Explanations That Make the LSAT Click.
Don't settle for 'good enough'—get explanations that teach you to think like a 180 scorer. We break down each question step-by-step. The competition? They're still figuring it out.
See WhyAt LSATMax, we like to keep our ears to the ground. We pride ourselves on offering more to our students than any other LSAT prep company, so we keep a tab on the services and curriculums offered by other companies. We pay attention to what our competitors offer and what students say about them, making sure we’re not depriving our students of anything offered elsewhere.
One prep company that always comes up (for maybe not-entirely-above-board reasons) is 7Sage. Like LSATMax, 7Sage advertises itself as an affordable, self-paced, online LSAT prep company. 7Sage first gained popularity with its free Logic Games explanations, but it remains a popular LSAT prep option even in the post-Logic Games LSAT era.
We have a keen interest in 7Sage’s Reading Comp and Logical Reasoning explanations. At LSATMax, we love explanations of LSAT questions. We take them very seriously, making serious efforts to make polished, easy-to-follow explanations that guide our students to the correct answer and model an effective approach. And we’re always looking to improve our explanations, so we wanted to see if a competitor like 7Sage offers anything we don’t.
But, when reading up on students’ responses to 7Sage’s explanations, it’s hard to ignore that many students do not like how 7Sage explains Reading Comp and Logical Reasoning. Check out a few student reviews of 7Sage’s explanations …
“I too get frustrated with 7Sage’s explanations and J.Y.’s tone when it comes to an AC that I’ve gotten wrong and he’s decided you’re just incapable if you’ve chosen a wrong AC.”
“JY is the most condescending teacher I've ever had to listen to. There are times when I want to stop taking notes, (virtually) punch him in the face, and then go back to taking notes.”
“there have been many instances where I feel confident about an answer, get it wrong, and then i watch the explanation video where JY is more or less like (im exaggerating, but only slightly): ‘I dont even know why anyone would choose this answer. it's the worst answer choice i've ever seen. wow, only idiots and losers pick this answer choice. Pffff…’”
To be fair, this doesn’t necessarily mean anything. These are just a few people’s opinions. And, as any LSAT instructor knows, studying for the LSAT can be extremely frustrating for some students, and these students might project their frustrations onto other things. LSAT instructors are often convenient targets for these projectiles.
But, sometimes, when there’s smoke, there’s fire. And, well, there’s a lot of smoke here …
“I'm so over the explanations being ‘well duh pfft of course this is wrong’ like.... Ok …..”
“An answer choice I picked will be so obviously an easy trap, but JY says ‘that's absurd’ and just moves on.... and this happens on AC's that, in my opinion, are NOT obviously wrong and are easy trap answers. If its a trap.... and you are a test prep company...you better be explaining to me why I fell for the trap and why its wrong.”
“7Sage LR just does not do a good job teaching the fundamentals.”
“[7Sage] explanations are terrible compared to other programs.”
“Also I get so mad when he goes over answers and gets to the one I chose and just goes ‘this one’s stupid why would you ever choose this one’ and I’m just like what was the point of the explanation video if you’re not explaining. Thanks so much for making me feel better about my wrong answer lol.”
“Wasted a month and a half of my life on their lessons. Eventually I realized that the comment sections were providing alternate explanations that made more sense than what 7Sage instructors were saying.”
“I wish he wouldn’t talk so much in his videos. He gives way too much backstory and sidenotes when all I want is the explanation, with nothing I don’t need to hear and don’t care about, so I could move on to the next question.”
“I sorta came across the same thing. Too much non sense rather than a concise explanation why each individual answer is right or wrong.”
“I agree. Personally, I dislike the way they say how an answer is stupid because they just kept going. I'd like to know why it's stupid and how to avoid that specific kind of stupidity next time instead of, answer C just don't make any sense moving on!”
“It’s super strange bec it makes 7Sage seem incredibly unprofessional as the narrator is clearly NEVER funny and comes across as incompetent and lazy as an instructor.”
“Paging u/jy7sage Why are you explanations so ass bruh?”
“Or when you’re totally stumped and confused on a difficult question, lookup the explanation video and the first thing JY says is: ‘This question is just another cookie cutter question’”
“I felt the same way, which is why I stopped lining J.Y's pockets with my hard earned cash. Vote with your money; there are plenty of alternatives.”
