Round 2: Practice mapping descriptive answers

In this round we’re going to keep working on PrepTest 140, Section 1. So get that pulled up wherever you access official LSAT’s. This test is included with a free LawHub account if you don’t already have a subscription.

We’re going to keep building on the takeaway from Round 1: carefully mapping the wording of the answers to the passage, looking for the one that accurately describes the argument.

🔎Here’s a “fun” little exercise I recommend first, especially if you’re still pretty new to the LSAT. I want you to flip through the questions in section 1 and see if you can identify which ones have descriptive answers. You don’t have to try them all, just look at each one and ask yourself, “are the answers describing what’s in the passage?”

Two extra hints: First, when the answers don’t describe the argument, they’re usually parts of the argument instead. Prompts that mention parts of arguments like “support”, “conclusion”, or “assumption” typically won’t have descriptive answers. Second, there are five ✋ more you should find in section 1 (not counting questions 2 and 3, which we covered before).

If you’re comfortable trying them as you find them, go for it! Otherwise it’s totally cool to scroll when you’re done with 🔎 the exercise and I’ll walk us through them.

Preptest 140, section 1, question 9
records from 1850 to 1900…

PROMPT: How will the right answer relate to the argument?

You already knew the answer to the this question, since you were specifically looking for questions whose answers describe the argument. So all the right answers in this round will be the ones that describe the argument accurately. (I’ll go over plenty of other ways right answers relate to the argument in upcoming practice rounds.)

PASSAGE: Tag the conclusion/s and support

[BACKGROUND]: The first sentence up to the colon is just introducing the key piece of support.

[SUPPORT]: “The more successful the crops, the higher the birth weights.” You want to recognize this is a very common flavor of support/evidence. Do you know what we call it when two things go together or correspond like the crops and birth weights in this passage? You got it, it’s a correlation.

If you didn’t spot that this time no worries. By test day you want to catch it every time a passage cites a correlation, which will typically be used as support.

[CONCLUSION]: “The health of a newborn depends to a large extent on the amount of food available…”

The conclusion is signaled by “This indicates that…”, and once again we see a very common pattern. You want to recognize that “depends” is being used to say that the amount of food available causes better or worse health for newborns.

By test day, it is absolutely required that you spot every time a passage cites cause-and-effect. It happens multiple times in every LR section. We’re about to see why that’s so valuable.

ANSWERS: Carefully map the wording of the answers to the passage

(A) inferring from a claimed correlation between two phenomena that two other phenomena are causally connected to one another.

Boom! This pretty much exactly matches the tags we applied to the passage above. You may only need to double check that “two other phenomena” makes sense. And it does! The correlation is between birth weights and the success of crops, but the conclusion is about newborn health and the availability of food. Those are close, but not the same.

(B) inferring from the claim that two phenomena have fluctuated together that…must be the sole cause…

This gets close, but be careful. Fluctuated means a number went up AND down. The passage only says “The more…, the higher…” It doesn’t actually say anything fluctuated. The word “sole” is maybe more obviously problematic, since the conclusion definitely does NOT say it’s the only cause.

(C) inferring from records concerning a past correlation…that that correlation still exists.

I like the first part since the first sentence mentions the past. But the conclusion isn’t about “that correlation”, and “still exists” doesn’t map to any wording in the passage about carrying on into the present.

(D) …existence of a common cause…and then presenting a hypothesis about that common cause.

A common cause would mean something has multiple effects, but that doesn’t align with the passage. It’s just one thing causing one other thing.

(E) inferring the existence of one causal connection from that of another

Love the first part. “Inferring” always wants to line up to the conclusion, which did make a causal connection. But there was only one causal connection, so “another” doesn’t map to anything stated in the passage.

(A) is the correct answer.

Let’s keep the focus on carefully mapping the answers to find the one that accurately describes the passage while we try a slightly different question type.

Preptest 140, section 1, question 11
Although large cities…

PROMPT: How will the right answer relate to the argument?

This prompt asks for the role played by one of the statements in the passage, so that’s a really specific part of the passage that the right answer will have to accurately describe. Slapping a “support”, “conclusion”, or “background” tag on each statement is a part of good LSAT strategy anyway. So after some practice, expect yourself to anticipate a lot of what the right answers on these questions are gonna say.

PASSAGE: Tag the conclusion/s and support

Although large cities are generally more polluted than the countryside,…

Although is an argument word, since it signals the author is gonna push back against something related to big cities being “generally more polluted.”

Although large cities are generally more polluted than the countryside, increasing urbanization may actually reduce…

Here’s the push back: cities getting bigger maybe reduces pollution. This is the statement the prompt is asking about, so it will be critical to make the right decision about whether this statement is support or a conclusion. You probably need to keep reading to be sure. Fortunately, the last two sentences have a really clear structure:

[SUPPORT].Thus [CONCLUSION].

