Weaken Questions (Intermediate) with Rob

All right, getting some people joining. Okay, great. That looks a little sloppy. We'll be starting in about two minutes.

So if you're on, awesome. If you're not, then you got two minutes to join. And if you're here right now and you're tuned in and you have some questions on anything else.

That I can answer in the next two minutes by our way. No pressure, so. Sorry, Ed. One's got anything.

Somebody usually has. Some questions out here, but maybe the usual suspects are out. How many of you are taking the test in September of the three of you who are here right now?

Let me know, I'll try to tailor this to something that's going to be a lot more. or implementable in the next few days rather than the long run.

All right, that was that was two minutes. was probably more than two minutes. That was probably a couple. All right, we're starting this one.

Welcome to live class of the 6 p.m. nine Eastern, I don't know. Like, you know, I don't know, six, six, 30 in morning in New Delhi, India, if you're working on that time zone, but you're not.

Welcome to the evening hours. So today we're talking about week in questions. I'm Rob. I'm an instructor also at max.

You guys know that you guys probably don't know that I did open my calendar recently to tutoring, as I said, I would for the longest time.

So I said, I do. But I do it now, just FYI before we start this. It's something that's gonna ask me if I have to be a direct message.

I'm open to work. Okay, so we're talking about weekend questions. I think it would be a little bit helpful.

Wow, my screen is so weird for this. I can't see anybody using it. Okay, usual suspects, no big deal.

So we're talking about weekend questions. It has inferenity intermediate on the thing that you joined that's not gonna matter.

I'm gonna help you do weekend questions in something that is implementable in the next few days so you can take the September exam.

Now everything I'm saying, if you are taking a later exam in the fall, I don't want you to think, oh, okay, I'm gonna check out of this.

It's highly unlikely that you would do that. I'm noticing you pretty do that. But if you're curious and you're like, hey, Rob, I'm not taking the test for five months, would I still do this the same way, or should I maybe think about something else right now, then I'm happy to answer those questions at any stage.

So other than that, it's the usual business of a live class questions, comments, throw everything in the chat. I will monitor that, will ask questions, please participate, try not to just randomly start speaking, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but it's, I think it's genuinely frustrating for people to view it in the archives.

It's somewhat of a consensus on that so. If you have a question and you raise your hand, I might still call on you, if you type out in the chat, hey, Rob, can I ask this one, this would be a mind-bending question for me to try to type into only few characters, in which case, you know,

But let me let me call on you, know, like talking over me. like, if you think I'm like, ask the people who watch the recordings when the screen flips and then they can't hear your audio, well, like that, that's what makes people go nuts.

All right. To answer that question, that was just direct messages to me. Yes, if you're taking in October, this can be great for you.

If you're taking in September, it's going to be great for you. you're taking it three years from now, going to be great for you.

If you're taking it three years from now, it's a struggle bell. It's a big struggle. first order business, could someone provide me with an argument?

Simple one, simple enough that I can write down. But I am soliciting an argument from the crowd. This is a thing where I will actually call on you if you want to make you type it out.

Okay, sounds good. All right, let's thread this from down. Let's pop that up a little bit more. Okay. Oh, okay.

Okay. Do the work. Now, my hunch is that nobody watching this thing says a good argument. I'd just be my guess.

This is like my favorite little like coloring in the dots there. What makes this an argument?

There you go. anything else? You were going to see two types. Well, this is exactly the kind of argument that you see in the outset.

You will have a conclusion and you will have a supporting premise. What why is it not very good? I mean, is there anybody who does think it's very good?

You don't have to have any experience on Earth to know whether this is good or not. You know, it's here to be like, well, I heard before, like, just by looking at the stuff here on the page with no knowledge of the working world.

Like, you could be, you know, from the past, know, concept of working. You still should know that this argument, it might have an issue with it.

So it might give us a little bit of clue. Okay, so now the comments are coming in. Okay, so we need to link the work hard when you're at work for it to be valid.

Okay, like that. I think that's a good way of expressing it. All right, so we have a support and we have a conclusion here.

So there's something that isn't connected. Now, if we set this up at like a math problem, you can really see why this doesn't work.

Support me, you know, attending work. Conclusion is that me work hard. You know, what does this look like? This looks like a math

I think the promise drill to me, looks a lot like this. Let's see in this, okay? So when you set it up like this, it's obvious what you need to do to fix these.

You need to have B to C, right? So the missing thing is B to C. And the missing thing up here is attending means that you worked hard.

So if it is true in this world, that attendance is all that is required for hard work, which you'll give us is a very good argument.