“I gave up my subscription to 7sage and found greener pastures.”
“When he goes “and this one’s just obvious” and crosses it out when it’s not obvious to me lol”
“I mean it’s the most affordable lsat prep for a reason.”
“My problem isn’t his attitude, his explanations are just not helpful. Like if I picked an answer, I don’t want to hear ‘oh well who cares about that’ or ‘that doesn’t even matter’, I want to be explained why it doesn’t matter.”
“Sometimes his insufficient explanations makes me want to throw my computer out of a moving vehicle”
But again, these are other people’s opinions. You can make up your own mind. We wanted to put 7Sage’s explanation against ours and let you decide which one you like more.
Reading Comprehension
Let’s start with a Reading Comprehension explanation. We think explaining a Reading Comprehension passage is one of the surest signs of great LSAT instruction. It’s so easy to fall into the trap of just explaining every Reading Comp question with a variation of “This is the correct answer because the passage says so” and “This is an incorrect answer because the passage doesn’t say this.” That explanation might help if you could remember every word in these passages. But if you don’t, how are you supposed to confirm that a passage doesn’t support an answer choice without having to re-read the entire passage?
So, while the above explanation might clarify the “why” to that question (as in, “Why is the correct answer correct”), it won’t explain the “how” (as in, “How do I get this correct on an actual test”). A complete Reading Comp explanation should illustrate how an expert-level test-taker would anticipate the correct answer or use their main point and notes to assess the answer choices. Process should figure heavily into these explanations. What notes would an expert-level test-taker make when they read the passage? How would an expert find the passage’s main point? How would they use their notes and the main point to anticipate the correct answer or assess the answer choices?
With that in mind, let’s see how 7Sage’s explanation stacks up to ours. We’re going to use the fourth passage from Prep Test 10. This prep test wasn’t used in any of the new Prep Tests 101-158, so we don’t feel like we’re spoiling anything by going over it. It’s also a notoriously difficult passage — one that requires a thorough explanation. Here’s the passage and the question we’ll go over:
Years after the movement to obtain civil rights for black people in the United States made its most important gains, scholars are reaching for a theoretical perspective capable of clarifying its (5) momentous developments. New theories of social movements are being discussed, not just among social psychologists, but also among political theorists. Of the many competing formulations of the (10) "classical" social psychological theory of social movement, three are prominent in the literature on the civil rights movement: "rising expectations," "relative deprivation," and "J-curve." Each conforms to a causal sequence characteristic of (15) classical social movement theory, linking some unusual condition, or "system strain," to the generation of unrest. When these versions of the classical theory are applied to the civil rights movement, the source of strain is identified as a (20) change in black socioeconomic status that occurred shortly before the widespread protest activity of the movement. For example, the theory of rising expectations asserts that protest activity was a response to (25) psychological tensions generated by gains experienced immediately prior to the civil rights movement. Advancement did not satisfy ambition, but created the desire for further advancement. Only slightly different is the theory of relative (30) deprivation. Here the impetus to protest is identified as gains achieved during the premovement period, coupled with simultaneous failure to make any appreciable headway relative to the dominant group. The J-curve theory argues that the movement (35) occurred because a prolonged period of rising expectations and gratification was followed by a sharp reversal. Political theorists have been dismissive of these applications of classical theory to the civil rights (40) movement. Their arguments rest on the conviction that, implicitly, the classical theory trivializes the political ends of movement participants, focusing rather on presumed psychological dysfunctions; reduction of complex social situations to simple
(45) paradigms of stimulus and response obviates the relevance of all but the shortest-term analysis. Furthermore, the theories lack predictive value: "strain" is always present to some degree, but social movement is not. How can we know which (50) strain will provoke upheaval? These very legitimate complaints having frequently been made, it remains to find a means of testing the strength of the theories. Problematically, while proponents of the various theories have (55) contradictory interpretations of socioeconomic conditions leading to the civil rights movement, examination of various statistical records regarding the material status of black Americans yields ample evidence to support any of the three theories. The (60) steady rise in median black family income supports the rising expectations hypothesis; the stability of the economic position of black vis-a-vis white Americans lends credence to the relative deprivation interpretation; unemployment data are consistent (65) with the J-curve theory. A better test is the comparison of each of these economic indicators with the frequency of movement-initiated events reported in the press; unsurprisingly, none correlates significantly with the pace of reports (70) about movement activity.
