesn’t mean we can assume he slashed the amount of time he spends with each friend equally.

I understand that wording issues can be subtle and open to interpretation, and again, perhaps I’m missing something, but those are my thoughts.

HTH and if you have any follow-up let me know –

MK

[34iplaw]

1] & 2] Understood & appreciated.  I was just getting a bit worked up trying to go through it.

3] Totally understood & appreciate the clarification.  From what you’ve said, it is a puzzle != piece type situation.  I didn’t interpret it as such, but I can totally see how what you’ve stated is the correct way to interpret it.  I just took salaries to be the plural of salary whereas salaries here is to mean payroll or something synonymous with that.

Thanks!  Just so I know, am I okay to post questions from the trainer here or do you prefer that I reference them as I did here?  I’m running under the assumption that I can’t post LSAC questions here and, if so, I should just reference them by like Practice Test ## Section ## Question ##

[Mike Kim]

Sure thing — you can post any snippet from the Trainer that you’d like, as long as, just as you guessed, it’s not an official q — in that case, as you said, you can just reference it – MK