This is an argument known as a false dilemma. There is a short wikipedia article on it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma Anyways, you will often hear people that are trying to convince you to take a course of action (*cough* politicians *cough* *ahem*) that there are 2 courses of acti...

Question: Psychoses is best treated by biochemical (medicine) means. This is conclusive proof that psychoses is caused by some sort of purely organic conditions. Conclusion: Psychoses is caused by purely organic conditions Evidence: Psychoses is best treated by biochemical means. The author is basic...

Hey Matt,
One more thing. How is a "negative consequence" different from a "serious side effect"?

Stimulus: All moral theories developed in moral tradition tries to tell us what a good life is. However, most people would judge someone that embodied the western tradition's definition of a good life to not be living a good at all. In sum - most people would not agree with the western tradition's o...

Here's a quick summary of the arguments: Figorian Wildlife Commission: Development threatens endangered species in wetlands. We must regulate development by requiring that any future wetlands that are developed be replaced by the construction of new wetlands. This would result in zero reduction of w...

Would like to hear explanation of why C is right and A is wrong.

a ha!
I have been looking up definitions to certain commonly used words during my study and have discovered that many words have a looser meaning than I originally thought. Right you are. Thanks for the explanation.

Hey Matt,
Do you think answer choice B more accurately describes sentence 3 in this stimulus? I picked answer choice C, but I am trying to definitely disprove answer choices in my quest to go deeper with the content.

Alright Matt. You just warranted a thanks on that one. The distinction you drew between widespread use and misuse was about as good as it gets. Not trying to kiss ass at all. I'm pledging allegiance to this post in my living room right now.

I can see that A is wrong, because it is stated explicitly in the stimulus and so is not an assumption but answer choice D seems too broad to be necessary and seems to qualify more as a sufficient assumption. Anybody have any ideas? I think I might have just figured this one out myself. Try getting ...

Matt,
I don't understand your explanation at all. haha. I just looked at this today and have a really firm grasp of conditional logic, but i can't seem to follow your train of thought up there to safe my life. Help me out if you can.

Here I will diagram out both Joseph and Laura's arguments for you. It might clear up some of the confusion between the arguments. Joseph basically says "Since no one has been able to prove the theorem it most likely cannot be proved, and since it cannot be proved that most likely Fermat was lyi...

Mike, That is really good. Thanks for the analogy. Writing out analogies for these arguments definitely helps you get passed the rhetoric of the stimulus to be sure you are really uncovering and internalizing the underlying logic. So thanks for that. As far as your diagramming of the biconditional i...

Hey Matt, I was just looking over this as I'm going through the Manhattan LSAT book again. I can see your reasoning about if what the environmentalist is saying is true then answer A would allow the conclusion to follow. Also the other 4 answer choices are clearly horrible. However, I still question...

This is a great question. The question stem is asking for a "generalization". It seems that generalization and principle are interchangeable terms from a google search I just did. If that is the case then this explanation might make sense to you. Okay first we are given a conclusion in the...

Hey the 2nd point you made is the one that makes the most sense to me. Also, remember that we must suspend real world information and just take what they give us in the stimulus. Just because we know that all epileptic seizures create electrical impulses does not mean that we can infer that based on...

Yea that basically gets at it. The most successful economies will be the ones that train as many people as possible . Most successful econ. -----> train as many as poss. So if you are the most successful economy then you are necessarily training as many people as possible from your human workforc...

I'll give it a try. Stimulus: There are film makers creating documentaries filled with innaccuracies. The film maker's right to free speech entitles them to create these documentaries, but this does not necessarily mean that anyone ought to pay attention to any of the views in these films. Answer ch...

I'll try my best. This was definitely not the easiest question though. Premise: Public disclosure of officer's investments in required in 2 cases only : Here is the diagram for the 2 conditional logic statements: Authorized to disburse assoc. funds + <--------> Disclosure Sits on board of petr...

Hey! This is my first time posting an explanation on these forums, but I will try my best. This was definitely a question that caused me to pause for a moment so you are not alone in the difficulty it presented. The paradox: Scientists believe an asteroid struck earth 65 million year ago. The astero...