126 comments

  • Saturday, Apr 11

    I don't understand how we can assume that the doubling in speed that occurred during the mid-1990s was also achieved by doubling transistors. Therefore, we can't be certain doubling cost accompanied doubling transistors. What if they developed a different way to speed up a chip's computing speed (besides doubling transistors)? That explanation would also align with the sudden onset in rising costs in the mid-1990's, too. Is the wording/grammar of "each SUCH doubling in a microchip's computing speed" supposed to indicate that the doubling was achieved in the same way?

    3
  • Tuesday, Mar 31

    Whyyyyy do I get the level 5s right and the easier ones wrong

    9
  • Edited Yesterday

    I cannot understand how he is right when he says "Each time there was a doubling in cost, oh, look, there was a doubling in the number of transistors in those chips. ya that must be true." when explaining D.

    This feels like he's committed the "most classic trap". The only information he has is that a doubling of transistors means a doubling of cost, not the doubling of cost means the doubling of transistors. He gets the problem right but seems to explain it wrong.

    5
    Kevin_Lin Instructor
    Wednesday, Mar 25

    @JohnYule Yeah, you're right there is a mis-speak in that moment. What he means is that each time there was a doubling in speed, there was a doubling in cost. Which is why we can say that a doubling in cost "accompanied" (meaning, happened along with) a doubling in speed.

    5
    Tuesday, Mar 31

    @JohnYule I thought the same thing, but I don't think this is making a conditional statement more like a biconditional but even then, I didn't see it like that at first. I spent like 30 seconds thinking about it but "accompanied" didn't trigger necessity or sufficiency in my mind so I understood it as the two things (doubling transistors and doubling cost) to be affected simultaneously. Almost like a graph with an x axis and y axis. Its explained better in the last 2 minutes of the video.

    2
  • Wednesday, Mar 18

    Help? Can some explain to me why and how are we able to (or allowed to) assume that the subset of mid-1990's subset falls into the "for several decades" superset? Isn't it possible that there is no overlap in time period? Can't "for several decades" refer to the 1920's? Am I missing something here?

    2
    Saturday, Mar 21

    @CL10235 Hi, the grammar indicates that the "several decades" is the most recent several decades through the use of "has". If the statement said "For several decades, microchip speed doubled", we wouldn't really know whether this group of decades happened in the early 20th century or in the LAST few decades. But when they say "For several decades, microchip speed HAS doubled", we know that it refers to the last few decades.

    Said differently (online source): "The difference between "has done" (present perfect) and "did" (simple past/past done) lies in the relationship of the action to the present moment. "Has done" links a past action to the present (result, experience, or recent completion), while "did" indicates a completed action at a specific time in the past with no necessary connection to the present."

    2
  • Sunday, Mar 8

    YAY!! First time I've been under the time limit and got it right!

    2
  • Friday, Feb 27

    yayay got it right and was only 5 seconds over the time frame! :)

    2
  • Tuesday, Jan 27

    Thank you, Chip War.

    2
  • Sunday, Jan 25

    Such an easy question, but took me 12 min, and did not comprehend, that the doubling of the cost after the mid 1990s, was not a one off occurrence. Its been 6 hours, time to log off.

    8
  • Saturday, Jan 24

    I got this one right, but my timing is very high like almost 4 minutes more than the expected time, but I am finally feeling way way better about this exam!

    3
  • Wednesday, Jan 21

    how are we supposed to distinguish between answers that restate evidence (that are incorrect) and then answers that restate the passage that are correct? Can that be inferred from the question type?

    2
    Monday, Mar 2

    @AlexHaro Well, if you have a "properly inferred" question, then a restatement of content in the premise would certainly be the correct answer. However, if the question is "what is the conclusion" then any part of the premise in an answer that is not the conclusion would be wrong. So short answer, yes.

    2
  • Thursday, Jan 15

    This was such an obvious answer, but I selected C because I thought I was being thrown a curveball. Smh.

    6
    Wednesday, Feb 11

    @ElliotRosin This is so relatable. I keep overthinking these questions.

    2
  • Monday, Jan 12

    #help

    Re: D, why isn't it possible that the price could've doubled without the speed/transistors doubling? Couldn't there have been other reasons, at intervals other than 18 months?

    I sort of get that the word "accompanied" is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here, but when JY draws the bi-conditional it destroys my understanding of the relationship.

