Glad to be of assistance! There's certainly a difference between "this answer IS correct" and "this answer FEELS correct." I feel like too many instructors focus exclusively on the former, which means students are often derailed by the latter.

Right? Once you've seen that happen enough times, you can start recognizing when that strange one might be the correct one.

Thanks. @@lsat180minimalist

Glad you like them!

Quite frankly, you're not alone - this sort of thing is one of the few places where I depart quite sharply from the conventional wisdom of the teaching establishment. But to reiterate the point of the video, yes, while the argument is identifiably about the viability of the proposal, viability (in my opinion) is arguably considered a baseline/acceptable assumption for so much else in LR it takes a necessary assumption Q to bring the issue to center stage. Now I can sit here and be like everyone else and say "ahem as usual there are 4 terrible answers, and only one good answer. Here's how to sift through this stimulus and interpret the key words to match the correct answer." I unfortunately did exactly that early in my teaching career, and the results were unacceptable by my standards. Instead, acknowledging that the exam seems to shift the goalposts has given my students the edge over many of the most difficult Qs over the years.

@@lsat180minimalist Do you have any other examples to illustrate what you're describing? I'm genuinely curious.

Glad it helped!

I'm not in a good place to check, but I'll have a chance later today to look at Q14 and the video here to better address your question. I'll update you when that happens!

I think YT ate my first reply, so here is the relevant portions again. TLDR; I DID re-read most (if not all) of both passages over the course of my research, but I was still moving quite rapidly. The vast majority of the time, if you think something is a stretch, it probably is. As such, if I don't immediately see a clear connection between "exact thing answer choice (X) says" and "exact things Passage A/B says," I don't sit there reflecting on the issue for too long. I did no further research for (A) and (B), and researched the passages for (C) (D) and (E). While I ended up reviewing both passages almost entirely, they still weren't quite full re-reads, and researching *with the guidance and context* of answer choices tends to be much more focused and faster than just the plain old re-reads that most of you guys do. That said, it might be a higher-than-average reading speed makes this process a bit easier for me than normal. (C) research: I did the human-eye equivalent of Ctrl+F (not a full/careful re-read, just literally scanning for the words "institutional legitimacy"), starting with Passage A. I found it pretty fast in the last senteance of paragraph A2, so I read that last sentence of A2 real quick to confirm it lined up with (C). It did, so I stopped researching Passage A immediately. I moved into Passage B and did the human-eye-Ctrl-F thing again, and came up empty. I decided to start reading the stuff I skipped in Passage B again, from the beginning of Passage B. By the time I got to paragraph 2 of Passage B, I saw that there was talk of things that could be stretched to fit "institutional legitimacy," but it was still a stretch. So I stopped reading Passage B as well, as I doubted there would be room for Passage B to harbor ANOTHER discussion in B3 about the same issue again. I decided Passage B didn't care abot (C), and eliminated it. (D) research: in my research for (C), I remembered that talking about "guiding" litigants appeared in A2, so I again didn't need to research Passage A any further; it's a stretch to say that "guiding" litigants is the same thing as merely "being of use" to litigants, but I didn't feel the need to press this because if Passage B doesn't mention helping litigants at all, (D) wouldn't work anyways. I'd already re-read B1 and B2 for researching (C) and didn't see anything directly about helping litigants. Much like the situation with (C), I saw that B2 could be stretched to fit "be of use to litigants," but why go for that kind of stretch when (B) doesn't need me to? I eliminated (D) as well at this point. (E) research: I did the ctrl+F thing on Passage A because I didn't immediately recall seeing anything about cost-benefit-benefit. I did a fairly fast re-read of ALL of Passage A (just a small step down from Ctrl+F levels of speed), and I couldn't even find any discussion coming close to cost-benefit. I could have eliminated (E) on that basis alone, but I decided to check paragraph 3 of Passage B, since that's pretty much the last part I hadn't re-read in some fashion by this point. Lo and behold, I see that B3 does mention cost-benefit analysis, but it doesn't change anything because Passage A didn't seem to cover it either. Eliminated (E).

Thank you, glad I could help! It's unfortunate that it's just more... efficient (not sure that's really the best word for it) to teach RC/LR as if the correct answer is always a good pick. There are so many times when it feels like we're choosing between one stretch vs another. I do my best to acknowledge that scenario whenever I come across it.

