1. U.S. News Responds to the ABA’s Take on Law School Rankings
Should law school applicants rely on rankings and to make a decision on where they choose to go to get their law degree? Does the desire to rank high on these lists interfere with schools’ missions? U.S. News reports.

2. Law School Higher Striker Revealed: He is a She

It turns out that the “Unemployed JD” isn’t a man, but actually a woman! This Law.com post discusses how Zenovia Evans wanted to make a statement about law schools’ lack of transparency on employment numbers.

3. Incoming Law School Class Has Highest Mean LSAT in History
The GW Hatchet, official newspaper of the George Washington Law School in Washington, D.C., reports that the school’s admissions committee had looked to increase the average LSAT score of the incoming class, but ended up with a class having the highest undergraduate GPA than ever before.

4. Ask the Right People for Your Recommendations
Ann Levine at US News gives more advice on how length of time and depth of relationship should help determine who writes your law school recommendations. Levine also mentions an LSAC online evaluation form of which all applicants should make note.

5. Law School Apps Up, Fewer Graduate to Legal Jobs
Crain’s Detroit discusses how this outcome may be the result of business-oriented students padding their resumes with law school/legal experience. Many law school grads are taking alternative routes post-JD, but are these routes voluntary or a last resort?

6. Affirmative Action: How Far Have We Come?

This NPR report examines affirmative action’s effects on applicants to every school and if the policy should still stand.

7. Copywriting Fashion: Who Gains?
New York Senator Chuck Schumer is proposing a copywriting law on fashion designs, but will this benefit or harm the industry? Moreover, what designs are truly unique these days? Read this New York Times post to find out more.

8. Their Day in Court
The BP oil spill has raised awareness of laws protecting animals in various circumstances. Read more about it in this article from the ABA Journal.

9. Law Firms Trying a Different Path to China
Law.com talks about how American law firms have developed a formula for building relationships in the Chinese market and are aiming to make a large impact in intellectual property law in the east.

10. Public Sours On Health Care Reform as Midterm Looms

Favor for health care reform has fallen drastically in the past few months. According to The Kaiser Health Tracking Poll, support for reform dropped from 50% to 43% in August. Opposition rose to 45%. Read more about it in this Politico article.

Remember to follow KnewtonLSAT on Twitter for more LSAT and law school updates!

Related posts:

1. Law School News Roundup from Knewton LSAT
2. Knewton Video: Intro to Law School and the LSAT (Part 1)
3. College News Roundup from Knewton SAT

Without further ado, here’s this week’s list:

1. Can You Really Go To Law School?

Ann Levine’s post in US News is a reality check for those applying to law school.  Important tip: Make sure you get your LSAT prep done and score well!

2. Yoo Comes Under Fire (Again) at Berkeley Law

You can always count on UC Berkeley to start the law school year off in a big way.  This article from the Wall Street Journal explains that protesters gathered to call for Yoo’s ousting because of his policies on torture.

3. “A Big Ponzi Scheme”: More on the Ire Directed Toward Law Schools

This Wall Street Journal blog post discusses how some law school students are equating their education to a scheme, while schools explain that other options aside from working at law firms are possibilities for post-law school employment.

4. Stanford Law School Reaches for Yale’s Crown

Stanford wants to dethrone Yale’s top spot as the #1 law school in America.  By snagging Yale Law professor, John Donahue, can Stanford take the honors?

5. Young Lawyers Turn to Public Service

A win-win situation: making the best of the recession with volunteer and non-profit opportunities before joining law firms.  This article from the New York Times sheds light on how some law school students are embracing a wide array of public interest options that they may have never considered before.

6. Unemployed JD

Will a hunger strike to protest being unemployed after law school get you a job?  Featured in the Huffington Post, this article explains how protester Ethan Haines is hoping that law schools will become more honest about graduate employment numbers in the future.

7.  Law School Admissions Timeline

This US News piece is a must-have for everyone applying to law school this year.  Timing is everything and planning ahead will make your law school application process go as smoothly as possible.

