I understand why B is right, but I don't understand how D is not right. "More contagious than reported"....this would lead us to think the disease was worse than the Athenians thought...which would not weaken the argument that it "devasted Athens". Im sorry but I really question this one and I would prob complain if this was on the test, absolute nonsense. How does "actually it's worse than they thought" not straight up strengthen the claim? Of course the explanation is just "it weakens the argument" like come on man lol
it took me 8 min but i clocked the heck out of that question. 😝😝 i have the worst headache and sore throat but the grind doesn't stop. LETS GO GUYS !!!!!
Dropping my thought-process, in case it helps anyone:
For victims of a disease, the passage suggests the following conditional: hiccups → Ebola (hiccups is a symptom of Ebola only, not any other disease). Importantly, this does not mean Ebola → hiccups — that would flip sufficiency and necessity, which is a classic LSAT trap.
The passage also reinforces this by saying many — not all — epidemic victims experienced hiccups. So hiccups aren't a necessary symptom; like with any disease, it's simply one symptom that some victims may experience.
That's exactly why (B) is consistent with the passage: if hiccups aren't a necessary condition for Ebola, it makes perfect sense that some people during the epidemic didn't experience them. No contradiction there.
As for the other answer choices — if you take each one as true and work with only what the passage gives you, they each deepen the gap in the argument rather than help close it. A good way to check: does this answer choice make the conclusion easier or harder to reach? For (B), it doesn't strengthen — but it doesn't need to. All that matters here is that it doesn't weaken, and it doesn't (merely consistent with). For the others, the gap between the premises and conclusion becomes harder to close.
Because the premise said "experienced by many victims" and I saw "not all" I was lie wait-like i don't really care if not all experienced the hiccups, the argument says "many did" so that enough. Still, a really difficult quesiton
For me, option B interpreted as merely consistent with the stimulus because it states, “The hiccups experienced by many victims,” which implies that not all victims of the Ebola virus are afflicted with hiccups.
While AC B also states, “Not all of those who are victims of the Ebola virus are afflicted with hiccups,” it directly states that some victims did not experience hiccups.
Essentially, both options convey the same message: that some victims experienced hiccups, while others did not. It only restated what we were already told.
The cause of the epidemic that devastated Athens in 430 B.C. can finally be identified. Accounts of the epidemic mention the hiccups experienced by many victims, a symptom of no known disease except that caused by the recently discovered Ebola virus. Moreover, other symptoms of the disease caused by the Ebola virus are mentioned in the accounts of the Athenian epidemic.
B) Not all of those who are victims of the Ebola virus are afflicted with hiccups.
I chose B because it literally restates a premise (the one I bolded) but used different words. That doesn't strengthen or weaken the argument it just restates the premise. Every other choice either slightly or greatly weakened the argument, B does nothing, nada, zilch!
I'm still not fully understanding how the wording of E weakens the argument. As someone else pointed out, I feel like it's a very reasonable assumption to say that even if the diseases were the EXACT SAME from back then to modern day, the epidemics would be much shorter now due to sanitation, medicine, and all that good stuff. Maybe I'm misinterpreting how viruses work, but again, I feel that's a highly reasonable assumption of why they COULD be the same, just under different conditions, which would mean that it doesn't weaken the argument. I sort of understand how B could also be consistent with and not necessarily weaken the argument, but don't understand why E weakens it.
@jackghenriquez1 I took it as the 'epidemics known to have been caused by the Ebola virus' are not necessarily all modern day even if it was only discovered recently. If there was an Ebola epidemic in 430 BC Athens, then there could have been ten thousand others scientists know occurred over the last four thousand years that they now realize is Ebola, and of those most of them are usually shorter-lived than the Athenian epidemic.
@jackghenriquez1 it's because a virus like Ebola would have caused a lot of people to get very sick and die, and because those people died, they wouldn't have been able to spread the virus, thus shortening the length of the epidemic. A milder virus would have lingered.
at this point i dont see any patterns in identifying the right answer choice.
i dont know if its cause the lessons are not working for me or if its because the questions are actually hard.
i chose D thinking, how does this weaken? it doesnt do anything.
I didnt chose B because i translated that as "some victims of Ebola virus are NOT afflicted with hiccups" and that aligns with the stimulus saying "many victims of ebola mention hiccups"
if it's true that SOME mention hiccups, then SOME can NOT mention hiccups too.
correct me if my last statement is a very wrong interpretation of "some"
This is a weaken EXCEPT question, which means they all have to weaken the argument (even slightly) and one either has to strengthen it or do nothing at all to do with the argument.