The question now is whether the claim we care about from the prompt also supports this conclusion, or if this conclusion supports the claim we care about.

Hold up! Whaaa?! A conclusion can be support too? Yes! If that wasn’t already familiar to you, every once in a while an LR passage has two conclusions, and one is also support for the other. The LSAT sometimes calls them “intermediate conclusions” versus “main” or “overall conclusions”.

So which is it? If you’re not sure, try reading both statements with “therefore” in the middle. Try it in both orders. The main conclusion is the one that makes more sense when it comes after therefore.

You got it? The claim in the prompt is the main conclusion. People pollute less when they’re concentrated in a big city, therefore increasing urbanization may actually reduce… Now let’s find the answer that says that.

ANSWERS: Carefully map the wording of the answers to the passage

(A) it used to support the conclusion…

No it isn’t, it is the conclusion.

(B) it is a statement offered to call into question…

No it isn’t. The claim about large cities follows “Although…” That means the author was conceding that point, not questioning it.

(C) It is a statement serving merely to introduce…

No it isn’t, that would be background.

(D) It is a premise…

No it isn’t, premises are support.

(E) It is a claim that the rest of the argument is meant to establish.

This is a textbook definition of a main conclusion. Winner!

(E) is the correct answer.

Preptest 140, section 1, question 18
Mayor: A huge protest…

PROMPT: How will the right answer relate to the argument?

Did you recognize this “flaw” question? Sweet! These make up the lion’s share of the questions with descriptive answers. Not surprisingly, all three left for us to go through today are “flaw” questions.

PASSAGE: Tag the conclusion/s and support

Mayor: [BACKGROUND]. [MORE BACKGROUND*]. But [CONCLUSION]. [SUPPORT].

*“The protesters claim…” fits maybe the most common pattern on the whole test. It starts with this background about an outside perspective. That’s anything that sounds like, “Some people say…” and it pretty much always signals that the author’s conclusion is they disagree with these people.

The argument says we can forget the protesters’ claim that the factory would cause health problems because the protesters were paid. But just because they were paid, does that mean they’re wrong? Their claim could be true and they could still be paid. Attacking someone’s motivation to try to discredit their argument is definitely a flaw.

ANSWERS: Carefully map the wording of the answers to the passage

(A) The argument mischaracterizes an opposing view…

Mmm no, we’re expected to recognize there’s no mischaracterization, just maybe a misguided criticism.

(B) The argument attempts to persuade by inducing fear of the consequences…

Pretty sure no calm and focused test-takers are picking this one. There’s no discussion of consequences except for the health problems, and I think it’s clear no attempt to induce fear is made about that.

(C) The argument rejects a claim simply because of the motivation…

Love that!

(D) …on the basis of a few unrepresentative cases.

We’re only looking at one case. There’s no sampling or survey results in this passage, which is what “unrepresentative” will map to when something like this is the right answer.

(E) …a claim that the result is inevitable.

Where do you see a claim that something is inevitable? Yah, me neither. That’s a really strong term that means no matter what, in every case, without any exceptions. There’s no wording like that in the passage.

(C) is the correct answer.

Preptest 140, section 1, question 21
Lawyer: If you take something…

PROMPT: How will the right answer relate to the argument?

We’re all over this now. The right answer will accurately describe something wrong with the argument.

PASSAGE: Tag the conclusion/s and support

Lawyer: [SUPPORT: If-then rule]. However, [SUPPORT], so [CONCLUSION].

LSAT world tends to make a really big deal out of if-then rules, also known as sufficient and necessary conditions. Two truths: first, they only show up on a few questions in each section, sometimes only 1 or 2. So they have pretty limited impact on your score unless you’re down to the last few points to get to your target.

Second, most questions that use them can be answered confidently and correctly without deeply considering how the rules work. And that’s what I’m going to walk through on this one. In upcoming practice rounds, I promise I will dive all the way in to dealing with if-then rules when the question is not strategically hackable. (I’ll add a link here when those rounds are posted, i.e. they aren’t yet.)

So let’s add up two common LSAT patterns we’re seeing here and let it tell us exactly which answer is correct. This is a flaw question, AND the key piece of support is an if-then rule. That means it’s basically 100% that the argument’s flaw is mixing up the sufficient and necessary conditions. Arguments can do that in two different ways, but again, those details don’t necessarily matter.

Take a look at the answers. How many of them even talk about sufficient and necessary conditions?

ANSWERS: Carefully map the wording of the answers to the passage

(C) takes a condition that by itself is enough…to also be necessary…

Just one! Enough is a synonym for sufficient. The details in this answer about an action being wrong also match what the passage talks about.