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It can be inferred from the passage that the classical theory of social movement would not be appropriately applied to an annual general election because such an election
- may focus on personalities rather than on political issues
- is not provoked primarily by an unusual condition
- may be decided according to the phychological needs of voters
- may not entail momentous developments
- actually entails two or more distinct social movements
It’s going to be a bit of a weird comparison because 7Sage mostly offers video, not written, explanations. While our written LSATMax explanations break down the passage’s central viewpoints and structures, cover the author’s tone, evidence, and main point, and provide an exemplar of paragraph notes an expert test-taker would make, 7Sage’s explanation of the passage is an 18-minute video where the instructor reads the passage and makes off-the-cuff remarks about it. The 7Sage instructor also marks up the passage using tools that aren’t available on the actual LSAT. And, well, these markings can get … a little bit messy.
We obviously can’t post the full video, but we want to include a transcription of the discussion so you can get a sense of the instructor’s tone and level of explanation going on. We edited and clarified this transcript … as best as we could. The instructor uses a pointer to reference parts of the passage that’s he talking about, so we tried to point out what he was pointing at. Anyway, here’s how 7Sage breaks down this passage:
"Fourth and final passage from the set, and this one I thought was definitely hardest passage from the set. For time, three and a four minutes for the passage, three and a half for the questions. So maybe seven minutes altogether, seven or eight minutes altogether.
It's difficult because it's very abstract, it's boring. Just, wow, I've lost focus so many times. They're talking about civil rights movement, which how do you make the civil rights movement boring? How is that even possible? Apparently the writer's found a way to do that. So let's take a look.
[Reading passage] “So years after the movement obtained civil rights for Black people in the United States.” So we're retrospectively looking back this is after the civil movements happened already.
Now scholars are reaching for this thing, this thing which ought to be capable of clarifying “its”—referential: free civil rights movements—momentous developments, whatever the momentous developments that came out of the civil rights movement, scholars are now reaching for a theoretical perspective to clarify these developments.
Right? So you see what I mean by abstract? Wow. So what I don't, I can't even, what is a theoretical perspective?
Well, so let's keep reading … “New theories …” Oh, maybe it's this, right? So maybe it's this … New theories of social movements are being discussed, so a theory of social movement are being discussed. Right.
It's taking the social movement theory of social … I mean, take social movement to be your phenomenon and you come up with a theory or hypothesis … a story, a causal story that you tell explain it. So, review your core curriculum lesson on science, if that's not clear. You know that that framework needs to be present for you in order to understand what's going on.
Okay, so civil rights movement … definitely a huge phenomenon. We're looking for a theory of social movement to explain it and two groups of people are talking — social psychologists and also political theorists. They're, like, discussing a theory to explain possible to clarify the momentum development. So that's the end of the first paragraph, and you know to anticipate what might come next I'm guessing you just told me about new theories. I guess we're gonna learn about new theories, right?"
That’s the explanation of the first paragraph. It’s about 2 minutes of video to get through all of that. Here’s the explanation of the second paragraph …
[Reading] “Of the many competing formulations of the theory …” So I see, so it's new theories. Well, okay, maybe it's actually new formulations, right, new formulations of a classical theory, right, of a classical classical theory.
And these are competing, they're in competition with one another, or whatever these new theories are, they're in competition. And they're all trying to win at, well, being the accepted theory.
But they're all sort of share something too. They're all formulations of a classical, social, psychological theory, social movements. So again, this is like, you have to make this stick, right, I mean, abstractly, that's too abstract.
That's why it doesn't mean anything to us. Part of our job in Reading Comp is to make these things stick. Now take what you know, social movement. Okay, civil rights, I get that, that's a social movement.
What's a psychological theory? Again, I'm just asking you to naively try to understand. I know you didn't study social psychology or whatever, but just what's a psychological, well, you know, psychology, right, your psychological motivations. You were angry. That's why you protested. Maybe you were sad. That's why you protested psychological theories. social psychological meaning, not just you as an individual, but maybe you belong to whatever social group you guys group group has some group psychology.
Maybe those group psychologies is what explains that. That's what they're talking about. So, there are many, there are three, going to talk about three here, they're competing, they're prominent, and they all have weird names called “rising expectations,” “relative deprivation,” and “J-curve, fine.”