8. Is Law School A Wise Investment?

This piece from the National Jurist discusses if law school is worth the cost these days.  Is the solution fewer law schools or decreasing tuition?  Read more to find out.

9.  The Summer Before Your First Year of Law School

Gearing up for law school?  Here’s a list from About.com to help you assuage those pre-1L jitters.  Make sure you’re armed and ready with a sound laptop and all of the books you need for your first classes.

10. Orientation Under Way for UMass Law School’s First Class

Read more at The Herald News about how and why several students chose to become part of the inaugural class at UMass School of Law – Dartmouth.

Be sure to follow KnewtonLSAT on Twitter for more updates in the law field!

Related posts:

1. Law School News Roundup from Knewton LSAT
2. College News Roundup from Knewton SAT
3. Knewton Video: Intro to Law School and the LSAT (Part 1)

…Will they “like” what they see?

Meghan Daniels is the Associate Editor at Knewton.

In a strange way, applying to law school is a little like being accused of a crime.

Admissions committees will scrutinize your past actions, future intentions, and ulterior motives as rigorously as any jury or judge. Your recommenders will be called to vouch for you like witnesses on the stand. And much like any good prosecutor, the admissions representatives at Competitive Dream Law School X will do everything in their power to ensure that no “guilty” (read: undeserving) party gains admission to their esteemed institution.

Let me guess what you’re thinking: But I’ve already written a killer application essay. My undergrad grades are top-notch. I annihilated the LSAT. What could go wrong? It’s all up to fate now.

Not quite:

Even if you have the perfect application package (and if so—congratulations are in order), try thinking like your future defense-attorney self. This isn’t the 19th century; gone is the age of “hospitality” and “manners,” when people welcomed perfect strangers into their homes for cookies and tea. This is the Internet age, the era of disconnection and disaffection, and law enthusiasts are savvy enough not to take things at face value.

So if your personal statement gushes about a year spent volunteering at countless Russian orphanages, don’t expect the admissions committee at Competitive Dream Law School X to automatically believe you. On the contrary, expect them to scour your Facebook pictures for pictures of you frolicking with the kids. And if instead, they find evidence of you downing shots of Petrov with Russian submarine captains—expect to kiss your almost-spot at Competitive Dream Law School X goodbye.

It’s an extreme example, yes, but you can guess where we’re going with this. Today’s law school professors, administrators, and admissions representatives aren’t Luddites. In fact, most of them are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google aficionados—or at least have the know-how to use social networking tools to their advantage. With a click of the mouse, admissions committees can unearth unsavory biographical details and blurry late-night party shots they’d never have had access to a decade ago.

So, unless you want the Dean of Harvard Law to see you doing keg-stands on the quad—clean up your online footprint!

“We are constantly Googling, Facebooking, and searching Blogger.com and other sites for applicants,” says Karen DeMeola, an admissions officer at the University of Connecticut Law School. It’s a good idea to search for yourself in various online forums. DeMeola’s advice: “Untag yourself from all those ‘every day is St. Patrick’s Day’ photos.”

And certainly don’t give schools a reason to muckrake. “We don’t research students as a rule,” says Nate Kenyon, Director of Marketing and Communications at Boston Law School, “but if there was cause for concern… we would look around.” So, “be professional, be patient, and be respectful” in your correspondence, Kenyon advises. “Technology allows for communication with admissions to be easier and faster, but it can cause problems if a prospective student is aggressive or persistent, firing off an email without thinking.” One Temple University admissions officer recalls coming across an email that addressed the Director of Admission as, simply, “Hey!” An amateur move like that might not be the end of the world—but it definitely won’t tip the scales in your favor.