    1
    Friday, Jan 23

    @bappel In a MBT question we have to take the stimulus as true so in this case D says exactly what the stimulus said. The stimulus said that from the 1990s into the next decade a doubling in a microchip's computing speed was accompanied by a doubling cost of producing that microchip. So if we take that to be true like we're supposed to on Must Be True questions, D says the same thing just in the opposite way. Instead of saying that a doubling in a microchip's computing speed was accompanied by a doubling cost of producing said microchip, D says that a doubling in fabrication of the microchip was accompanied by a doubling in transistors which equates to computing speeds because from my interpretation they're dependent or necessary on each other, computing speed doubled, transistors doubled and vice versa. Hope that helped!

    2
  • Saturday, Dec 27, 2025

    I though D was a mistaken reversal until BR where I noticed "accompanied each"... I need to slow down.

    3
  • Wednesday, Oct 1, 2025

    Does anyone else sometiems feel llike they dont see all the questions until they retake or do blind review? D is so clearly the answer but i dont remember seeing it before i went back to review.

    23
    Friday, Oct 3, 2025

    @Sunday_Blues13 100%

    1
    Friday, Dec 12, 2025

    @Sunday_Blues13 Totally, it's insane that I didn't spot it before.

    1
  • Wednesday, Sep 24, 2025

    I got this one right and under time..yay.

    13
  • Monday, Sep 15, 2025

    Am I the only one who thought that fabricating in question D meant creating fake versions of microchips. With that definition in mind i felt like the passage didn't say anything about making fake chips so i just guessed.

    10
    Sunday, Oct 5, 2025

    @SoluObiorah yes

    2
    Friday, Dec 12, 2025

    @SoluObiorah That's exactly why I didn't choose D.

    3
  • Saturday, Aug 30, 2025

    got it right! 30 seconds over but regardless ... interesting how im doing better on these latter questions than the first, a good sign lol

    7
  • Edited Sunday, Nov 9, 2025

    i cant believe i was cooking on the first few questions in this module and now i'm getting all of them wrong lmao

    29
  • Saturday, Jul 19, 2025

    Would C be right if they asked for a hypothesis

    1
    Tuesday, Dec 23, 2025

    @spoon Not necessarily. For c to be correct the stimulus should imply something about engineers or cost containment. If it did, it would be correct for an assumption question

    2
  • Monday, Jun 9, 2025

    I was down to C and D and chose C because I felt like D simply restated the conclusion.. like how is that an inference? After the explanation, I know why I was wrong though

    6
    Wednesday, Sep 3, 2025

    @vf7965432 my guess is because it relied on outside inferences instead of whats was specifically given from the stim

    3
  • Wednesday, Jun 4, 2025

    How was anyone affording a computer from 1995 to 2005 lol????

    1
    Tuesday, Jul 1, 2025

    @lizbetharroyo423 — I think you missed the point. Nothing in the stimulus talks about the cost for the consumer. Only the cost of production. No where does the stimulus state what it costs, and even in the real world, there are times where the cost of producing a part is so low it is not passed onto the consumer.

    1
  • Monday, Apr 28, 2025

    not me getting the answer right but the blind review question wrong...am i happy about it?

    1
    Tuesday, Apr 29, 2025

    felt this

    0
    Wednesday, Jun 4, 2025

    It is okay! it shows that you need to be more confident and go with your gut. Sometimes blind review makes me question myself TOO much

    0
  • Monday, Apr 28, 2025

    #feedback "Causation v. Conditional" link is not working. I presume this video would be quite important to understand why JY applied double arrows of Lawgic in this stimulus. I've gone through all fundamentals available but cannot comprehend this piece.

    0
  • Friday, Apr 18, 2025

    Couldn't we have also used a causal chain going from 2x #t to 2x speed?

    0
  • Saturday, Mar 29, 2025

    Adding the part about the biconditional arrows only serves to confuse We can already see from the stimulus that the transistors are what cause the doubling, and it's already specified that each such doubling (which is the doubling in speed caused by the doubling in the number of tansistors) from a smaller subset of time doubles the cost. I would rather not get confused about causation and keep rules consistent.

    0
    Saturday, Jul 5, 2025

    @mszchloechen640 yeah it doesnt makes sense to make both bi-conditional if a mono-conditional relationship is used to deny AC A

    0

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