You know, that's it, it's good. How do you weaken an argument like this? You know, I would say every argument that you're going to see on the LSAT.

In argument-based, not something that's just like, what was the main conclusion? a main conclusion one can have an argument that is put together properly according to the transitive property.

In this case, in the case of a strengthened and assumption-based question, a weakened question, or a flaw-based question, you will always see a conclusion that has a singular piece of support, and the piece that is missing is connecting B to C.

Piece that is missing is connecting, attending to a chart. So, when you look at this argument up here, how do we weaken it?

So, I mean, you know, I have the process over here in red, Joe, as you were speaking, did both steps of this, which is, you find the missing link, which surprise finding the missing link is something that you also do for strengthening questions or assumption-based questions.

So, for those of you who look at the LSAT and you think, oh, my God, there's all these different question types.

Oh, my God, I did strengthen, but I'm bad at Same is weakened sufficient assumption questions are the same as strengthened and weakened necessary assumption questions are a little bit different, but we'll talk about why that is.

But the point is with all these arguments that the test is thrown before you there is a link that is supposed to be there that is not there and whether you want to call that the.

You know the assumption or the missing premise. It's still there. So you find it which over here like what's missing premise.

It's this. All right. So there's our missing premise. Is this one great? Oh, well, I get the gray one out.

Hi, you know what? I actually like that. Okay. Okay. We found out and then we deny it. So like to deny it just means like you got to find something in the answer choice that would be incompatible with the idea that.

Attending automatically means that you work hard. So just but just find something in the answer trust directly contradicts it So you come up with an anticipation where like I'm looking for something that says Like anything that breaks the link between attending work chart it could look it could be very simple it could be like my friend Why no personally?

Attended every day But didn't work hard and you're like well There you go links broken You find something that says working hard requires more than attendance Right, you could find something that like gets even more specific.

mean, you know an argument is this simple There's not a lot of flexibility for what you're gonna see in the answer traces But an argument is this simple You're gonna have a great anticipation It's gonna be great, right?

So you're gonna think okay Maybe I need something says attendance means that you go there And you just sit there and you can attend

tend work without ever turning your computer on, but working hard requires that once in a while you turn your computer on.

So now you're like, wait a minute. So I guess attendance doesn't give us all the way to work hard because there's like some other missing element to that.

Okay, great. Look, that's the goal. Like you deny it and by denying it, another way of saying that is like you know, you break the link and that is how you weaken something done.

So you notice like the first part is the same thing that you would do for a strengthen or a sufficient assumption, which is find the assumption of missing premise.

The second part is unique to a weaken, but it's not that unique because if you had a strength in question, how would you do it?

You would find them the missing premise, and then you would find an answer choice that like confirms it and makes it exist.

And then you're like, oh, now it's no longer, it's no missing. It's in the actual stimulus at this point.

So we take this, who has, who has another argument? We'll do this real quick and then we'll dive in a couple.

You got another one? Oh, no, that's okay. I mean, you know, if you guys feel like I'm bullying you into sharing and then you don't want to be here, then that's not good.

Nobody needs to say anything. Okay, here's, so I want to make two points before I move on. One, it's just, you know, literally just this.

I mean, that's your basic strategy. It's a highly implementable strategy for number of reasons. One is that it makes it so you don't need separate strategies for strength, then and weekend sufficient assumption, which I'm going to be totally honest with you.

I don't even know how that would be possible. To have a separate strategy for strength and it's just like There are two sides of the same coin.

It's just it's like You know, it's like a rule in a contour positive. It's the same thing The other thing is that I want you to see this visual So we see an argument up top Like this This is our argument And when I read it like this, everyone's like, oh God This would be when I read it like this I went to work This would be a great flaw question too Yeah, flaw questions are the same so I mean there's I would the next thing I'm going to show you guys a reinforced for those you seen it before you can't really go fly questions, but I

questions it's the same it's the same process like any stimulus in front of you for an argument you know for a sufficient assumption question could also be a flat question you know or we can restrain it like it's all the same um you know you start seeing a little bit of variance um in terms of obviously it must be true is different because must be true is not an argument like they're asking you to supply a conclusion and not a premise um like from my reviews of blog questions and weekend it's like they're kind of married aren't they because a week oh you're you're you're something that's that's already flawed it's something that's flawed in there yeah right yeah the only difference between a weekend and a flaw and like some of them if you ever you guys ever notice the flawed questions we're all the answer I say like overlooks the possibility that that's basically just a week question

That's a, that's like a lazily written talk question. It's basically an assumption question. can question, whatever. I think, you know, a week in is asking you a ruin argument and a flock question is asking you like about the area.

