1. The LSAT's first question on this section asks for the disagreement between Ilana and Gustav. Ilana claims that Carver is an inferior writer because his stories are somber. Gustav agrees that Carver's stories are sad, but disagrees that somber writing is a "sure sign" of poor writing.

Choice (A) discusses "compassionate". We know that Gustav believes that Carver's stories are compassionate, but we have no idea what Ilana thinks about this. Somber and pessimistic does not equal a lack of compassion.

Ilana and Gustav would both apparently agree with (B) -- note the first part of Gustav's second sentence.

Choice (C) contains "humorous", which would need to be replaced with something such as, "good writing".

(D) is the correct choice -- Ilana would clearly disagree with (D), whereas Gustav would clearly agree with (D).

Choice (E) is far too vague with "some". Gustav would disagree that somberness alone is a decisive factor in determining a writing's value, but it's possible that he believes that other characteristics are decisive.

 

2. The LSAT's next question provides a discrepancy.

	X	YET	Y
	Decrease in rate of violent crime.		Public anxiety about crime is up.

 

Perhaps the public is unaware of the decrease. Or, perhaps the public is scared by a few high-profile crimes, even though overall crime is reduced.

The key word in choice is (A) is "cause". What caused the drop is irrelevant, so long as a decrease exists. Just because the longer prison sentences will soon be over does not necessarily mean that some convicts will soon be out on the streets. Indeed, it's just as likely that those same convicts will be in prison for much, much longer than they might have been previously, and thus (A) would make things even more confusing. Eliminate (A).

For (B), we need the violent crime rate drop being underreported, not the public's anxiety.

(C) states that more than half ("most") of people are realistic in their chances becoming victims. If there's a good chance of their actually becoming victims, then (C) would make sense. But, perhaps there's an extremely slim chance of their becoming victims (and they are realistic about that). We don't know and thus (C) does nothing to resolve the discrepancy.

(D) focuses on a subgroup of the public rather than the public as a whole. What percentage of the public fits into the feels the "most anxiety" category? Have those people experienced an increase in anxiety during the past year? We don't know and (D) thus does not help.

(E) is our correct choice. When people watch TV or read the newspaper, they are now being exposed to many more stories about violent crime, which in turn, has increased their anxiety even though the actual violent crime rate has decreased.

 

3. Treat this as an apply principle question. The principle: Efficiency is ignoring the unimportant deadlines and focus on the big success.

Choice (A) is incorrect because we have no clue whether the report is an important or unimportant task.

(B) states that the employee is working on an apparently unimportant task -- "routine" that could wait until later.

(C) is our correct choice -- the call could lead to a large reward, and the "punctual" and "monthly" imply a schedule and deadline.

(D) is the opposite of what we're looking for. This is apparently an example of what "most" employees described in the first sentence do.

(E) is incorrect because of the word "immediate", which means coming up soon, not important.