Now on test day, that wants to be good enough. You get the same points whether you can explain why (C) is correct or not! Buuut of course, I will spell it out more:

The passage says if you take something you think belongs to someone else, that’s wrong. Meyers didn’t think the compost belonged to someone else. But that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be some other reason that taking the compost was wrong. In other words, it isn’t necessary to think something belongs to someone else for taking it to be wrong.

But the conclusion says that it wasn’t wrong, based only on that one reason. So the author is assuming that reason IS necessary. Which is a flaw. And that, in it’s charmingly confusing way, is what (C) says. Let’s make sure we also agree the others are wrong.

(A) confuses a factual claim with a moral judgement.

The conclusion makes a moral judgement, and it’s based on a factual claim. No confusion though.

(B) …if he had good reason to believe that it was someone else’s property

This condition doesn’t come up in the passage, so be careful. It only talks about a situation in which Meyers does NOT have reason to believe…

(D) fails to consider the possibility that the compost was Meyers’ property

Not relevant, is it? We’re told explicitly he didn’t have any reason to think it was someone else’s property, which leaves open the possibility that it’s his compost. It wouldn’t impact the validity of the argument either way though. So not a flaw.

(E) concludes that something is certainly someone else’s property…

No it doesn’t, it concludes that something isn’t wrong.

(C) is the correct answer. The strategic way is easier, I don’t think there’s really any doubt. Be gentle with yourself while you keep practicing enough to make it feel doable.

Preptest 140, section 1, question 24
Pediatrician: Swollen tonsils…

PROMPT: How will the right answer relate to the argument?

One more time for today! The right answer will accurately describe something wrong with the argument.

PASSAGE: Tag the conclusion/s and support

Pediatrician: [SUPPORT] and [SUPPORT]. So [CONCLUSION].

The passage concludes that removing children’s tonsils prevents breathing problems, which is totally true if swollen tonsils are the only cause of breathing problems. Is that what the support says? No! It doesn’t get into whether there are other causes.

Did you recognize the cause-and-effect pattern? It’s a little different this time since there’s no correlation, but if you spotted it you’ll already be down to two answers.

ANSWERS: Carefully map the wording of the answers to the passage

(A) relies on an inappropriate appeal to authority

The author IS the authority. I think we trust pediatricians to talk about children’s medical issues.

(B) relies on…assuming that the conclusion is true.

This is all wrong. Every once in a while you’ll see an argument that says “X is true, because it is.” That’s basically what this answer means. It’s very rare that this kind of thing is the right answer. This author definitely used reasoning to get to the conclusion. They didn’t just assume it.

(C) …the action is intended to produce that effect.

Ohhh, this was getting warm. I like that it talked about cause-and-effect, but there’s nothing in the passage about intentions, so that wording doesn’t map.

(D) …there may be other medical reasons for surgically removing a child’s tonsils.

Alright, but I don’t care. I care about the causes of breathing problems, not the reasons for removing tonsils. So “other medical reasons” doesn’t map to the passage.

(E) …breathing problems during sleep may be caused by something other than swollen tonsils.

Boom! If you recognize cause-and-effect in the argument, this is pretty easy. But even if not, it should make sense that the conclusion is total garbage if breathing problems can be caused by other stuff besides swollen tonsils.

(E) is the correct answer.

The big takeaway: Always carefully map the wording of the answers to the wording of the passage

I hope this mapping thing is starting to feel comfortable. We got a sneak peek in this round at how powerful pattern recognition (a/k/a the fun part of LSAT strategy) can be, but you can’t have all the fun without also ruthlessly sticking to the procedural part. And that means applying careful mapping on every question.

Common patterns we saw in this round:

• We knew we’d be working on questions with answers that describe the passage. But this round was a good reminder that flaw questions are by far the most common of this type.
• Cause-and-effect, specifically the bad assumptions that correlation = causation and that a cause is the only cause. Every LR section will have multiple passages that use cause-and-effect. Cause-and-effect is phrased a LOT of different ways (e.g. X leads to Y, X produces Y, Y was set off by X, etc…). You may need a little time for it to become really familiar, but start training yourself now to catch it every time.
• Intermediate conclusions are statements that both get support from AND give support to other statements in the passage. Most arguments don’t have them, but they’re pretty common on “role” questions.
• Authors use background that sounds like “Some people say…” all the time to set up the conclusion that they disagree. You’ll see this several times at least on every section. You can also think of it like this: if an LSAT author disagrees with someone, that’s their conclusion.
• If-then rules, a/k/a sufficient and necessary conditions. They’re sometimes tricky to follow, but at least they’re easy to recognize. And so are answers describing them. Focus on training to recognize the pattern, and make time for studying sufficient and necessary conditions more deeply only when you know for sure it’s worth points you need to hit your target.

How are you feeling? Take a break and give yourself some hard won gratitude for getting through that with me. We’ll add on more of the basic LSAT strategy in the next round, so try to keep your excitement contained until then.

The plan will work if you do.