Hi George (and Mike).

Apologies…I’ve had a hectic week and hadn’t checked in lately. I think Mike’s advice is excellent (as always). I think practicing 5-section full-length exams (which I know from your email is something you weren’t going last year) is very useful, both for simulating exam conditions as closely as possible and also mental stamina. I’d be happy to work with you…Read More

Very wlcome. Keeping the structure of an argument but substituting in content that you’re familiar with is a good way of untangling difficult conditional statements or arguments, because it comes in with a built in check. For instance, if you’re combining or using an “only” statement and an “unless” statement, you might come up with “all managers at XYZ company have PhD’s,” which may or…Read More

Perhaps an example with subject matter that isn’t arbitrary will help. Let’s say I’m a teacher at a typical school where there’s no school on the weekends. It would be correct to say “I only work on weekdays.” But that doesn’t mean I work on EVERY weekday. I’m off on Christmas, even if it’s a Tuesday. If I’m working, you know it’s a weekday, but if it’s a weekday, you don’t know that…Read More

I don’t have a copy of Preptest 82 yet. In general, I would say that many S/W questions work by eliminating or providing an alternate explanation, which leads one to trust or distrust the passage’s conclusion more. The passages are often written as asserting one possible conclusion. For example:

My student got a 172 on the most recent LSAT. Therefore, I’m a great LSAT tutor.

I’ve…Read More

Hi, Emily (not Emily from Reddit, are you?). What you’re missing is that although it’s true they can’t both be on the JUNIOR varsity, nothing about the rule says that they can’t both be on varsity. Imagine this partial layout:

Varsity: Tim, Wilma.

Now consider the rule: “If Tim is selected for junior varsity, then…”

Well, Tim ISN’T selected for junior varsity; therefore, the rule…Read More

I think you’re reading “exclude” and considering “include” as pertaining to evidence in the passage, rather than “the possibility.” Think of “exclude” as synonymous with “rule out.”

The flaw in the passage is that the author has just jumped on one possibility, with tunnel vision. Is it possible that they’re motivated by snobbery? Sure. Are they’re other, legitimate possibilities?…Read More

Very precise explanation by Mike. I would only add that in your OP, you said, “…he wouldn’t not be responsible for the delay,” and you’re right; he’s NOT responsible for the delay – he’s responsible for seeing to it that if there IS a delay, they can still open on time.

One of the most important things is just a solid familiarity with the heavily tested flaws that show up again and again. For instance:

*Drawing a cause/effect conclusion from premises that only give you correlation.
*Mixing up a necessary and a sufficient condition.
*Part to whole and Whole to part fallacies.
*Assumption-based flaws.
*Conclusions based on biased samples.
Etc.

But more…Read More

When certain layouts are not possible (which is why certain things must be either true or false), broadly speaking, there are two possibilities – either something will have to be false because it explicitly violates a single rule, or possibly an obvious inference from a couple of rules combined; or, alternatively, an invalid layout will be invalid because of the interaction of multiple…Read More

Typically, on a CBT question, you want to find a layout where the answer choice is true; if you find one example, you’re gold. Sometimes, the rules will eliminate the other answer choices, the “MBF” (Must Be False, which I assume is what you mean by CNBT (can not be true?)). It’s usually the case, though, that the reasons that the MBF answers are wrong is somewhat hidden (except on…Read More

I think if you keyed your question here to a specific past PT question or two, I could address it more helpfully. Let me know if you have an example of one or two that fit.

When the author is the only voice, you have more of a “fails to consider” flaw. I don’t want to speak for Mike, particularly as different authors/teachers may categorize things differently, but I believe your instincts are correct that they’re two different things; the overvalued opinion is more what would be called the “appeal to authority,” and it’s basically the opposite of an ad…Read More

The shrinking habitat is a separate possible explanation for the dwindling numbers of amphibians, unrelated to the ozone layer. We can infer this from the passage, which notes that the loss of ozone is particularly bad for amphibians, because they don’t have hair, hide or feathers – it affects them directly, not through their habitats. Loss of habitat might be something like…Read More

Last add, but it’s an important distinction: Were not saying that there are other skills that Sean needs to be a successful financial analyst; we’re saying that the argument hasn’t ruled it out.

I got a bit long-winded, so I just want to emphasize that your understanding of taking the premises to be true is spot-on. The problem isn’t that any of the premises might not be true. The problem (as with every flaw question) is that EVEN IF THEY’RE TRUE, they don’t reliably get us to the conclusion. What we do on every flaw question is try to articulate why that is.

The argument is flawed because the premises don’t tell you that those are the only qualities of successful financial advisors. By way of analogy, consider:

“Most good surgeons have steady hands and are calm under pressure. Since Bob is calm under pressure and has steady hands, there is a good chance he could be a good surgeon.”

In terms of content, maybe the most obvious problem is…Read More

It seems you’ve overlooked that there are three coffees on stand 2, and three on stand 3 (“the other six will be…evenly split.”)

Additionally, there is a valid scenario where H is on stand 1.

One of the things I notice with my students who have trouble with assumption questions is that even though they can often articulate the difference between the question types, when it comes to attacking the questions, it’s clear that they’re conflating the significance of the two types of assumptions. It’s very similar to a common mistake made on logic games, so let me address that…Read More

I had the same problem you had, at first, until I noticed the circles in spots 3 and 9 (March and September) in the diagram. I think we can chalk this one up perhaps to a subtle ambiguity in the setup. We’re told that Sarah “will host five out-of-town friends…at her house over the course of seven months – the first ONE in March and the last one in September.

I’m pretty sure Mike…Read More