Section 3, #6, of the June 2007 LSAT is about a car dealer who donates cars to driver education programs “because she wanted to do something to encourage better driving in young drivers.” This is just about the biggest load of bullshit I have ever heard. Car dealers do things for one reason, and one reason only: TO SELL MORE CARS. As it turns out, huge shocker, “some members of the community have shown their support for this action by purchasing cars from Jablonski’s dealership.” What a bunch of suckers.

calworthington.com -- you have to see it to believe it

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Just ARGUE. That’s all you have to do.

The conclusion in Question #5, Section 3 of the June 2007 LSAT is “the ants were not bringing food to their neighbors.” The evidence is “the ants were emptying their own colony’s dumping site.” The problem with this logic is that it’s possible that the ants were feeding their garbage to their neighbors.

That’s nasty, but it’s possible. If it were true, the argument would make no sense. Since I’ve identified the huge hole in the argument, I’ve already answered the question–even though I haven’t seen what the question actually asks yet.

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My LSAT classes and private seminars are heavily question-driven. Students can ask whatever they want, and I do my best to answer. I’ve always gotten a ton of questions that range away from the LSAT and toward the broader law school application process. (After all, the only reason to take the LSAT is to go to law school.) So I realized early on that my job wasn’t just LSAT preparation. It’s also to help people make good decisions about where to apply, when to apply, what to include in the application, and what offers to accept.

To that end, I just added a new book to my class curriculum. It’s called The Law School Admission Game, written by Ann Levine, former Director of Admissions at two law schools. I blew through it over the past two days–it’s a great read–and I decided immediately to give it to all my students from this point forward. It fills a huge hole in what’s offered by most LSAT prep programs, and I’m proud to offer it as part of my classes. In this post, I’ll give my thoughts (overwhelmingly positive, with a couple quibbles) about the book. But if you’re applying to law school you really should just buy yourself a copy, which you can do here:

I promise you’ll be very happy you did.

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Yesterday, I discussed one specific type of Assumption question–the “Sufficient Assumption.” Today, I’ll switch gears and talk about Necessary Assumptions. Warning: I’m going to use math again. And once again, if you passed third grade you’re going to do just fine.

This nerd is happy because he pre-emptively wedgied himself before school.

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Question #4, Section 3 of the June 2007 LSAT mentions motivational posters, which made me think of the far-more-awesome de-motivational poster, so I figured I’d make a de-motivational poster for my LSAT students. I proudly present you with this:

Which dude would you rather be?

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Onward through Game Three of the June 2007 LSAT. Here’s our setup for this Game.

Question #12 says “Which one of the following CANNOT be true about Freedom‘s schedule of voyages?” So the question is telling us that the four incorrect answers could be true. The single, correct answer must be false.

There’s really no way to predict this one in advance, because I haven’t been given any new information to work with. Instead, I’m just going to tackle the answer choices and see which one seems like it would be a problem.
 

The best example of "problem" you can find when you're too cheap to pay for stock photography.

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Yesterday, I offered a definition of the word “assumption” using a very simplistic mathematical example. Today, I’m going to dig a bit deeper into the Assumption category by using another super-simple bit of math. Don’t panic! If you passed third grade, you’ve seen this math before.

If this kiss-ass can understand it, then so can you.

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Carolyn makes no conclusion, but she implies one. If it’s true that Marc Quinn has put DNA fragments behind glass and called it a “portrait” of Sir John, and if it’s also true that to be a portrait, something must bear a recognizable resemblance to its subject, then it’s a short leap to “DNA doesn’t look like Sir John, therefore Marc Quinn’s ‘portrait’ is not actually a portrait.”

Arnold disagrees. He calls the work a “maximally realistic portrait.” His rationale is that “it holds actual instructions” for creating Sir John.

Okay, so what have these two disagreed about? Make sure you make a prediction before looking at the answer choices. (By the way, we’re on Section 3, #3, of the  June 2007 LSAT.)

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I came up with this example today while working with a private tutoring student. Consider the following argument:

A equals two. B equals two. Therefore, A plus B equals four.

Sounds pretty good, right? Yeah, I think so too. But believe it or not, for LSAT purposes, something’s missing. That missing piece is called an assumption.

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In my last post I created a setup for the third Game in the  June 2007 LSAT. I didn’t make any huge brilliant inferences, but that’s okay… I don’t need to crush every game in order to finish four games in 35 minutes. I did crush Game 1, and I did well on Game 2. So if Game 3 ends up taking me a little longer, that’s okay. I have plenty of time in the bank.

Question 11 is a list question, which will enable me to check to make sure I understand all the rules properly. What I’m going to do here is test all the rules, in order, to eliminate answer choices. After testing all the rules, if I’ve done it correctly, I should be left with one and only one answer. If I am left with two answers, or if I eliminate all five answers, then that means I don’t understand something properly. So I’m going to use this question to my advantage, to doublecheck that I’m on the right track.

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