I mean, they're the same. And I also think that that is just as true a strength in questions. When you guys read an argument that is a strength in an assumption based question, a week in question, a flock question, before you go to the answer choices at all.

And like for me, before we can review what kind of question it is, because like I know if I read an or not, and I know if I read an argument, it's gonna be, it's gonna have some problems.

And I know if it's an argument with some problems, it's either an assumption question, a strength question, a week in question, or a flock question.

So like, I don't read the question before reading the stimulus. just, I think it's a, I don't want to dig into that.

I've died on this hill many times, but the point is is that before you, like, I know people will look at a flock question and be like, oh, me figure out what's wrong with it.

But they don't think about that with a strength in question, which is really weird because you're not going to be able to strengthen something if you don't know what's wrong with that.

Like, you would be a terrible engineer and say, hey, could you fix, you know, not like, could you fix this?

That's like a little bit more weekend, but it's like, could you strengthen this? And you're like, yeah, I don't know.

It looks good to me. You know, like, you cannot strengthen something that you don't perceive a weakness. And so the way that you want to start with a strength in question is immediately be combative and like operate under the idea that there is a missing premise all the time.

And you just got to locate that. Once you locate that, you can do a lot of things with it, whether you're weakening or.

identifying a flaw or the assumption of strength, and you do lot with that, but you've got to wrestle with the argument up front.

The worst thing that you can do on a strengthen or weaken question is read the stimulus and say, yeah, that sounds good to me.

I mean, that tells me like you're just going to get blasted on the answer. I mean, know, I've been there.

I've been there before. like, Oh, that's that's good. But if you take that combative approach, you're going go about further.

I mean, the first thing that you guys need to do on every strength and weaken assumption question or a flaw question is before you ever look at an answer choice.

You need to figure out what's wrong with the stimulus like you and like there is always something wrong with the stimulus.

Like that's the basic premise of an LSAT question or of those question types is that there is an issue.

And if you don't find the issue, you're not. Answer just, they're not going to help you find it. It's just like, you need to take that kind of approach up front.

know, and they're like, I've had, you know, at the end, I'll try to dig up the office area that goes really deep on this.

I don't want to do it today. don't have a lot of time to go into it today. Yeah. OK.

Yeah, I can't totally read all that in the chat right now. All right. Part two of this, those of you who are familiar with something called the sandwich method, know that because the basic structure of everything you see in these question types, and especially weakened is this.

What's on the board right now? now. Watch what happens when you read these arguments. So I'm going read you two arguments, you tell me which one's a lot stronger.

Argument one, I went to work there for I worked hard. Argument two, I went to work, attending work automatically means that you worked hard there for I worked hard.

Okay, that's a rhetorical question, because the second one is obviously a lot better than the first one. But why?

Like why did that work? here's here's the magic of a weekend in the strength. Is that you're trying to find something in the answer choices that is the missing premise?

like so if you want to check if something does what you hope it's going to do, put it in the place where it's supposed to do where it's like it's supposed to have the magic and then see what happens.

For instance, like let's Say we have a weekend question. Like we're going to get this one like really dialed in now.

Here's the one that I ended up doing all that done. Dogs. OK, great. All right. OK, so you're going to read that and then you're going to be combative.

And then right away, you guys are going to think, OK, here's what the missing link is. Friendly to good pets.

So now you found the missing link. And the next thing you want to do is deny it. So you're like, OK, going to find something that, you know, establishes that something friendly isn't necessary.

They're really good at that. Now here's your answer choice. It happens to be answer choice. See. Friendliness has nothing to do.

It's being a good pet. That's very, you know, it's pretty simple. It's to be like a level one question, okay?

So this looks like it would deny it. So here's what you want to do. You read, you understand the argument as it's expressed.

are good pets because they're friendly. Now I like to flip this around because I think it's more helpful to list the support and then the conclusion because it like it takes

you to where you're supposed to go. So I would say dogs are friendly therefore they're good pets. Now watch what happens when I try to insert this premise into it.

So I'm going to read dogs are friendly. Friendliness has nothing to do with being a good pet therefore dogs are good pets.

Now that sounds insane. It's a non-sequitur in the highest order to have an argument like that. So what you are seeing here is that when you take your answer choice in a weekend question and put it in the stimulus to see if it actually is the obstacle that it's supposed to be and then read the argument you have a great opportunity to see with clarity whether your answer choice is correct or not.

