This is a Resolve-Reconcile-Explain question.

Stimulus: In September 1995, astronomers observed a comet becoming 3 times brighter and they correctly hypothesized that its increased brightness was a result of the comet's breaking up- when comets break up, they emit large amounts of gas and dust, becoming visibly brighter as a result. However, the astronomer's observations did not reveal the comet actually breaking into pieces until November 1995 (2 months after they observed it becoming brighter), even though telescopes were watching it the entire time.

Pre-phrase: Don't really have one.

(A) So? If comets don't emit gas and dust until several weeks after they've begun to break up, then this doesn't explain why the astronomers saw the increased brightness 2 months before the actual breaking up of the comet.

(B) So what?

(C) This is the correct answer!

(D) So? This doesn't explain why the astronomers didn't see the comet actually breaking into pieces for 2 months from the first inception of it.

(E) So what?

This is a Flaw/Descriptive Weakening question.

Stimulus: The best that Cotrell can do is write magazine articles of average quality. The most compelling pieces of evidence for this are those few of the numerous superior articles that Cotrell has submitted, since Cotrell, who can't write an article that is better than average, must obviously have plagiarized superior ones.

Conclusion: The best that Cotrell can do is write magazine articles of average quality.

Premise(s): (MP) The most compelling pieces of evidence for this are those few of the numerous superior articles that Cotrell has submitted, since Cotrell, who can't write an article that is better than average, must obviously have plagiarized superior ones.

Pre-phrase: The author uses evidence that Cotrell can't write an article that is better than average to support the conclusion that Cotrell can, at best write articles of average quality. This sounds like circular reasoning.

(A) The argument doesn't do this.

(B) The argument doesn't do this.

(C) Ah ha. Circular reasoning.

(D) The argument doesn't do this.

(E) The argument doesn't do this.

Thanks everyone for the advice and the encouragement! I have been meditating the past few days and my outlook is slowly improving. We can do this!

@ I just finished the webinar and my, was it helpful! I am very excited to use it and see where it takes me. It helped to clear up a lot of things and made Weakening/Strengthening questions not appear as daunting. I love the "cookie-cutter" method that was proposed. Very insightful! I also love that only difficult questions were used as examples

@ Thanks for responding! I think this is definitely not a unique problem I'm struggling with and I'm glad we can discuss it openly!

@ Thank you so much for your input. Funny enough, I actually happened across Nicole Hopkins' webinar on Strengthen and Weaken questions right after I made this post. I'm planning on sitting down today and going over it, while taking some serious notes.

Also, I think that the general trend in the ones I'm missing is that I was just fatigued yesterday. I started missing even things I shouldn't have been and that's when I knew I had to put the books down. I had great sleep last night and I'm going to meditate this morning, eat a wonderful breakfast, and get to work. I really appreciate the input and I'll be sure to let you know of any new developments!