Lawyers are expected to exude professionalism; you might as well begin now. If your current email address is sumbooty@email.com or angelcutiehoneyXO@wahoo.com, change it. Extricate yourself from embarrassing blogs or picture-sharing sites. Keep in mind that law school applications are designed to reveal more about you than undergraduate applications. Law schools are scouring applications for the best possible future lawyers—i.e. they’re looking not only for people with high GPAs and LSAT scores, but also for people with solid character traits and enough common sense to moderate a responsible, professional social presence.

Fortunately for all of us, though, technology isn’t all doom and gloom. Online social networks have also opened up new opportunities for communication and control. Many law schools have vibrant Facebook communities that applicants can “visit” for a first-hand view into the content and tone of conversations on-campus. Elizabeth Schmalz, Director of Communications at Columbia Law School, notes that the Columbia Facebook page “is pretty active. It’s a community-building space for us, aimed primarily at our alumni. But it also offers a way for people to drop in on the Columbia law community and start to make their own connections, especially since it’s not always easy to people to get here.”

Be careful not to cause too much of a stir on law-school forums or Facebook communities, though. In fact, it’s probably best to “lurk”—at least until you’ve gained one of the coveted first-year spots at Competitive Dream Law School X. After all, you never know how your comments—no matter how seemingly uncontroversial—might be interpreted.

Related posts:

1. LSAT Logical Reasoning in Real Life: Facebook “Friends”
2. Future lawyer? Take our Facebook quiz
3. Announcing the winner of our Alumni Hall of Fame Contest on Facebook

Many of our Knewton students are heading back to school at the end of August. Over the next three months, Knewton will be, too!

Knewton’s campus outreach gurus (that’s Kristy and me, Natalie) are hitting the road and visiting over 40 colleges from August to November.

Why the cross-country campus trip? Easy  answer: frat parties and to dominate in beer pong. But seriously, we’re venturing out to connect with pre-law students across the country and to spread the word about how awesome Knewton is.

Since we didn’t attend any of the schools we’re visiting, we need your help! If you have any recommendations of where to go and what to see, we’d love to hear them. Favorite pizza place? Tell us about it! Got an urban legend on your campus? We want to find out if it’s the real deal! If we take one of your suggestions, we’ll even throw in one of the awesome t-shirts we are proudly wearing below.

Check out our tour page to see where we’ll be, and leave your suggestions in the comments.

Thanks, and we’ll see you on campus!

- Natalie & Kristy

Related posts:

1. Knewton peeps: Alvin Hough on tour with Dreamgirls, hanging with Halle Berry
2. College Admissions Tip: Three Mantras to Make the Most of Your Campus Visit
3. Save the Date: Knewton Student Homecoming Party, August 12

So if assumptions aren’t stated outright in arguments on the LSAT, how are you supposed to identify them in Assumption questions? Here are the steps you should take first.

Take this simple argument as an example:

James cannot go to the store because his car is in the repair shop.

In this argument, the author says two things explicitly:

1. James cannot go to the store.
2. James’ car is in the repair shop.

As always, your first step should be to identify the conclusion of the argument. What point is the author trying to convince us of? The fact that James cannot go to the store.

Next, identify what is stated in the author’s reasoning. Most people who make arguments on the LSAT (and in real life) offer some sort of support for their claims. We call this stated support “evidence.”

To find the evidence, ask yourself: Why should we believe what the author’s telling us? According to this author, why can’t James go to the store? Because his car is in the shop.

So we would outline the stated argument like so:

Evidence: James’ car is in the repair shop.
Conclusion: James cannot go to the store.

Now let’s start thinking about the author’s assumptions. Assumptions are ideas that the author has not stated outright, but nevertheless must be true in order for the author’s conclusion to hold water.

In the most general terms, the assumption in the author’s argument is this:

James’ car being in the shop automatically means that James cannot go to the store.

Notice: The author never said that idea outright, but it’s the idea that’s central to the author’s argument. When she makes the claim that James won’t be able to go to the store, she’s assuming that his car is the only thing that can get him there.

A number of specific assumptions in the argument could fall under this general idea. Things like:

James cannot successfully take public transit to the store.
James cannot successfully ride a bike to the store.