It's a lot of these are in trying to figure this out on your And it's like, just put it in where it's supposed to do what it's supposed to do and then evaluate that.

So like, this answer tries to suppose to completely derail the argument. And if we put it between the support and the conclusion and then read it, the argument is completely derailed and it sounds like, you know, it's absolutely not.

So like, put it in there, read it back to yourself. That's a word that's right.

between the support and the conclusion, you able to see if it makes sense? Yeah, I mean, with a weekend, what happens in an ideal world is that you read the support and then you read the answer choice.

And then as you start to read the conclusion, you're like, Oh, this is gross. Like this, this just seems wrong.

And that's, you know, the thing that you picked did, we can be arguing it quite a bit, because it made the transition from support to conclusion seem ridiculous.

With strength and you do the same thing, like you put it in there and it's like, Oh, that sounds so much better.

know, but guys, keep in mind the order of doing that is you read support, answer choice, and then conclusion.

Do not do it in any other order, or you're not really going to see this work as well as it should.

Like, don't read the conclusion and then two pieces of support, because now you've like walked yourself away from the argument and you're not going to see what it does.

That's your answer choice, right? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, let's see how it works with try 10.

Definitely. And, you know, you guys, I know I'm kind of making this a little. Sure for now, but that would not only work for strengthen.

It also works for sufficient assumption. And, well, it works for sufficient assumption, strength, we can. You can do that.

Don't try that. Well, you get in a jam. can try with necessary, but it's not designed to work that way.

And on difficult questions you could burn doing that.

mean, it's like negation is kind of like the only option that you have. For necessary assumption, but negations are really hard tool use.

I mean, you guys know it. I mean, it's not easy to negate the premise. Like everyone is like, oh, just negate it.

And then you read something and you're like, I don't even know how I would do that. You know, so it's difficult to use that.

So part of what's going to make it easier is doing your work upfront. And then, you know, if you're taking a combative posture toward the argument, then you understand what's wrong with it.

then you understand, you know, the assumption that's inherent to it, the assumption that's inherent to it. I mean, we're talking about a necessary assumption.

So you're on a better track that way than reading answer choices and trying to negate them. think that's I just think it's a really hard tool to use.

It's just it's a university. I mean, is this Like, all right, you guys, like, you got to clean up the chat a little bit.

you know, if you use total shorthand, I don't know what you're talking about. And it's just, you know, like waylays the session.

Um, sorry, I'm trying to read and figure it out. it just occurs to me that's like, I can't figure that out.

Um, a university psychology department received a large donation from a textbook company after agreeing to use one of the company's books for a large introductory course.

Okay, sounds a little suspicious, right? You know, like, that's what you should be thinking. going be like, okay, I'll just go into the next line.

Just think like, yeah, that sounds weird. That sounds like there's probably going to be something wrong with this. The department chair admitted that the department would not have received the donation if it used another company's textbook.

But. insisted that the book was chosen solely for academic reasons. As proof, she noted that the department's textbook committee had given the textbook its highest rating.

Okay, so what is the argument here? This is just like a set of facts and somebody is, know, like this is one of those weird stimuli where instead of somebody clearly making an argument they give you a set of facts and within that set of facts somebody's making an argument.

In this case the department chair is making an argument. What is the department chair's argument? They're saying conclusion the book was chosen only for academic reasons and nothing to do with this donation and the support for that is that the textbook committee gave it a ties rating.

Now, does that sound like a good argument to you?

Let's try to get that, there we go, okay. And then the support is, is this, you know, I'm going to ask you guys, well, this has seemed like a good argument and the answer to that is, you know, I mean, you want to be in the habit of saying, no, Rob, that, well, you don't have to talk to me and talk to yourself in the mirror or anybody else, but you want to say, no, that's not a good argument.

Here's why. Even if you read it and you're like, yeah, that sounds kind of legit, just be in the habit of having this conflict oriented approach to the LSAT, it's kind of, it's annoying in real life, you know, if you continue to argue with people all the time, but it's really helpful in the LSAT because it primes you to see errors instead of just like trying to agree with people and ultimately like the test, like, you're not going to law school to agree with people.

If you think you are, like, it's not really what it is. There's a whole type of law that's like that law school is nothing like that.

Oh, Um, so This argument's not great The missing premise is there needs to be something that links a highest rating of a tech textbook to Purely academic reasons.

It's not there Like technically like I don't know why We gave this textbook. It's highest rating Like my guess is that textbooks are not evaluated on like Well, some people probably do but the textbooks probably not evaluated on like oh, how many pages is it?