A very charitable reading of C could say that strengthened the argument kinda in the way you say. "sometimes people get hiccups when they get Ebola, we have records of people sometimes getting hiccups, therefore they all have Ebola" is a weak sauce argument, but it doesn't weaken the argument. It is really just kinda consistent with what we know or irrelevant. Either way, it doesn't weaken the argument where every other answer weakens it in some way.
C is kinda like we are talking about the best baseball team ever and I just out of the blue say, 'Some of the Red Socks players use baseball gloves and the best baseball team would use gloves sometimes'. Great. yeah. that's doesn't help me prove my point at all. It is just true
@stratford.douglas I saw D as actually strengthening the argument, as the disease is more contagious than the Athenians recorded. This would mean the disease spread more, I guess as I type I can see why its the wrong answer but it def does not weaken it
B is correct because it tells us something we already know. Remember to imagine the answer choices as a verbal response to the argument. How goofy would it be for the opposition to argue, "Well, some people didn't have hiccups." After we just said that some people do experience them and X virus is the only known virus to cause that symptom
@k-step24 yeah i did the same, negated the statement --> some of those who are victims of the ebola virus are not afflicted with hiccups, and thats consistent with the premise that "hiccups experienced by MANY victims" which sounded equivalent to me.
we were told with the Goku analogy that the answer choices in weaken questions should be weakening the support that flows from premise to conclusion, rather than the premises or conclusion itself in the vast majority of cases. Would this be a case where the answer choices are weakening the conclusion directly? for example, the stimulus doesn't say anything about the ebola virus's host animals, but answer c is still considered to be weakening.
the stimulus doesn't have to say anything about the answer if you're told to take it as true. If C were true it would be damaging to the argument but if B were true it wouldn't.
I had such a big problem with E because the idea that an epidemic centuries ago with no sanitation, germ theory, etc. would have lasted longer than succeeding epidemics literally does not weaken the conclusion at all. That is pointing to outside factors of public health & infrastructure it has nothing to do with the disease itself.
Let me try to solve your doubts. Stimulus points out that the coincidence of symptoms (especially the unique symptom of hiccups) indicates that the Athenian plague was caused by the Ebola virus.
Option E weakens the causal relationship based on the similarity of symptoms by suggesting that the Athenian pandemic was shorter than that of Ebola, suggesting that the causes of the two may be different.
For example,
In 2022, Let's say, I, got covid, so I lost my sense of taste for a week, and then experts said that the typical symptom of covid is the loss of taste for a week.
Now in 2025, one of my brothers Jake has also lost his sense of taste, but he has lost his sense of taste for 3 months. Although Jake and I had different onset times, different infrastructure in our cities, or other situations, this three-month loss of taste shows that he is at least a little bit unlikely to be covid, after all, "the typical symptom of covid is the loss of taste for a week."
If the symptoms do not match completely, it will more or less weaken the rationality a little bit.
A huge problem with C is that it requires either (i) making an assumption or (ii) knowledge about diseases. I have no background in biology or in any related field about diseases. But what my common sense tells me is that for this argument to work (weaken), I have to assume that Ebola spreads only from an animal to human, not from human to human. Even if I were to take for granted that yes, a rat is a host animal, does it preclude that it can, first, spread from a rat to a human elsewhere, and then that human spreads it further Athenians?
The problem, indeed, could be fixed by knowledge in biology. Which is unreasonable to expect from a common person. There are variety of diseases. Which makes you make the assumption.
The reason why I picked B is because it's consistent with what the author said in stimulus that "hiccups experienced by MANY victims" which translates roughly to a some relationship. Therefore, B just restates part of the stimulus. Is this a reasonable explanation?
no, "not all" essentially refers to "some" still, so the statement C can be read as "some of those who are victims of the Ebola virus are afflicted with hiccups." which strengthens the argument
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130 comments
I understand why B is right, but I don't understand how D is not right. "More contagious than reported"....this would lead us to think the disease was worse than the Athenians thought...which would not weaken the argument that it "devasted Athens". Im sorry but I really question this one and I would prob complain if this was on the test, absolute nonsense. How does "actually it's worse than they thought" not straight up strengthen the claim? Of course the explanation is just "it weakens the argument" like come on man lol
it took me 8 min but i clocked the heck out of that question. 😝😝 i have the worst headache and sore throat but the grind doesn't stop. LETS GO GUYS !!!!!