Each one, each of the three conforms to a causal sequence characteristic of classical social behaviors. That's where they're all similar.
They share in this, which is what? What's this causal sequence? In our social system, there's going to be a system strain, which is unusual condition, a system stain, which generates unrest, which is what gives rise to the social movement, that according to the classical movement, which all three are trying to reformulate. So the classical says, look, there's some unusual system strain that generates on rest.
What is that system strain? Well, they are right here. The system strain is identified as here it is change in Black, socioeconomic status, that occurred shortly before the widespread protest.
So that's the system strain. All three, whatever they're competing, whatever their differences are, they are formulation of the classical theory, which then presumes this unusual system strain, which here in the civil rights movement is the black, socioeconomic status that changed, presumably having gone up."
It goes on like this for another 15 minutes. We’ll save some time by just fast-forwarding to the end, when the instructor wraps up the passage.
"Okay, so finally, just one quick overview of each of the paragraphs that do that memory method thing where you figure out the one sentence right for each, right?
So what's the sentence here? New theories of social movements, psychology of psychological theories to explain civil rights. What are these?
Well, they all take to the classical theory calling upon system strength, which here is a change in black economic status.
And now the three theories explained, right, one, two, three. And now the political theorists criticize these theories on one and two.
And our author criticizes the theories on an empirical from an empirical framework."
And the video ends abruptly.
In contrast, here’s how our written explanations break down the passage:
Passage Summary
Topic: Social Science
Paragraph 1
- Paragraph note
- Background: New theories to clarify achievements by the U.S. civil rights movement
- Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
- Author's attitude: "most important gains" (first sentence), "scholars are reaching" (first sentence), "momentous developments" (first sentence)
Paragraph 2
- Paragraph note
- Background: Three prominent classical social psychological theories
- Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
- List of three prominent classical theories: "rising expectations," "relative deprivation," and "J-curve" (first sentence)
- Cause-and-effect relationship, according to classical theories:
- An "unusual condition" ("system strain") causes a "generation of unrest" (second sentence)
- Applied to the civil rights era, the cause would be a change in Black socioeconomic status (third sentence)
Paragraph 3
- Paragraph note
- What caused the civil rights movement, according to the three theories
- Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
- Examples of theories’ explanations/cause-and-effect relationships, according to the three theories:
- Theory of rising expectations: Improved socioeconomic condition did not satisfy ambition; instead caused more ambition (first and second sentences)
- Theory of relative deprivation: Improved socioeconomic condition did not improve their position compared to the "dominant group" (fourth sentence)
- J-curve theory: Improved socioeconomic condition was quickly reversed (fifth sentence)
- Author's attitude: "Only slightly different" (third sentence)
- Examples of theories’ explanations/cause-and-effect relationships, according to the three theories:
Paragraph 4
- Paragraph note
- Political theorists' criticism of classical theories
- Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
- List of criticisms of classical theories:
- They overlook political goals (second sentence)
- They focus on psychological "dysfunctions" (second sentence)
- They reduce people to stimulus/response organisms (second sentence)
- They focus on psychological dysfunctions (second sentence)
- They favor short-term explanations (second sentence)
- They aren’t predictive because strain is always present but social movements don't always follow (third sentence)
- List of criticisms of classical theories:
Paragraph 5
- Paragraph note
- Author: Critics are correct; difficult to test theories' validity
- Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
- Author's view:
- Political theorists' criticisms are valid (first sentence)
- It's a problem that classical theories have contradictory views on how socioeconomic conditions led to social movement, but sociological data can support any theory (second sentence)
- A test that tracks the correlation between economic conditions and news reports of movement-led activity would be better, but none of the conditions identified by the theories correlate with news reports (last sentence)
- List of evidentiary support for theories:
- Rising expectations theory supported by steady rise in median Black family incomes (second sentence)
- Relative deprivation supported by the stability of Black economic position vis-a-vis white (second sentence)
- J-curve supported by unemployment data (second sentence)
- Author attitude: "very legitimate complaints" (first sentence), "remains to find a means of testing the strength of these theories" (first sentence), "Problematically" (second sentence); "contradictory" (second sentence), "ample evidence" (second sentence), "better test" (last sentence), "unsurprisingly, none correlates significantly" (last sentence)
- Author's view:
Main Point: Three classical social psychological theories attempt to explain what led to the civil rights movement, but these theories are reductive and lack convincing support.