Oh, had more pages than the other textbooks. Let's get at the highest rating Uh, it feels like that sometimes but that could be true according to stimulus or you could give a textbook the highest rating one What's another reason why you would do that?

Maybe if you're like really corrupt and the textbook is bad But if you give it the highest rating and then choose it then it looks

like, you weren't corrupt, but then you got a big donation, you know? So there may be reasons that the textbook committee gives something it's highest rating that don't necessarily affect purely academic reasons, and this stimulus fails to rule this out.

Like, it opens the door on corruption, and then, you know, the department chair is like, no, no, like, it's not corrupt.

It was, uh, we gave it a great rating. It's like, well, what if the whole rating system is corrupt?

You know, so, so when you find you're missing premise like that, it relies on the premise that a high rating correlates automatically to academic value.

So the next step you want to do is deny that premise, and you find something in the answer choice that anything in the answer choice that means that, like, that breaks the link between high rating and academic.

or an academic value. So, if we look at answer, try say, does it do that?

Okay. I mean, I like that's like the most epic.

Yeah.

Let me do that. So, this is exactly, this is exactly what you then this answer, Troy said, and then a conclusion.

We'll do it right now. The department's textbook committee gave the textbook its highest rating. Members of the textbook committee were favorably influenced to where the textbook by the prospect of the department receiving a large donation.

Therefore, the book was chosen solely for academic reasons. That sounds ridiculous. Right? that's just like, wait, what? Like, you just led me down a road into corruption and then at the end, you know, like, we can clearly see how answer I say when you put it between the support and the conclusion.

It's like an obstacle. It's like breaking this link. It just, it, it does not work anymore. I mean, it just, it like diverted us.

So I would pick A on that basis. I mean, I think that A1 is kind of our anticipation because we're looking for something that's like, hey, anything about a textbook committee evaluating something, anything for, for any other reason than academic reasons is going to be good enough here.

They have it. And then you double check your work. You put it between the support and the conclusion. Make the little sandwich with that and you see that Arguments a lot weaker with it in there So that's our choice Let's uh, we'll rash up the difficulty Um, I wonder if I want to do I don't That's kind of a separate I don't want to play um percentage games Uh If you guys because that's that feels like a separate class and even some people like Don't want to do math and then it just um It gets weird.

So, uh, I'll start with this one. This uh apparently a very difficult question, but We'll say what we got Many economists claim that financial rewards provide the strongest incentive for people to choose one job over another But in many surveys

because most people do not name high salary as the most desirable feature of a job. Yeah, that is weird, right?

if finance is the thing that you care about in terms of choosing between two jobs, how do you not name salary as the most desirable feature of a job?

Wow, this shows that economists overestimate the degree to which people are motivated by money in their job choices. Okay, what's the conclusion?

The conclusion is that economists are wrong. Wrong about what? I guess I would say economists are wrong. The financial rewards are the strongest incentive to choose job A over job B.

And what's the support for that? Is that people don't even list? the salary as the most desirable feature of a job in their survey.

So, is this a good argument? Okay, another rhetorical question you guys should be used to it by now, the answer is again, because it's an LSAT argument, no.

Why not though? Like, this is what I think is cool about taking a combative approach to the test, is that when you read something like this that kind of seems like does make a little bit of sense, right?

And you're like, yeah, I agree, like the economists are wrong. Take the combative approach, and then it's going to be easier for you to find little gem that would have been a little harder to find.

So, we have a survey where people don't name, where people aren't talking about money as the biggest incentive, but economists still think that financial rewards are the biggest incentives.

So, something, we need to find the answer, like something's weird about the survey. If the survey doesn't, you know, like for some reason doesn't accurately reflect what people think about in their employment, like if the survey somehow doesn't really like engage with the financial aspect of it, like if there's a reason to think that their answers on the survey didn't actually disprove what the economists are claiming, then we're going to pick that.

This is a really hard question to anticipate. It's really hard. This is one where it seems like a fairly legitimate argument, and I think you're going to you're going to come back to that sandwich trick a lot more, and the sandwich trick again is support answer choice conclusion.

So let's go to answer choice A, talk it out. Oh, nice, nice. Good, good stuff in the chat. One thing says choosing one job over another.

there isn't the same as the most desirable feature. That's right. So you might, what if you're thinking, eh, like, what's the most desirable feature about, like, you know, choosing a law school, answer that for yourself?

And then ask yourself, maybe, is there a situation where I'd be comparing two schools? We're, like, weirdly that thing that's super important to me doesn't come into play.

