Chap 12: Red Flags Flashcards
Red Flags: Best way
Best Way is the best precisely because it is so the worst. It’s a prevalent incorrect answer, falling into the mediocre middle of our Powerful-Provable Spectrum. Why is it so bad? Best Way has two things that are dangerous on their own but deadly when combined: superlatives and value judgments. This combination os what renders Best Way neither powerful nor provable.
Here are a few examples of how Best Way and its keywords look:
- The best way to milk a cow is to shout at it.
- The least harmful method for digging a ditch is harmonizing with your friends.
- The most efficient way to remedy the budget is to increase spending.
Best Way is not powerful.
- Deeming something “best” isn’t powerful when we don’t know why it’s the best. The reason its the nest is what would make the answer powerful. Powerful Answers are specific, concrete, and applicable to the stimulus. Best Way is none of those things.
Best Way is not provable.
- Best way claims something is superior to literally every other option; a claim that extreme has a ton of potential Loopholes to account for. It’s really hard to prove.
Best Way has a few friends to be cautious about as well: the Best Way keywords. They’re all constructed like this {superlative} + {vaule judgment}. Keep in mind, this list of keywords is not exhaustive. The {superlative} + {vaule judgcombinations are virtually endless
A Few Best Way Keywords
- Most effective
- Most efficient
- least harmful
- least damaging
Red Flag: Important
Important is the squishiest faker out there. Arguments are built and built and destroyed with facts, and Important has nothing to do with facts; it’s a vague adjective. Just like with Best Way, we don’t know why this thing is being labeled important, and those reasons are what could be powerful or provable. This lands Important traded in the middle of our Powerful-Provable Spectrum. Basically, don’t choose Important unless you have a good reason.
Important is not powerful.
- Just calling something important isn’t powerful. To be powerful, we need the facts behind why the thing is important. Cool it with the judgments.
Important is not provable.
- Important is too vague to be provable. There’s no universal definition of what makes something “important,” meaning we can’t really prove anything “important” without a ton of specific stimulus ammunition.
A few Important Keywords:
- Primary
- Imperative
- primarily
- Paramount
- formost
- signoficant
- cruial
- pressing
- critial
- vitial
Red Flag: Crazy Nonsense
Crazy Nonsense is exactly what it sounds like: crazy and nonsense. The subject of Crazy Nonsense is never mentioned in the stimulus. They make you think, “What? This has nothing to do with anything.” Crazy Nonsense is the easiest answer choice to get rid of, if you accept the fact that the LSAT will purposefully put stupid things in the answer choices (you should accept this because they (you should accept this because they (definitely do) Their craziness is neither powerful nor provable.
Crazy Nosnesense is not powerful.
- You have to target the stimulus to be powerful. Crazy Nonsense is out of left field; it’s not doing what a Powerful Question needs.
Crazy Nonsense is not provable.
- Provability requires a firm stimulus link. This is exactly what Crazy Nonsense doesn’t have.
Red Flag: Grouped Extreme
Grouped Extremes talk about the best/worst part of the group from the stimulus. They say, “A small part of the group referred to in the stimulus has this quality.” But we unconsciously cut Grouped Extremes a lot more slack than we would give to this phrasing. Why? Because extremes sound important. In real life, we pay attention to the people who are the best/worst at something. On the LSAT you have to protect against this tendency. Here’s how Grouped Extremes look:
Grouped Extremes:
- The boxers who punch the hardest
- The boxers with the fewest block
- The best boxers in the league
Grouped Extremes are not powerful
- The best/worst part of any group is necessarily a small part of that group. Assigning a characteristic a small part of that group. Assigning a characteristic to an outlier doesn’t necessarily affect anything else in the group. Powerful Answer affect the stimulus, which isn’t in the cards for Grouped Extreme.
Grouped Extremes are not provable:
- Provable Answers find direct support in the stimulus. Since Grouped Extremes are about a necessarily small (and unrepresentative) part of the stimulus, they are super tough to prove.
Red Flag: Allllllmost.
In your heart of hearts, you know that one word in Alllllmost is wrong. It’s not non-ideal; it’s WRONG. It shouldn’t be there, but the rest of the answer choice looks so good that you still want to choose. Allllllmost is an especially enticing option of none of the other answer choices looks particularly good. However, the word that you know is wrong renders the rest of the answer choice neither powerful nor provable.
Alllllmost is not powerful.
- The one wrong throws Alllllmost off its target, neutralizing any power it would have had otherwise.
Allllmost is not provable.
- Its impossible to prove that one wrong word in Alllmost, so the whole answer choice becomes impossible to prove. you have to be able to prove the entire answer for it to be a provable option.
Every single word in the correct answer has to be passable. You cant take take an average on an answer that is 95% great and 5% completely wrong and call it pretty good. That 95-5 answer is out 100% of the time. Choose an inoffensive mediocre-sounding answer over an Allllllllllmost.
Alllllmost illustrates the importance of reading and considering every answer in its entirety before choosing it or crossing it off. Many student consider the beginning or end of an answer choice more than its other half; this leads to avoidable errors. One word at the end (or beginning) can tank an answer’s chances. There are no “important part” of answer choices. The entire answer is the most important part.
Red Flag: Opposite Claim:
Opposite Calim negates the conclusion of the stimulus and characterizes that negation. It’s little more complicated than the other Red Flags, which is why it’s slightly closer to the powerful side of The Complete Powerful-Provable Spectrum. But opposite Claim is still dangerous on most questions. Check out a couple examples.
Conclusion:
- The land baron should be fined.
Opposite claim
- Land barons should not be fined for mistreating their underlings.
Conclusion:
- Therefore Theodore is a liar.
Opposite Claim:
- People are not liars when we cannot incontrovertibly prove their ideas false.
Opposite claim can be powerful on Weaken and Counter…. It just doest happen often.
- Since Opposite Claim is about the opposite of the conclusion, it’s hard to choose on mist Powerful Questions.
- That said, Opposite Claim is powerful when you want you want to prove the opposite of the conclusion. It can be ideal in really simple Weaken and Counter questions.
Opposite Claim is not provable.
- You cant prove anything about the world where the opposite of the conclusion is true. That’s not the world you have information about. Claim is an especially bad idea on Principle Conform.
Red Flag: Dormant Conditionals
47Red Flag: Comparatives & Absolutes:
Strong Answer: Powerful Answer
Powerful Answer: Stepladder
Powerful Answer: Powerful Conditionals.
Powerful Answer: Grouped Opposite.
Provable Answer: Weak Answers.
Provable Conditionals: Provable Conditionals