Sorry it took so long to see this. The short answer is that you are correct about "P vs C" being more "intrinsic" to the argument, while the premise/conclusion identification is more superficial. Longer answer: "P vs C" thing is quite distinct from merely identifying the premise vs the conclusion. When I ask a student to do the latter, they'll very often correctly rattle off the proper sentence/clause that represents the premise, and do the same for the conclusion. But there needs to be a second level of processing to go from this mere identification stage and reach the "so where are these things ACTUALLY disconnected" stage. To reach this second stage (which is how we form effective prephrases), you need to know what IDEAS/CONCEPTS within the premise or conclusion matter. Those ideas/concepts are what P/P+/C stand for. Now to hit your "P vs C" and "P vs P+" issue. "P vs C" is the simple, classic assumption argument. The premise makes a big deal about concept P, but by the time we reach the conclusion, the arguer is talking about distinct concept C (with idea P nowhere in sight). Therefore we know that our arguer is assuming some sort of connection between idea P and idea C. Nothing new here, I know you're already got this one in the bag. "P vs P+" is a very different creature. This is the simplest theoretical example I could come up with: P1: thing A happened, which has a certain effect on the status quo P2: thing B also happened, which has the opposite effect on the status quo C: No net change. Ultimately for me, P vs P+ is not strictly a prephrasing tool. Instead, it's more of a framework/lens that gets me to focus on the correct issues. So a P vs P+ framework here would lead me to focus on what the differences are between P1 and P2. I see the key differences between the premises are thing A and thing B (and their associated counter-effects). If the arguer is concluding that nothing has changed, then they must be assuming that thing A and thing B must have occurred in essentially equal measure, or that at least their effects occurred in equal measure. Technically this (and any P vs P+) argument can be done with the classic P vs C structure. I just find that when getting students to deal with arguments similar to my sample above, they struggle terribly to form a prephrase based on a P vs C mindset. But the moment I suggest they compare the premises in a P vs P+ mindset, things tend to click.

@@lsat180minimalist Thank you! This clarified a lot!

I'm right there with you (obviously). Making peace with the idea that sometimes the right answer is still pretty objectively hard to choose made a big difference for me. While it didn't make complex stimuli any simpler to sift through, it DID allow me to focus on managing eliminations, which helped a lot.

172 diagnostic 😭

@@Logan-zv4xgit’s the internet. Take everything you hear with a grain of salt

My diagnostic was 179 and no videos will help me get that last point

In the About section, you should see a "For business inquiries" with a big "show email address" button. Click on it, and it should tell you. I personally wouldn't mind dropping it in the comments here, but I've heard tell that's a great way to get some comment-trawling bot to add that email to a spam list.

Anytime! Remember to feel free to reach out for more elaboration if needed.

Anytime! Give it a try if you think it will help, and don't hesitate to let me know how it goes (good or bad).

It is for a lot of people at the beginning! Stick with it, and feel free to email me for more specific guidance.

Sorry I got to this so late. The email is at the end of every video and in the 'about' section as well. Not to keen on posting it here, as I've heard tell of spam bots trawling comments for such info.

That's pretty much it. You can see me doing some of that in my demonstrations of more difficult passages. By having a strong grasp of the structure, not only are you usually able to find relevant details fairly efficiently, you're also better equipped to contexualize the detail properly. There are many situations where there's a lot of twists and turns around a particular detail (which group of people benefits from the detail's existence, what phenomenon the detail is properly associated with, etc.) that end up as wrong answer traps. Feel free to update your comment if you come across any detail Q that you'd like some clarification on (in terms of how structural reading helps), or send me an email!

@@lsat180minimalist Thank you, your videos are really helpful, especially those that explain difficult passages. I found PT 73, the passage about Cameron's pictures really abstract and hard to grasp the structure. I don't know if you are open to requests on video but if you are, it would be super helpful if you could please explain that passage. Thanks again for the quality videos!

You're very welcome- and yes, I'm fine with requests via comment! I'll get to that passage this week if I have time.

breaking down conclusions so it’s thought of as how the author connects variables is really helpful! thanks for the work you do on this channel!

Thanks! Hope it helps.

Hi! Sorry for the delayed response. The first and last method still works for me on all the most recent PTs, which I count as anything 80 and higher. Just note that I don't actually recommend anyone do the first and last thing. It works for me (and probably a very small number of others), but it's probably not worth the effort for the vast majority of my students.

Glad to be of service! I'm about halfway done with another LR lesson that covers how to practice flexibility in LR, it'll go live either tomorrow or Monday. That might help you make the most of the relatively reduced workload I suggest here.

@@lsat180minimalist YOU ARE AMAZING!!! I did subscribe, will be on the lookout😁😁😁

@@DanielUmstead A day late, but the promised video is up. Take a look, hopefully it helps! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ha-no5VqqZqrg3k.html

@@lsat180minimalist YOU ARE THE MAN!!!

@@lsat180minimalist will check it out after this fun 9 to 5😄😄

Heh my pleasure. As for retaking, that's not always the best call. If you want to talk to me about it, shoot me an email and if be more than happy to discuss!