Let's see what I'm getting at. Okay. So answer should I say it's not going to do anything? So, that's, uh, that's, um, it's depressing.

Um. But a depressing answer choice doesn't automatically weaken. Yarking, man. Okay, let's take a look at B. Many surveys people say they prefer a high-wage job to an otherwise identical job with lower wages.

Okay, here's why B does not weaken. Because the conclusion, like, the way that the surveys are being interpreted and the stimulus is that most people are not naming high salaries.

So if you tell me that some people do name high salary, that doesn't refute the idea that most people don't.

you know, like, the economists are saying that financial rewards are the biggest incentive for people, just across the board.

So you're not really, you're getting much by saying, like, well, there's, there's some people in some circles. surveys that want a high-paying job compared to a lower-paying job that's identical it's like it doesn't it doesn't engage with it does it engage with the argument no I mean it's like that can be true in the argument it's not weekend at all like that's that doesn't weaken the idea that the economists are over estimating how motivated by money people are because B is like you give them a science experiment where money is the only thing that matters in a job like the only way if money is the only differentiable factor and people choose the paid one that gives you no insight into whether money is over

as a factor compared against other factors. Like that's why the controlled experiment at B doesn't do anything. Yeah, when we're talking about money as the strongest incentive, you have to compare it against other incentives.

You can't design an experiment where there are no other incentives where money obviously prevails and then said that, therefore, money is the biggest incentive.

And that's where B doesn't work. C, we get a single C. OK, C is actually nobody likes that. Oh, you guys.

Oh, picks C. now I see is the answer. What does C do? What does C do? I have a question here.

So, when I said earlier, said the most important, like, if I look at this and like, well, the most important thing about choosing a law school to me is having a really great scholarship.

Now, for a lot of people choosing between law schools, you're going to be deciding at the end between two schools that probably gave you, like, equal scholarships.

So, in a lot of cases, the thing that is most important to you isn't actually at play in the final decision.

It's still important you. the strongest incentive bought in a lot of these surveys when people are talking about the desirable features of a job and they're comparing job X which makes the same money as job Y.

Variable feature of a job, right? mean here's but here's here's like because You're not like do you know People in the surveys are not named in high salary Because they're not in a situation where the salaries are differing in a meaningful way And because of that they're naming other things but The thing that is most important to them is salary It's just like they're just not in a position You know where salaries like a factor between two jobs like the you know, think like nobody's saying like well Would you rather do this job that has ten thousand dollars or this job that has a hundred thousand dollars all things considered equal?

Everyone's gonna choose a hundred thousand dollar job but But even if money is your primary motivator You still In this world like we'll find two jobs that pay exactly the same and you'll have to choose You know like if you if you're taking like a law job You know um There's a lot of law firms it like your motivation For you know working for like a private firm and like you know Like some egregious thing like big law or something where they pay people a quarter million dollars after graduation um All those So it's like if you ask them, but was uh, you know motivation producing big law, you know, be like, oh, then it's it's like just an Unbelievable amount of money.

Uh, but when you have to select between a bunch of firms that all pay the same You're not you're not gonna be thinking about money.

Now you're gonna be like, well, I chose them because they're like Everyone was nice to me. It's like is is people being nice to you

People being nice to you is important, but you're like, I chose this one because it had this pretty cool office, and it's like a nice level chair, and they said I could have my own stapler, and then I wouldn't be moved to the basement or something.

People care about money more than those things, but at the end of day when people in the survey didn't have to face the decision of money, and that's why it was reflected this way.

So, well, yeah, I'd like there.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, the point is, is just like, obviously, um, financial rewards are not necessarily salary. Um, yeah, I think, you know, I think you're pointing that out.

Okay.

It's a, well, yeah, I mean, it's hard to, you know, it's hard for number of reasons. You know, one reason is that it's very difficult to get a good anticipation on it.

Um, that's okay, because, you know, like the reality is like, you know, you guys are going make a lot of like crappy anticipations.

mean, I think that that's just part of the game. Um, I know that even when you read the correct, like, you know, you read it correctly.

choice on this. The correct choice is like written by someone who had like a long time to think about it.

And there's a lot of people who do phenomenally well in the LSAT who are going to read this and be like, ah, not a good one.

But like we're going to know that I have a little bit of recourse going to the sandwich trick. And then I also, you know, I take that combative approach right out of probably going to funnel you to the correct answer choice and you're going to pretty close.

