Section 3, Question 16 of the June 2007 LSAT contains an incomplete argument:

Philosopher:  Nations are not literally persons; they have no thoughts or feelings, and, literally speaking, they perform no actions. Thus they have no moral rights or responsibilities. But no nation can survive unless many of its citizens attribute such rights and responsibilities to it, for nothing else could prompt people to make the sacrifices national citizenship demands. Obviously, then, a nation _______.

It’s not an easy argument to swallow, so I’ll do my best to nibble at it piece by piece.  Continue reading ‘June 2007 LSAT, III, #16’ »

Onward through Section 3 of the June 2007 LSAT. Here, we’re presented with an incomplete argument. It basically says “people are more likely to change their mind about something they dislike if they are linked in advertisements with pictures, rather than just prose, to things about which they have positive attitudes.  Therefore, advertisers are likely to ________.”

The question says “Which one of the following most logically completes the argument.” So our task is to fill in the blank. Hmm. Let’s think for a second. What’s something people dislike? Well, some people dislike Obama. Others dislike Romney. So what would an advertiser do, if he was trying to change your mind? Fairly straightforward, according to the argument above. All you have to do is this:

Continue reading ‘June 2007 LSAT, III, #10’ »

Let’s continue through the June 2007 LSAT.  (It’s the only thing the LSAC is ever going to give you for free, so go ahead and print yourself a copy.)

Section 2, Question 8 is another “Complete the Argument” question, like Question 3 of the same section.  This argument makes more sense though.  (I wasn’t buying Question 3′s stupid analogy.)  If you haven’t already read the argument for Question 8, go ahead and do so now.  Don’t look at the answer choices until you’ve attempted to fill in the blank with your own words.  What do you think?

My first thought is that this sounds like the argument that an ANTI-electric car person would say.  It starts off by saying “proponents of the electric car maintain…”  There’s something snarky about that word “maintain,” isn’t there?  You get the sense that there’s a “but actually” coming right around the corner.  Like “my brother maintains that he has been applying for jobs every day for the past six months, but actually he is a lazy piece of…”

Continue reading ‘June 2007 LSAT, II, #8’ »

(Is this real, or something invented by the Onion?  Either way, I love that it’s called “Mänland.”)

Anyway, let’s continue our discussion of the June 2007 LSAT.  Go ahead and print yourself a copy of that test if you haven’t already.  It’s free!

My approach to Question 1 and Question 2 from this section was basically the same:  Above all, you must argue with the speaker.  If you’re having trouble making sense of something, that’s usually because the argument doesn’t make any sense in the first place.  Your job is to explain why.

This question is a little different.  It’s a relatively rare type of question–maybe it appears once per test.  Rather than containing a flawed or weak argument, it simply gives you the beginning of an argument and asks you to fill in the blank.  So rather than saying “this argument is bullshit because ____________,” like we usually do, we’re going to complete the argument in a way that is not bullshit.  So what do I mean by that?

Continue reading ‘June 2007 LSAT, II, #3’ »