Dropping my thought-process, in case it helps anyone:
For victims of a disease, the passage suggests the following conditional: hiccups → Ebola (hiccups is a symptom of Ebola only, not any other disease). Importantly, this does not mean Ebola → hiccups — that would flip sufficiency and necessity, which is a classic LSAT trap.
The passage also reinforces this by saying many — not all — epidemic victims experienced hiccups. So hiccups aren't a necessary symptom; like with any disease, it's simply one symptom that some victims may experience.
That's exactly why (B) is consistent with the passage: if hiccups aren't a necessary condition for Ebola, it makes perfect sense that some people during the epidemic didn't experience them. No contradiction there.
As for the other answer choices — if you take each one as true and work with only what the passage gives you, they each deepen the gap in the argument rather than help close it. A good way to check: does this answer choice make the conclusion easier or harder to reach? For (B), it doesn't strengthen — but it doesn't need to. All that matters here is that it doesn't weaken, and it doesn't (merely consistent with). For the others, the gap between the premises and conclusion becomes harder to close.
Hope this helps!
this was really hard for me to understand
Because the premise said "experienced by many victims" and I saw "not all" I was lie wait-like i don't really care if not all experienced the hiccups, the argument says "many did" so that enough. Still, a really difficult quesiton
The fact that I interpreted "not all" as "some do not" really helped me on this one.
@besrawi very good tip
For those struggling, remember that "not all" means "some", and some could just be 2 people which doesn't weaken this argument.
@KhushyMandania thank you for saying this that actually helped me spot B right away after struggling in BR!!
straight up not having a good time right now
The reason so many of us can't figure these questions out is because they have basically taught us no real reliable strategies for tackling them
@epayne17 agreed lol. I have just been practicing them so I am able to recognize patterns in the AC's.
Did JY just assume I know what "R naught" is? Because I don't...
For me, option B interpreted as merely consistent with the stimulus because it states, “The hiccups experienced by many victims,” which implies that not all victims of the Ebola virus are afflicted with hiccups.
While AC B also states, “Not all of those who are victims of the Ebola virus are afflicted with hiccups,” it directly states that some victims did not experience hiccups.
Essentially, both options convey the same message: that some victims experienced hiccups, while others did not. It only restated what we were already told.
I can't do these WSE questions its up to jesus now
this completely lost me. i dont think i can get better at these
@meepmeep no same im pissed
I’ll just take the L for this one. They all looked too weak— should’ve did the spectrum
The cause of the epidemic that devastated Athens in 430 B.C. can finally be identified. Accounts of the epidemic mention the hiccups experienced by many victims, a symptom of no known disease except that caused by the recently discovered Ebola virus. Moreover, other symptoms of the disease caused by the Ebola virus are mentioned in the accounts of the Athenian epidemic.
B) Not all of those who are victims of the Ebola virus are afflicted with hiccups.
[This comment was deleted.]
I'm still not fully understanding how the wording of E weakens the argument. As someone else pointed out, I feel like it's a very reasonable assumption to say that even if the diseases were the EXACT SAME from back then to modern day, the epidemics would be much shorter now due to sanitation, medicine, and all that good stuff. Maybe I'm misinterpreting how viruses work, but again, I feel that's a highly reasonable assumption of why they COULD be the same, just under different conditions, which would mean that it doesn't weaken the argument. I sort of understand how B could also be consistent with and not necessarily weaken the argument, but don't understand why E weakens it.
@jackghenriquez1 I took it as the 'epidemics known to have been caused by the Ebola virus' are not necessarily all modern day even if it was only discovered recently. If there was an Ebola epidemic in 430 BC Athens, then there could have been ten thousand others scientists know occurred over the last four thousand years that they now realize is Ebola, and of those most of them are usually shorter-lived than the Athenian epidemic.
@jackghenriquez1 it's because a virus like Ebola would have caused a lot of people to get very sick and die, and because those people died, they wouldn't have been able to spread the virus, thus shortening the length of the epidemic. A milder virus would have lingered.
Don’t forget, inconsistent data weakens an argument, bc it’s not corroborating!
at this point i dont see any patterns in identifying the right answer choice.
i dont know if its cause the lessons are not working for me or if its because the questions are actually hard.
i chose D thinking, how does this weaken? it doesnt do anything.