I get, ultimately, it's at the end of the day, it's going to give you a better chance. You know, like, it's not always studying for the LSAT.

It's not always about like moving from getting something wrong to getting it right. That's really hard. Like, it's not really binary.

you know, one day you're at zero. then the other, the next day you're at one. And it's like amazing.

It's more like how do you put yourself from zero to like slightly better odds of getting a one? And sometimes those odds, if your anticipation is a little bit better, it's going to get you close to the antitrust, right?

it's going make you less likely to pick the junk and a little bit more likely to stumble upon the right answer.

Like I'm not saying you that's what's going to happen, it just increases your likelihood. Like that's like the sound test taking practice like day in day out, you know, that, I mean, there's just, you can't go from zero to one.

And you know, when you guys are reviewing, I don't want you to read an answer choice and be like, oh, like, actually, I just, I don't know how to get this correct next time.

It's like, don't think about it that way. Instead, think, I know how to be a little bit better, or like, I know how not to pick a next time.

Even though I don't understand C, I know why A is wrong, that's a really good start. Because you pull A off the table, you're a little bit closer to pick and C, even if you don't understand it.

Let's get time for another, because I just kind of... All right, let's do this. Back to another studies. In a study of patients who enrolled in a sleep clinic because of insomnia, those who inhaled the scent of peppermint before going to bed were more likely to have difficulty falling asleep than those patients who inhaled the scent of bitter orange.

What are they different in the clinic? Like, is this the only treatment? Uh, hilarious. Since it is known that inhaling bitter orange does not help people fall asleep more easily, this study shows that inhaling the scent of peppermint makes insomnia worse.

Okay, what's wrong with this? So the conclusion is that inhaling the center peppermint makes insomnia worse. Why? Well, people who inhale insomnia are doing worse than people who are inhaling bitter orange.

And you could interpret that two ways. You could interpret that. peppermint makes things this worse for you. Bit of orange doesn't do anything.

you're like, okay, peppermint's worse. The other one is that bitter orange could be like good for you. And then peppermint could be like the same.

So you're like, okay, doesn't know a thing. And peppermint is worse that automatically means in this case that peppermint is making something worse.

There's an issue with the study.

What? I mean, you can do that. You're allowed to do that. True.

So therefore inhaling peppermint, makes it worse. No, Now bitter orange. And what we understand is that bitter orange does nothing.

So therefore peppermint needs to have a negative effect. That part's reasonable. Like the last, the idea that peppermint. makes things worse than bitter orange, which does nothing, is super reasonable.

The problem is that this study, you sure that this study was done? And here's how you do a study.

A study needs to have a controlled variable. The peppermint people need to be pretty much identical to the orange people in order to credibly do this experiment, right?

So one way that you could weaken this is you could find an answer choice that said, hey, wait a minute, the peppermint group is like meaningfully different than the orange group.

So there's no control group to this. And once you find that, you're going to be good. So do we have it?

Yeah. Yeah, we have it. It's on the board. What's the answer? You guys probably got it in the chat.

Yeah, the it is known statement kind of throws you off little bit, but the it is known like that's a fact.

They're not saying because of what we just told you, we now know this. That would be different. It's just a weird way of putting it.

Yeah. Yeah. B looks, B looks very good, right? Because if B is true, then what? I mean, if B is true, then like you can't really compare people sniffing orange to people sniffing peppermint.

You know, if the orange people like didn't really have insomnia the peppermint people did, like of course they're gonna do worse.

Like how much of that has to do with peppermint? I have no idea. I guess it's a terrible experiment.

know, your groups need to be, you need to have a... Which kind of variable is this? That's the control variable.

That's control variable. That's something to follow up on. Science experiments. Just for those of you, because they come up all the time, all set.

So, it's really helpful to know what hypothesis is. Because I see that often. It's also really helpful to know how a proper experiment is done.

That would help you hear that would help you in a lot of other cases too.

And if you took this and you put this into the stimulus between the support and the conclusion, and you read that, you know, it's a little tricky, like you got to be creative, you can't often just like just find something, call it support, and then read it, like you have to come up with what the support is, say that in your head, and then say the answer choice, and then say the conclusion, but in this case, like try putting this, you could put this in a number of cases, honestly, you could put it between, you could put it where that comma or that last comma is before this study, you know, say, oh, inhaling bitter orange does nothing, the patients who inhale bitter orange were suffering from milder cases, the patients who any worse, you're going to be like, no.

Hey, that answer tries diverted me away from that conclusion and therefore I know a week in the argument and they're from the ticket.