Or, the assumption could be thought of a little more generally:

James cannot successfully travel to the store via some means other than his car.

So you see, even a simple argument may contain multiple ideas that the author takes for granted: ideas that she does not state outright, but that must be true in order for her conclusion to be true. These are assumptions.

Now, just for fun, let’s imagine an argument where the author spells everything out. Something like this:

James cannot go to the store, because his car is in the shop and whenever James’ car is in the shop it is impossible for James to go to the store.

This argument is logically stronger than the first because the author has taken the time to explicitly lay down each step of her argument. She now has two pieces of evidence. We would outline her argument as:

Evidence: James’ car is in the repair shop.
Evidence: When James’ car is in the shop, it is impossible for James to go to the store.
Conclusion: James cannot go to the store.

Notice how strong this argument is? When trying to build a strong argument (which you’ll need to do in law school and your legal career!), it’s always best to spell out each logical step of the argument. Think of the explicitly stated pieces of evidence as stepping stones that lead you all the way to the conclusion.

Conversely, when you are trying to attack an argument (on the LSAT and as a lawyer), look for ideas that have not been explicitly stated but that are necessary to your opponents’ arguments. Point out these assumptions and you’ll prove your logical supremacy in no time.

Related posts:

1. LSAT Logical Reasoning in Real Life: Facebook “Friends”
2. LSAT Logical Reasoning in Real Life: The Emmy Awards
3. New GMAT Section Announced: Integrated Reasoning – Sample Question Here!

Two years ago, I attended an informal panel at Google featuring nine or ten in-house attorneys who were kind enough to share stories about their law school experiences and general advice. They all came from different backgrounds and had varying perspectives on law school – some loved it, some hated it, some had blocked it out of their memories.

What caught my attention, though, was that they unanimously agreed on one thing: They either wished they had waited a few years after college to attend law school or were extremely thankful that they had. Working as a paralegal, I had the opportunity to talk to a lot of lawyers of all stripes – Big Law, public interest, company in-house – and everyone (this word should raise a red flag on the LSAT, but in this case it’s meant honestly) had the same advice for prelaw college students:

WAIT.

Even law school admissions officers offer the same wisdom. As quoted in Richard Montauk’s How to Get Into the Top Law Schools, NYU’s Irene Dorzback states it best: “If all the top law schools agreed not to accept applicants unless they had three-plus years of experience, it would probably work out better for everyone.” In fact, some top law schools are doing just that. Northwestern’s School of Law all but requires post-college work experience, with 98% of their entering students having one or more years of a full-time job under their belts.

It is virtually impossible to understand the “real world” without substantial work experience. It’s unfortunately not something that can be experienced vicariously. As one of the Google attorneys succinctly put it, “You just don’t know who you are and what you want out of your job until you’ve worked for more than a summer or two and had to pay rent.” That type of self-knowledge is rarely achieved by the age of 22. And yet, each year, anywhere between one and two thirds of entering law school students come directly from undergrad. These young men and women aren’t stupid; they represent some of the brightest minds of their generation. But sadly many are there for the wrong reasons.

Here are 5 things to consider when you’re making your decision:

1. A JD is a technical degree

A law degree prepares you to be a lawyer or someone intimately connected with the legal practice. Period. The true multipurpose degree is a BA or BS, which is what makes college such a valuable experience, or perhaps an MBA, which very often does offer skills that are transferable to a number of careers. (A word to the wise: If you’re using phrases like “universal degree” to justify getting a JD, law school is not for you.)

2. Law school teaches you how to be a lawyer, not just how to think

“Learning how to think” was what the last eight years were about. If you’ve made it all the way through high school and college and still don’t know how to learn or think, another three years probably won’t make much of a difference.

