Self-study
Anyone else absolutely butcher this section? I have been practicing recently at -4 for LR and got -10 on this. Also, there were two questions that stood out to me as so difficult that seemed just straight-up wrong. Like there was not a single correct answer choice.
Like Q25
After watching the explanation, I don't really get why C works. We are supposed to assume that large body = less of a target by predator. But that's not stated in the answer. If anything, you could make the opposite assumption that making the body larger makes them more of a target.
And Q21:
Doesn't really make sense. I guess C is supposed to introduce an alternative expl - that the students did better because they studied hard. That's what is stated in the explanation video. But that requires an additional assumption beyond what is stated in the answer choice. There is nothing suggesting that "choosing" to join an academically competitive team post study implies that those students were more motivated to do well in school. Motive does not equal action.
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Yes definitely that whole PT was really challenging for me!
For Q21 (I got this one wrong):
I think where I went wrong was from not identifying the conclusion, which is that chess-playing strategy will cause increase achievement of other intellectual activity. The author reaches this conclusion based off of the fact that the children who completed the program had a notable spike in their achievement.
C is stating that the chess club at this school has a barrier to entry, maybe like a GPA of 80% and above. If one of the program students wants to join the chess club but has a GPA of 75%, they will be motivated to raise their GPA. It could be that they studied harder, but it could also be that they cheated more or bribed a teacher or any other means to raise their GPA. So we don't need to assume that the program students were more motivated to do well in school, just that they will try to receive admission into the club. This would undermine the author's conclusion that chess-playing strategies make kids smarter/higher-achievers; in reality, they might just really want to be in the chess club.
For Q25
This one is harder to justify (I think I might have used my outside knowledge from like Animal Planet or Wild Kratts...). I think a prey having larger body is not necessarily making them less of a target, but it might intimidate some smaller sized predators. Like if a bird could puff up to be roughly the size of a small cat, I do think that the cat will want to find a smaller target. Sure, the bird can puff up and still be targeted by bigger cats or maybe braver small cats, but it does slightly lower the chances of the prey being attacked by a predator.
I just looked it up out of curiosity, and it's apparently a type of tactic that can also startle predators or present themselves as harder to swallow! I guess it would also be really startling if a bird suddenly expanded twice its size in front of the predator. Or I imagine that's why sea animals don't feel tempted to eat pufferfish when puffed.
But yeah, I think that it definitely helps to have outside knowledge, but I don't believe it to be necessary.
I also did not do well on this PT, so you're definitely not alone on this! It helps me to write explanations out too, so feel free to hash out any other questions.