That's, that's what we have. All right. Let's, you guys got few questions on this. Otherwise, I'm going to call it for tonight.

I'll be back. On Sunday, apologize for the late. Lateness of the hour. Sandwich method does rule. I'm glad to hear that.

Oh, you know what? You know what I said? I do. I said I find my office hour for you.

Let me see if I can do that now. So here, if you guys. Just chill on the line for a sec.

I'll see if I can find this. That's so annoying. Thanks. So the opposite of what want to dig up is the one where it gets a lot more into the combative approach on how to look at a stimulus and begin to be drawing the problem out of it.

Because so many of us are just not good at that. You want to agree, you're just really agreeable people.

And that's great. It's just so unhelpful on the LSAT. But let's see, live, let me sort it by me.

In terms of sandwich method, today's was like, if you're like, Rob, I didn't understand what you were talking about.

Watch whatever I did last on strengthen or sufficient assumption. I've been rocking a sandwich method for that since two years.

We've up two years ago, actually, almost to the day.

Yeah. Trying to pull up one, and I'm going to tell you guys where it is to make this helpful.

And it's going to take me just a little bit. But I mean, we're just like, I feel like we're on the cusp because it's in a thumbnail.

That's how I know that that I can find it without wasting too much of your time. Well, oh, so, you know, here's a couple things.

more on the sandwich method is March 17th, 2024. If, you know, if you had a St. Patrick's Day last year, but you didn't remember it, like many people on St.

Patrick's Day, then relive. But with me, March 17, 2024, in an office error called strength and with sufficient premise, intermediate with Rob.

And then here's the thing, the last thing I'm going to find for you. I feel like I'm like right there.

So just bear with me. I'm just, oh, is it, oh, if you want to relive another one, you may like, you know?

OK, here's two. I didn't find the exact one. But I think both of these will be helpful. January 29, 2024, strength and weak questions advanced.

I mean, I think that's going to give you everything you want. there. January 22, it has some of the same stuff.

But January 29, 2024, strengthened a week in advance. I could see, based on it, I don't only have the sandwich method, but also the template for working through this combative approach, and of course, the other one from St.

Patrick's Day. So did I ever get my bar? I haven't taken the bar exam, and I don't know if I will.

But yeah, you've got to take that after them's law school, I'm not quite there yet. All right. I wonder if there's like one.

This is my last page that I'm going to screw around with. Yeah, just like, wow. I mean, I thought I would just come on this, but I'm like six pages deep into the archives.

I should have, I know just what it looks like, like it's like written in red on the side margins, and, you know, I mean, this is so funny, like I'm digging something up that's, I mean, it's like ancient.

Oh, found it. Found it. It may be another one to take a look at. Going to give you a lot of the same stuff.

June 3rd, 2023. That's the one was, I was talking about earlier, but all of those are good. Like, I think, like the one from January 29th is good.

The one from St. Patrick's Day is good. And then this one from June cleared is probably also useful. Yeah.

All right. So that's, yeah, that's it for today. What am I doing in Alaska? I'm out of Alaska. I was working for the summer.

I'm just looking for the. Department of Law for Natural Resources Litigation in Anchorage. And it was great. Highly recommend.

So I'll see you guys later. Always happy to talk about ELSA and law school admissions and all that stuff.

Like I do that essay stuff too and the admissions stuff, if you guys are around on that later. Just you know, like I feel like that's not always well-known, because I took a bit of break from it last year, but I am around for it now.

Well, you know, I'm not really doing anything now since I'm back in school. But, you know, it's just part of the summer, you know, internship, yeah, work.

for, you know, I mean, whenever you guys read about like, you know, like big enormous drilling projects in the United States or, you know, enormous rainforests or highly controversial issues in development and conservation, you may be reading about Alaska and you're probably reading a lot of stuff I worked on.

no, not really ocean stuff. You know, probably could be, but you know, there's a limited amount of stuff that you, you could, I, I didn't, um, didn't, didn't meter used to,

be able to see her from my house. It's the best joke of the hour. OK, so I'm going hang it up.

Like, this isn't a vehicle for me to run a podcast.

But we'll be back. And I genuinely do like talking about LSAT and law school admissions stuff because a lot of the times, like, I get it.

Like, you don't even know what questions to ask. Like, it's like, I mean, it's stupid. Like, I felt so under informed.

And I feel like I know what I know now as a result of going through multiple admissions cycles and then, you know, being on the other side of it.

Like, it's just, it's coming with the territory. It's not like I'm super selected ordinarily. All right, so you guys later have a great Friday night.