I didnt chose B because i translated that as "some victims of Ebola virus are NOT afflicted with hiccups" and that aligns with the stimulus saying "many victims of ebola mention hiccups"
if it's true that SOME mention hiccups, then SOME can NOT mention hiccups too.
correct me if my last statement is a very wrong interpretation of "some"
This is a weaken EXCEPT question, which means they all have to weaken the argument (even slightly) and one either has to strengthen it or do nothing at all to do with the argument.
A very charitable reading of C could say that strengthened the argument kinda in the way you say. "sometimes people get hiccups when they get Ebola, we have records of people sometimes getting hiccups, therefore they all have Ebola" is a weak sauce argument, but it doesn't weaken the argument. It is really just kinda consistent with what we know or irrelevant. Either way, it doesn't weaken the argument where every other answer weakens it in some way.
C is kinda like we are talking about the best baseball team ever and I just out of the blue say, 'Some of the Red Socks players use baseball gloves and the best baseball team would use gloves sometimes'. Great. yeah. that's doesn't help me prove my point at all. It is just true
@stratford.douglas I saw D as actually strengthening the argument, as the disease is more contagious than the Athenians recorded. This would mean the disease spread more, I guess as I type I can see why its the wrong answer but it def does not weaken it
Many = Some
B is correct because it tells us something we already know. Remember to imagine the answer choices as a verbal response to the argument. How goofy would it be for the opposition to argue, "Well, some people didn't have hiccups." After we just said that some people do experience them and X virus is the only known virus to cause that symptom
@k-step24 yeah i did the same, negated the statement --> some of those who are victims of the ebola virus are not afflicted with hiccups, and thats consistent with the premise that "hiccups experienced by MANY victims" which sounded equivalent to me.
we were told with the Goku analogy that the answer choices in weaken questions should be weakening the support that flows from premise to conclusion, rather than the premises or conclusion itself in the vast majority of cases. Would this be a case where the answer choices are weakening the conclusion directly? for example, the stimulus doesn't say anything about the ebola virus's host animals, but answer c is still considered to be weakening.
the stimulus doesn't have to say anything about the answer if you're told to take it as true. If C were true it would be damaging to the argument but if B were true it wouldn't.
Sorry this question isn't relevant here but please can someone guide me as to how i can print PTs so i can get used to in person tests?
I believe in person tests are on computers now.
I had such a big problem with E because the idea that an epidemic centuries ago with no sanitation, germ theory, etc. would have lasted longer than succeeding epidemics literally does not weaken the conclusion at all. That is pointing to outside factors of public health & infrastructure it has nothing to do with the disease itself.
Let me try to solve your doubts. Stimulus points out that the coincidence of symptoms (especially the unique symptom of hiccups) indicates that the Athenian plague was caused by the Ebola virus.
Option E weakens the causal relationship based on the similarity of symptoms by suggesting that the Athenian pandemic was shorter than that of Ebola, suggesting that the causes of the two may be different.
For example,
In 2022, Let's say, I, got covid, so I lost my sense of taste for a week, and then experts said that the typical symptom of covid is the loss of taste for a week.
Now in 2025, one of my brothers Jake has also lost his sense of taste, but he has lost his sense of taste for 3 months. Although Jake and I had different onset times, different infrastructure in our cities, or other situations, this three-month loss of taste shows that he is at least a little bit unlikely to be covid, after all, "the typical symptom of covid is the loss of taste for a week."
If the symptoms do not match completely, it will more or less weaken the rationality a little bit.
A huge problem with C is that it requires either (i) making an assumption or (ii) knowledge about diseases. I have no background in biology or in any related field about diseases. But what my common sense tells me is that for this argument to work (weaken), I have to assume that Ebola spreads only from an animal to human, not from human to human. Even if I were to take for granted that yes, a rat is a host animal, does it preclude that it can, first, spread from a rat to a human elsewhere, and then that human spreads it further Athenians?
The problem, indeed, could be fixed by knowledge in biology. Which is unreasonable to expect from a common person. There are variety of diseases. Which makes you make the assumption.
I did choose B though.
The reason why I picked B is because it's consistent with what the author said in stimulus that "hiccups experienced by MANY victims" which translates roughly to a some relationship. Therefore, B just restates part of the stimulus. Is this a reasonable explanation?
That's the same reason why I choose B. Many is not must, but it's closer to some. So, I choice B because it restated what was stated in the stimulus.
no, "not all" essentially refers to "some" still, so the statement C can be read as "some of those who are victims of the Ebola virus are afflicted with hiccups." which strengthens the argument