3. Not all legal whizzes go straight to law school

Two words: Barack Obama. Post-Columbia, Barry worked for two years in New York, then spent three years serving as a community organizer in Chicago before finally deciding to attend law school at Harvard. Other famous law graduates who waited a year or two before studying law include John Adams (who worked as an elementary school teacher), Bill Clinton (Rhodes Scholar), Stephen Breyer (Marshall Scholar), and Elena Kagan (Master’s at Oxford). Admissions officer Monica Ingram from the University of Texas promises, “There is absolutely not a penalty for waiting some years after graduating college to apply.”

4. Legally Blonde is slightly misleading

Law school is a good deal more challenging than it seems on TV, and attorneys aren’t always crusading for justice like Atticus Finch. To see if you’re merely drawn into the glamour or prestige of calling yourself a “lawyer,” try this mental exercise: simply replace the word “lawyer,” with all its cultural baggage, with another title. If the job were called “word accountant,” or “trial attendant,” or “case pleader,” would you still be as interested? If  so, great! You’re genuinely excited about the law. If not, you should strongly examine your motivation for going to law school (note: this exercise also works for “doctor”).

5. You always have options

Many students rush to law school right out of college because they don’t know what else to do. The irony is that at the time of college graduation you can do almost anything except practice law. Only a handful of jobs require an advanced degree, whereas a vast array of positions require either a bachelor’s and/or previous work experience. It’s true that a liberal arts major may not lead to a specific career, but that open-endedness should provide a sense of freedom, not panic.

Granted, the years after graduation can be a frightening, and sometimes even painful, experience. But they also provide the best time to discover who you are and what you want to do with the rest of your life. You may indeed find that practicing law is exactly what you want, and that conviction will make you both a more focused law school student and a better attorney. When you walk through those hallowed ivy covered gates, you’ll do so with an air of maturity and wisdom. As Rick Geiger of Cornell says, “It’s never a bad idea to take time off before law school. We’ll still be here, and a legal career lasts for a very long time, so there’s no need to rush.”

Related posts:

1. Our (admittedly mild) April Fools’ joke on our students
2. Law school admissions tip: Banish common, boring openings
3. Grad school or Peace Corps? You can do both.

Question:

This year, both “Mad Men” and “LOST” have been nominated for Emmy Awards in the category of Best Dramatic Television Series. Nielsen ratings, which have proven to be accurate indicators of a show’s popularity, have been compiled for each series. Although the majority of critics prefer “Mad Men” to “LOST,” “LOST” has consistently garnered higher ratings than “Mad Men” on the Nielsen scale. Since a show with a more loyal fan base is more likely to win an Emmy, we can predict with some certainty that “LOST” is more likely than “Mad Men” to receive the Award this year.

The argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it

A) presumes, without providing justification, that critics’ preferences are rarely accurate predictors of  Emmy success
B) fails to distinguish between a show’s popularity and the loyalty of its fan base
C) fails to consider whether shows with fan bases less loyal than those of their competitors have won Emmy Awards in previous years
D) takes for granted that the opinions of a majority of critics have not influenced the Nielsen ratings of either show this year
E) fails to consider the possibility that a show with a more loyal fan base is not of superior quality

Think you have it? View the full explanation after the jump.

Explanation:

This question asks you to identify a particular or specific flaw inherent in the argument’s line of reasoning. Usually, these arguments exhibit the same basic flaw: They fail to link the evidence properly to the conclusion. When you’re searching for faulty connections, keep track of the following:

1) the consistency of the language (does the argument assume that “freedom” means one thing in the evidence and something else in the conclusion?)
2) any information involving numbers or percentages (does the argument confuse “50%” with “50 people”?)
3) the scope of the argument (if the argument is about precipitation in Indonesia, is information about rainfall in Iceland really relevant?)

Now, let’s take a look at the sample question.

The argument reasons that because “LOST” has received higher Nielsen ratings than “Mad Men,” it must be more popular; the argument then concludes — based on this information — that “LOST” has a more loyal fan base and that it is therefore more likely to win an Emmy this year.