Key Lines?
Paragraph 2, Sentence 1 (P2, S1) - List of the three theories
P2, S3 - Application of theories to civil rights movement
P4, S2-3 - Political theorists' criticisms
P5, S1-S2 - Author's criticisms
Meta-Structure?
Criticizing a Viewpoint: This passage uses a Criticizing a Viewpoint Meta-Structure. In such a passage, the author describes one or more views held by other people or groups, and then criticizes those views. Importantly, the author's argument should focus on why those views are wrong, unjustified, or misguided. (If the author provides an alternative to the wrongheaded views, the passage is better considered an Old Approach/New Approach passage.)
This passage follows that model. The author describes the views held by social psychologists who use classical social psychological theories to explain what led to the civil rights movement. The author then lists political theorists' criticisms of the classical social psychological theories. Finally, the author endorses the political theorists' criticisms and adds another.
In such a passage, the author's criticism serves as the main point. Unfortunately, the author didn't summarize their criticism, so we'll have to do so ourselves. The political theorists' criticism — which the author also espouses — is that the social theories reduce complex human activity to overly simple models. The author's added criticism is that the data doesn't support any social theory. So, we can summarize the main point as follows, "Three classical social psychological theories attempt to explain what led to the civil rights movement, but these theories are reductive and lack convincing support."
Causality: A most prominent minor Meta-Structure is causation. This passage features many cause-and-effect relationships, so we are bound to get at least a few questions about one of these. So, we recommend highlighting the words or phrases that denote these cause-and-effect relationships, like "generation" (P2, S2), "generated by" (P3, S1), "impetus" (P3, S4), and "because" (P3, S5). These cause-and-effect relationships are also summarized in the Passage Summary above.
Lists: This passage also includes several lists. The second paragraph lists the three social theories that attempt to explain the causes of the civil rights movement (P2, S1). The third paragraph lists the socioeconomic cause identified by each classical theory (P3, S1-5). The fourth paragraph lists political theorists' criticisms of the classical theories (P4, S2-3). And the fifth paragraph lists out how available data could support any of the three classical theories (P5, S3). Lists are one of our minor Meta-Structures, so we recommend highlighting or underlining the location of each item in these lists.
Last Thoughts?
This is a challenging passage, in part, because it combines extensive details with strident views. The author remained somewhat neutral until the fifth paragraph. In the first four paragraphs, the author listed many cause-and-effect relationships, making this seem like a highly detail-oriented (as opposed to viewpoint-oriented) passage. In the fifth paragraph, the author avered that the political theorists' criticisms were "legitimate" and that the available data doesn't verify the classical theories. That strong opinion added a viewpoint to this already detail-addled passage. As such, it's hard to predict what the questions will focus on — the details, the views, or a roughly equal combination of the two. To do well on the questions, we must have a working understanding of the three theories, their differences, and the author's attitude.
Here’s 7Sage’s explanation of Question 22 of this passage. Remember, a lot of people complained that 7Sage is unduly dismissive of certain wrong answer choices in this passage. Here, you can be the judge.
"Question 22, first question, is asking us to infer something from the passage —so read between the lines — here that the classical theory of social movement would not be appropriately applied to this thing.
So, I think first you have to realize that the annual general election is our social movement. Because that's what you have to realize — that classical theory is supposed to explain a social movement.
So, the social movement here is tens of millions of people coming out to vote every single year. But what is this question asking? Why is this social movement not appropriate for analysis under the classical theory? Well, what do we know about the classical theory?
Well, we just know this is the central thing we know about the classical theory. There's a causal sequence characteristic of classical theory, which is what?
There's some unusual condition or what's called system strain, which leads to the generation of unrest. Right now, if you think about that — that being the characteristic causal sequence [in the] classical [theory] — is there an unusual condition [that] leads to the generation of unrest for an annual planned election?
No, there isn't. That's why B is correct.
Now, the others, they just like, I mean, (D) especially, wow. (D) [is] just like, you know, this is the classic cookie cutter, wrong answer choice trap called a “mashup.” Right? Just take some random, random, random element. As mentioned, let's just take this “momentous element,” add some other words to it, and then toss it in here, answer choice (D).
