A reader sent in an email asking about canceling scores after taking the test. Should you ever do it and how can you?

The simple answer to the first part is a qualified NO. I’ve personally tutored or taught many students who reported back to me later that they didn’t think they did very well on the test and were considering canceling their scores. I’ve always counseled my students to wait it out. Not one actually did as bad as they thought (I had one end up with a 166 who was convinced they had screwed up the logic games section and was about to cancel her score).

The LSAT is an incredibly high-pressure event in your life. It’s perfectly normal to have doubts about your performance. Given the weight that your score has on getting into the law school of your choice, it’s perfectly reasonable to want your performance to be as close to perfect as it can be. With that said, you should have a little faith in yourself. Canceling your score essentially means that you’re going to have to start all of your stressful preparations over again without any guaranteed benefit when you retake the test next time.

Today we’ll be working a game problem from the June 2007 LSAT. You’ll need to download a copy from the LSAC website and you should probably print it out. We’ll be starting with game 1 on page 4.

The first step in any game is to read the game and figure out what it is we’ll actually be asked to do. In this case we’re asked to put numbers in order to build a product code. The tricky part is the code will have five digits, but we’ll be using the numbers 0-4, so make sure you keep that in mind. 

Next we’ll need to figure out how we want to represent the game. Since we’re putting numbers in order, the best thing to do will be to make a diagram for with places 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th being the columns. I’m using the ordinal numbers 1st, 2nd, etc to avoid confusion with our inventory of 1, 2, etc. Remember, our diagram is always going to be the thing we’re placing the inventory into, and in this case we’re placing the digits 0-4 into order 1st-5th. It’s always best to make your diagram under the question column with the most room, so in this case I’ve made my diagram under the second column of questions and reserved the space under the first column of questions for my rules and deductions. We’ll put our inventory of digits 0-4 above the diagram a bit to remind us what we need to place.

Diagram and more after the jump.

Today we’ll tackle a problem from the December 2006 LSAT (you can buy your own copy from our store). This is from section 1 and is a logical reasoning or “arguments” question:

Difficulty: Medium

6. Deirdre: Many philosophers have argued that the goal of every individual is to achieve happiness–that is, the satisfaction derived from fully living up to one’s potential. They have also claimed that happiness is elusive and can be achieved only after years of sustained effort. But these philosophers have been unduly pessimistic, since they have clearly exaggerated the difficulty of being happy. Simply walking along the seashore on a sunny afternoon causes many people to experience feelings of happiness.

Which one of the following most accurately describes a reasoning flaw in Deirdre’s argument?

(A) It dismisses a claim because of its source rather than because of its content.
(B) It fails to take into account that what brings someone happiness at one moment may not bring that person happiness at another time.
(C) It allows the key term “happiness” to shift in meaning illicitly in the course of the argument.
(D) It presumes, without providing justification, that happiness is, in fact, the goal of life.
(E) It makes a generalization based on the testimony of a group whose views have not been shown to be representative.

The question here is asking us to find what is wrong with this argument. The term “flaw” int he question is the key. Flaws in arguments usually revolve around weak assumptions, however this is not always the case.

The argument is trying to refute a claim that happiness is difficult to attain. The “happiness” the claim is based on is defined as fully living up to one’s potentiial. The argument uses an example of the happiness derived from walking along a beach as a counter-example. Obviously, these are two different ideas of what happiness is and would require a change in definition of happiness to actually work. So, we’ve got a shift in definition here.

Wouldn’t it be nice if every question brought up a nice relaxing walk on the beach?

This question at first probably looks a lot harder than it is since its subject is philosophy, the subjective bane of every LSAT-taker’s existence. However, as long as we keep our head on and remember we need to rely on our own answer to the question, looking for the choice that matches, we can get through it just fine since the flaw is pretty obvious.

Answer explanations after the jump.

Today we’ll tackle a problem from the June 2007 LSAT (you can download your own copy from LSAC). This is from section 3 and is a logical reasoning or “arguments” question:

Difficulty: Easy 

2. After replacing his old gas water heater with a new, pilotless, gas water heater that is rated as highly efficient, Jimmy’s gas bills increased.

Each of the following, if true, contributes to an explanation of the increase mentioned above EXCEPT:

(A) The new water heater uses a smaller percentage of the gas used by Jimmy’s household than did the old one.
(B) Shortly after the new water heater was installed, Jimmy’s uncle came to live with him, doubling the size of the household.
(C) After having done his laundry at a laundromat, Jimmy bought and started using a gas dryer when he replaced his water heater.
(D) Jimmy’s utility company raised the rates for gas consumption following installation of the new water heater.
(E) Unusually cold weather following installation of the new water heater resulted in heavy gas usage.

As always, our first task is to analyze the question. In this case the question is asking us to help explain the situation, or more accurately, we’re looking for what will help this argument make sense.

With EXCEPT/LEAST/NOT questions we always want to strike out EXCEPT/LEAST/NOT and instead treat the question like a yes/no question. 

Ok, so tackling the argument itself, we can see that what we need to be explaining away is the fact that Jimmy’s bill went up in spite of the fact that he installed a new, more efficient water heater. It might help to go ahead and think of some factors that would help, such as an increase in overall hot water use or an increase in the price of gas.With this question type we’ll need to think in a little bit more detail about each answer choice. A good question to ask ourselves for each of the answer choices would be, “could this help explain the increase?” 

Answer explanations after the jump.