As you might notice, this argument uses inconsistent language like that described in #1 above: The evidence shows that “LOST” is more popular than “Mad Men,” which likely means that it has a larger fan base — but not necessarily a more loyal one. In other words, the argument “fails to distinguish between a show’s popularity and the loyalty of its fan base” (Choice B). Since the Emmy win is based on the loyalty of the fan base, and since we have no way of knowing which show has more loyal fans, the prediction in the conclusion cannot be made.

Choice B is correct.

A) presumes, without providing justification, that critics’ preferences are rarely accurate predictors of Emmy success

This is a flaw, but the argument does not commit it. The argument makes no claim about how often critics’ preferences can be used to predict Emmy wins; it merely suggests that, in this case, the majority of critics have expressed preference for a show (“Mad Men”) that will most likely lose. In that it refers to critics’ preferences outside of the year in question, this choice moves beyond the scope of the argument.

C) fails to consider whether shows with fan bases less loyal than those of their competitors have won Emmy Awards in previous years

The argument does indeed fail to consider this point, but this is not a flaw; the argument does not need to take the outcomes of “previous years” into account. Again, such information would fall outside the scope of the argument.

D) takes for granted that the opinions of a majority of critics have not influenced the Nielsen ratings of either show

It would be a flaw to make this assumption, but the argument does not make it. It is given that the Nielsen ratings for “LOST” are higher than those for “Mad Men,” and that is the information that the argument uses to reach its conclusion. Whether the Nielsen ratings themselves are a product of critics’ influence or publicity stunts or recession-based fluctuations in television-consumption, all that matters is that the final numbers show “LOST” to be the more popular show.

E) fails to consider the possibility that a show with a more loyal fan base is not of superior quality

It’s true that the argument does not account for this possibility, but it does not need to. Is it necessary to the argument that a show with a more loyal fan base be of superior quality? Well, neither the evidence nor the conclusion mentions quality as a criterion for an Emmy win. So, according to the information given, a lower-quality show with a more loyal fan base could very well win the Award.

Related posts:

1. LSAT Logical Reasoning in Real Life: Facebook “Friends”
2. How to identify assumptions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning section
3. SAT vocab in real life

Knewton students attend class from all over the world, but on Thursday, August 12 they can come to us!

If you’re in the NYC area later this summer, drop by our Student Homecoming Party at the Knewton office. Past, present, and future Knewton students are welcome.

Just RSVP below so we know you’re coming. We’d love to see you there!

Knewton Homecoming Party
Thursday, August 12, 7-9:30pm EDT
19 Union Square West, 12th Floor
New York, NY 10003

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Facebook Publicist: Facebook is a social networking website that allows people to connect with—or “befriend”—one another through a variety of online means that includes video-sharing, the posting of personal status updates, and the exhibition of private collections of photographs. The Facebook philosophy exploits the findings of a recent survey that has proven conclusively that humans have a pathological need to connect to as many other humans as possible. The same survey also showed that, despite the implications of the preceding statement, people tend to avoid maintaining real-life (non-online) friendships because of the gross demands these real-life friendships place on their time and lifestyle. In light of this information, we expect people to maintain friendships on Facebook that they otherwise would not maintain in real life.

Which one of the following is an assumption required by the publicist’s argument?

A) The cited survey included a large majority of the internet population.
B) People often maintain Facebook friendships for business networking purposes, even when they would not cultivate such relationships in real life.
C) In real life, people’s flaws are often more apparent than they seem on Facebook.
D) A Facebook friendship is less time-consuming and interruptive of lifestyle than a real-life friendship.
E) The availability of a variety of interesting features makes people more likely to spend time communicating with their friends on Facebook than they would in real life.

Think you have it? Check out the answer and full explanation after the jump.

Explanation:

Always read the question stem first; that way you’ll know what to look for when you’re tackling the prompt. Words like “required,” “depends on,” or “relies on” tell you that you’re dealing with a necessary assumption question (where the assumption has to be true for the argument to be valid) instead of a sufficient assumption question (where the assumption completes the argument).