Yeah. Such election may not entail … it might just be a boring election, but why does that not allow class — like this is not the reason, the fact that it might just be a boring election isn't the reason why classical theory cannot be applied to this election rather is because of this. You see the distinction? I mean, otherwise, I don't know, there's no really no way out, there's no other way to talk around this, right? It's because this just doesn't matter.
[Looking at (A)]. It may focus on personalities. Of course, elections focus on personalities, right?
[Looking at (C)] It’s decided by psychological needs of voters. Of course, elections are decided by psychological needs of voters. Like, what do these things have you mentioned as well as how many elections involve, like, right? Yes, it does, right? So it has nothing to do with why this thing can't be used to explain the election, right?
[Looking at (E)] (E) is, I don't even know why, the two are more distinct social, I don't know, like, what, like, out of my house and getting to the voting booth, is that the two movements?"
And here’s our explanation of the same question. Remember, our goal is to illustrate how an expert would think through and explain how an expert test-taker would approach the question while also explaining why the wrong answer choices are wrong.
Question Type:
Minor Point/Must Be True
Strategy Overview:
Refer to notes or what you highlighted/underline to locate where the passage discusses the classical theory of social movement, and refer to the relevant part of the passage as needed to find that answer choice that must be true
Answer Anticipation:
For questions that ask us to infer, from a few details in the passage, an answer choice that must be true, quickly finding and reviewing that piece of information is critical. That is why we make brief notes describing the role of each paragraph and highlight or underline the minor Meta-Structures — doing so helps us find the salient information efficiently and reliably. Once we review that part of the passage, we can look through the answer choices to see which one is best supported by what we reviewed. Since the question stem asks us to make an inference, the correct answer probably won't restate something from the passage. Instead, the question will likely require us to draw a connection between a few different pieces of information.
Here, the question asks about the classical theory of social movement. Looking at our notes, we find that the second paragraph discusses the competing versions of the classical theory. The paragraph shows that these theories all believe unusual conditions or system strain lead to social unrest (P2, S2). Now, connecting this to the question, let's try to anticipate why we couldn’t apply these theories to a general election. Perhaps annual general elections do not feature unusual conditions that could cause unrest. After all, if these elections are "annual," they are, by definition, not unusual. Now let's look for an answer choice that matches our anticipation.
Correct Answer:
(B)
Answer Choice Explanations:
We are looking for an answer choice that says recurring annual elections do not feature unusual conditions that could cause unrest. Does this answer choice match that anticipation?
No, it does not. Experienced test-takers would quickly table or eliminate this answer choice simply because it didn't match their anticipation.
If we chose to consider this answer choice's merits, we'd notice that it references political theorists' criticism of classical theories. As those theorists stated, the classical theories paid too much attention to psychological dysfunction rather than political goals (P4, S2). Notably, however, these theorists never claimed that the classical theories shouldn't be applied to social movements like the civil rights movements. These theorists just think the classical theories do an inadequate job of explaining social movements. So, this answer choice would better explain why the classical theories do a bad job of explaining elections. It doesn’t explain why classical theories don't apply to elections.
We are looking for an answer choice that says recurring annual elections do not feature unusual conditions that could cause unrest. Does this answer choice match that anticipation?
Yes, this is exactly what we are looking for!. Annual elections are not unusual because they happen every year! If these elections are not unusual, then the classical theories would not expect the elections to cause unrest or social movements. Since this answer choice matches our anticipation, we can justifiably select it and move on to the next question without reading (C) through (E).
We are looking for an answer choice that says recurring annual elections do not feature unusual conditions that could cause unrest. Does this answer choice match that anticipation?
Nope. For that reason, experienced test-takers would eliminate (C), assuming they hadn't already selected (B) and moved on.
If we needed to close-read (C), we'd see that it has the same issue as (A). This answer choice refers to the political theorists' criticism of classical theories. Namely, that classical theories focus on psychological dysfunction and not movements' political goals (P4, S2). But, crucially, these political theorists never said that classical theories don't apply to social movements. Like (A), (C) would be a suitable answer choice if the question asked us to infer why classical theories might not adequately explain annual general elections. However, the question asked us why classical theories don't apply to social movements.
We are looking for an answer choice that says recurring annual elections do not feature unusual conditions that could cause unrest. Does this answer choice match that anticipation?
