1. This LSAT support inference question contains content that is easy to read and understand, but the choices contain subtleties that you must read carefully.

(A) refers to what is in a newspaper, whereas the passage states that the students were given newspaper articles, not necessarily the entire newspaper. (A) also states "alone", however this is not supported because it's possible that the students based their opinions on the headline and on article content.

(B) states "hamper" but nothing in the passage states that the students' answers were correct or incorrect. It's possible that the answers were opinions on the content.

(C) refers to "careless reading", but nothing in the passage suggests that careless reading occurred. Also, there's nothing in the passage about senior students and so no comparison may be made.

(D) states "misleading", but just because answers differed based on different headlines does not mean that those answers were incorrect based on the content.

(E) is supported and the correct choice. Notice the neutral statement "influence", and compare it to the negative wording in (B), (C) and (D).

 

2. This LSAT error question contains an argument that confuses sufficient and necessary conditions. The argument works this way:

 

	P: Art g Beautiful and Instructive
	_________________________________________
	C: Natural world is Beautiful and Instructive g Natural world is Art

 

(A) refers to a definition error. Although the author does not provide a definition for "beautiful", the word is nevertheless only used in one sense, and thus no reasoning error occurs based on the use of two different definitions for a single word.

(B) does not appear to describe a reasoning error. (B) refers to "evaluative" (subjective) and "factual" (objective). If one bases one's opinion ("evaluative conclusion") only on claims about facts, then no reasoning error appears.

(C) is the correct choice. The "object" is the natural world, and the "two qualities" are Beautiful and Instructive.

(D) states that the author has made the following assumption:

Instructive g Beautiful

However, the argument has not made this assumption.

The argument's error could be expressed as: "assumes that only objects that are beautiful and instructive are art," which would be expressed this way:

Instructive and Beautiful g Art

(E) tries to attack a conclusion that the argument does not make. The argument does not claim that only the natural world is art.

 

3. This LSAT identify principle passage contains information about discoveries that occurred through shifts in thinking, and (B) is the correct choice.

(A) states "chance", but the passage states that the accomplishments resulted from "looking differently" and "shifted his focus".

(C) refers to the ability of viewing information differently, but the passage refers to the actuality of looking at information from a different point of view. Also, (C) states "rare" but the final sentence in the passage states "replete".

(D) refers to organization of information, which is not mentioned in the passage, and thus no comparison may be drawn.

(E) refers to difficulty level -- "more easily" -- but the passage gives no indication as to how difficult the breakthroughs were. Also, (E) refers to the amount of information in a field, but the passage mentions nothing of this.