Here, the publicist argues that people’s innate need for companionship and their simultaneous avoidance of “gross demands…on their time and lifestyle” encourages them to maintain relationships on Facebook (online) that they would not maintain in real life (non-online).

This conclusion depends on the fact that Facebook friendships require fewer demands on “time and lifestyle” than do real-life friendships. If this were not the case, then the link between the evidence and the conclusion would not hold: according to the “time and lifestyle” theory, people would likely avoid the constant updating and posting required to maintain online friendships as much as they would maintaining real ones.

Choice D seems to be the best answer at first glance. It establishes that Facebook friendships aren’t as time-consuming to maintain as real-life ones, which makes the publicist’s conclusion seem very plausible. To be sure, test the other answer choices to make sure none of them is a required assumption.

For necessary assumptions, you can do one basic thing to see if an answer is wrong: Pretend for a moment that its proposed assumption is not true, and see if the conclusion still holds. If it does, then the assumption is not necessary (since the argument can stand without it).

A) The cited survey included a large majority of the internet population.

Even if the survey did not “include a large majority of the internet population,” it might have polled people who were perfectly representative of the internet population at large. This assumption protects against the idea of an unrepresentative sample, but it’s not required for the argument to be valid.

B) People often maintain Facebook friendships for business networking purposes, even when they would not cultivate such relationships in real life.

The publicist’s argument can still hold even if no single person were to maintain a Facebook friendship for business networking purposes. There may be enough people who maintain those friendships to overcome self-esteem problems or to satisfy some compulsive need to inform 482 of their acquaintances about their choice of restaurant for the conclusion to be valid. Business networking is not part of the argument, so this choice introduces an irrelevant topic.

C) In real life, people’s flaws are often more apparent than they seem on Facebook.

It’s unclear how a friend’s personal flaws factor into “gross demands…on time and lifestyle.” Though experience might have you believe that desperate, tearful phone calls or relentless snobbery constitute personal affronts to your peace of mind, this choice does not explicitly make the connection that a friend’s personal flaws will eat up your time and inhibit your lifestyle. This choice deals with a term similar (“personal flaws”) but not equivalent to “demands on time and lifestyle.”

E) The availability of a variety of interesting features makes people more likely to spend time communicating with their friends on Facebook than they would in real life.

Not only is this assumption unnecessary, it also actively weakens the publicist’s argument. Time spent sending private messages, filming and sharing embarrassing videos, or devising clever updates on Facebook would only infringe further upon a person’s “time and lifestyle”—maybe even more so than a real-life friendship. Thus, this assumption undermines the entire point of the argument; it presents an assumption opposite to that which is required.

Answer:

The answer is D. The publicist assumes that a Facebook friendship is less time-consuming and interruptive of lifestyle than a real-life friendship.

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2. How to identify assumptions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning section
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Did you miss Part 1 of Knewton’s Introduction to Law School and the LSAT video?

Grappling with the law school admissions process, or want to learn more about what law school is really like? Check out Part 2 of Knewton’s Introduction to Law School and the LSAT series, in which Kristen Kennedy (one of Knewton’s top-notch LSAT teachers) discusses the law school curriculum, as well as the elements of a successful law school application.

Fuzzy on what the case method or Socratic method is? Kristen explains how a law school classroom is a bit different from an undergrad lecture, and also gives you a sneak peek into some of the classes you can expect to see on your schedule during your 1L year. She also gives a run-down of the activities you’ll be able to get involved in at school.

For those of you who don’t want to look that far ahead, Kristen also touches on the important elements of your law school application, and how best to present yourself to admissions committees. How can you give law schools what they’re looking for?

Here at Knewton, we understand that the prospect of law school, and the law school admissions process, can be overwhelming. Kristen breaks it all down into easy-to-understand parts, to make sure you’re not clueless come Day 1 of school!

Related posts:

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