Nope. Well-versed test-takers would eliminate this one once they realized it deviated from their anticipation (if they hadn't already selected (B) and moved on to the next question).
Still, many test-takers select (D), for understandable reasons. At the beginning of the passage, the author claims that classical theories attempt to explain the civil rights movement's "momentous developments" (P1, S1). So, if general elections don't involve "momentous developments," classical theories don't apply, right?
Not quite. The passage never said that classical theories can only explain a movement with "momentous developments." So, the passage does not suggest, as this answer choice implies, that momentous developments are required for classical theories.
We are looking for an answer choice that says recurring annual elections do not feature unusual conditions that could cause unrest. Does this answer choice match that anticipation?
No. So, shrewd test-takers would feel comfortable eliminating this answer choice.
If we had to review (E), we'd see that it is completely unsupported by the passage. The passage never implies that the classical theories can only apply to one movement. (If they were good theories, we could use them for multiple movements!) Therefore, we can safely eliminate this answer choice.
Key Takeaway:
This question should remind us to read both the question stem and passage carefully. This question asked us to infer why the classical theories may not apply to annual elections. Many test-takers select (A) and (C), probably because they remember those claims from the passage. However, those claims explained why the classical theories don't do a good job explaining social movements, not why classical theories don't apply to certain social movements. Other test-takers select (D), likely based on its similarity to a claim made in the passage. However, the passage didn't say classical theories applied to only movements with momentous developments.
Logical Reasoning
While we think Reading Comprehension is the hardest part of the LSAT to adequately explain, Logical Reasoning is undoubtedly the most important part of the LSAT to master. So, it wouldn’t be fair if we didn’t compare 7Sage’s Logical Reasoning explanations to ours.
We wanted to stick with Prep Test 10 for this one — particularly what’s generally held to be the most difficult Logical Reasoning question on this test, question 18 in the first Logical Reasoning section. However, most of the explanations for Logical Reasoning questions in Prep Test 10 were videos of 7Sage tutors working on these questions with their students. We didn’t feel it would be kind or fair to compare our written explanations to these tutors’ live sessions (and these tutors aren’t the sources of the students’ complaints, anyway), so we went digging for other explanations.
As far as we can tell, the main instructor didn’t start doing these explanations until Prep Test 17. So, here’s a transcript of their explanation for question 22 in the second Logical Reasoning section, which is considered even by 7Sage to be a very hard question. Here’s that question:
On Saturday Melvin suggested that Jerome take the following week off from work and accompany him on a trip to the mountains. Jerome refused, claiming that he could not afford the cost of the trip added to the wages he would forfeit by taking off without notice. It is clear, however, that cost cannot be the real reason for Jerome's unwillingness to go with Melvin to the mountains, since he makes the same excuse every time Melvin asks him to take an unscheduled vacation regardless of where Melvin proposes to go.
The reasoning is most vulnerable to which one of the following criticisms?
- It does not examine the possibility that Jerome's behavior is adequately explained by the reason he gives for it.
- It assumes that if Jerome's professed reason is not his only reason, then it cannot be a real reason for Jerome at all.
- It overlooks the possibility that Jerome, unlike Melvin, prefers vacations that have been planned far in advance.
- It fails to establish that Melvin could no more afford to take an unscheduled vacation trip to the mountains than could Jerome.
- It attempts to forestall an attack on Melvin's behavior by focusing attention on the behavior of Jerome.
Now, let’s see 7Sage gives this question the careful and thorough explanation it warrants:
"Question 22 is a Flaw/Descriptive Weakening question — [reading question stem] “vulnerable to criticism.” Let's take a look at this argument.
[Reading passage] “On Saturday, Melvin suggested that if that Jerome take the following week off from work and accompany him on a trip to the mountains.” Okay. Jerome refused, claiming that I just can't the cost of trip plus my opportunity cost of not earning my wages. I just can't afford it, right? So, however, all right, that sets up our context over here and our argument begins and this is where the argument is going to get weak.
[Reading passage] “However, that cost cannot be the real reason for Jerome's to go with Melvin …” [Pointing at “since”] announces conclusion … since premise indicator, grammar lessons, right?
[Reading passage] “Since he makes the same excuse every time Melbourne asked me to take an unscheduled vacation …” You know, how does this support this conclusion at all?
Right? Why? mean, if he makes the same excuse, maybe it's because he's really broke and he actually does need to work.
Right? Why is that not the real reason? it's an terrible argument. So I was like, look at the answers …
[Reading (A)] “ …attempts to forestall and attack on Melvin’s behavior.” What? Like, focusing attention on the behavior. Are you even... Wow, we're definitely not looking at same passage.
[Reading (B)] “...fails to establish that Melvin could no more afford to …” No, no, it's not about whether Melvin can afford [unintelligible] o
[Reading (C)] “... overlooks the possibility that Jerome, unlike, Melbourne prefers vacations have been planned far in advance.” I mean, I suppose it overlooks that possibility, right? But that's not the, you know, that's not why this premise doesn't support the conclusion. You can't just be like, oh, it overlooks something. Yeah, it's a short argument. It's going to overlook lot of stuff, right?
But this is not the thing that has to be the weakness in the argument. It's not because of their preference or like, oh, because their preferred vacations by the beach, right? Yes, it also overlooks that possibility. But that is something that has nothing to do with this, with this, why the premise doesn't support the conclusion.
[Reading (D)] “...assumes that if Jerome’s professed reason is not his only reason, then it cannot be a real reason at all.” But it's not assuming that the professed reason is not the only reason. It’s trying to argue that the professed reason is not the real reason. I don't, I mean, I don't know. The purpose is that you made this excuse a bunch of times before it, therefore it can't be a real reason, right? It's not, it's not, we're not having alternative reasons here. It is not the same as the possibility that those behaviors adequately explain by the reason.
[Reading (E)] “...it does not examine the possibility …” and that's precisely the flaw. Because, right, why? The possibility that Jerome’s behavior is adequately explained by the reason is a very real possibility, that he's just too broke to take a week off work to go in the mountains with you."
And here’s our explanation:
Argument or Facts:
Argument
Valid or Flawed:
Flawed
Question Type:
Errors in Reasoning
Stimulus Summary:
Melvin: Jerome, will you go to the mountains with me?
Jerome: No, because I cannot afford the trip and missing out on wages.
But Jerome says the same thing no matter where Melvin proposes they go, so cost can’t be the issue.
Answer Anticipation:
Liar, liar. The argument here makes some pretty strong claims about Jerome!
Why does it believe that Jerome is lying, and cost can’t be the real issue? Because Jerome uses that excuse no matter where Melvin suggests that they visit. Presumably, that means that the trips have presented different costs.
But does that mean that some of those costs were so low that Jerome could definitely have afforded them? Not at all. He’s losing wages, after all, so there’s a chance that almost any cost would make the trip too expensive for him! The argument gives no real reason to believe that all of these trips aren’t too expensive for Jerome, so let’s find an answer stating that it fails to really rebut Jerome’s claims.
Answer Choice Explanations:
- There’s no indication that Melvin’s behavior is under threat of attack, so this answer is out of scope.
- The ability of Melvin to afford the vacation is out of scope of the reasons that Jerome is saying no to the trips.
- The question is about preference but rather about the reason someone is turning down the trips, and whether money is really the reason. This answer can be tempting because it seems to suggest an alternative reason for Jerome turning down the trips, but it doesn’t! While he might prefer trips that are planned far in advance, he might be perfectly happy to go on an unscheduled trip that he can afford!
- This is another tempting answer since it seems to reflect the argument. However, when an answer is phrased like this - it “assumes that if [A], then [B]” - the A has to be an established premise, while the B is the answer (or another premise that builds off of A). Here, however, the argument never establishes that Jerome’s professed reason isn’t his only reason - it establishes only that he uses the same excuse each time, and it assumes that there must be another reason.
- Jerome says that he can’t afford any of these unscheduled vacations, and the argument says that this can’t be the case because it’s his response no matter where the vacation is to. But it’s perfectly possible that, factoring in lost wages, any cost would make the trip too expensive! Since the argument doesn’t examine the possibility that Jerome can never afford these trips, it fails to examine the possibility that Jerome’s excuse is valid for all the trips Melvin has asked him on, so this answer is correct.
Key Takeaway:
Rebuttal frequently fails to actually address the opposing point. Always check to see if the rebuttal serves to call that other viewpoint into question, and, when it doesn’t, find an answer reflecting that failure.
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