the scientists unknowingly rejecting the hypothesis doesn't have any bearing on the question because it doesn't affect the argument. It's a NA question so the correct AC either blocks / builds bridge - here it blocks the situation that, maybe the scientists are just not aware that the A + B combo of the law + exp results in contradicting C. If they're not aware, then the support from the premises to the conclusion (that they reject C) falls apart.

here's an analogy -

almost everyone has eggs + milk

almost everyone has sugar + vanilla

therefore most people can create a delicious custard

the thing that's missing is the premise / assumption that, if you have all the ingredients AND you know how to cook custard, then you can create the custard

this is like the scientists being aware of A and B and that the combo means C is contradicted. Sure, people can just randomly combine stuff and make a custard, but that has no bearing on the fact that I'm missing that premise (my assumption), and if that is not true, it means my argument isn't valid, which is what is being asked in the NA question

I got lost thinking about, maybe if the virus killed a couple species, and those were food sources for other species, they all could become extinct. And missed the more important part-to-whole flaw which paralleled B. Good to map out exactly what the flaw is before figuring out what it parallels

AC A (that ppl who didn't receive treatment actually got it) and the other side, that ppl who received the treatment / book but didn't read it, are both possible in experiments, which is why they're carefully noted in a lot of experiments (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intention-to-treat_analysis).

But, it's not the flaw in this question, since it's just a possibility (and this isn't a "if AC true, then weaken" type of question). It would be stronger if the wording was "the author fails to consider" instead of "it is possible that."

It also fails to mention the magnitude of families in the placebo group who got a book (and how similar is this book to the one designated as "treatment" in the other group?) necessarily to change the conclusion.

Yeah good point, I think the "may" in E makes it so weak that it's basically saying something that we could assume in the first place, ie it doesn't do anything, since it's a weaken question and not pointing out a potential flaw. And thinking about how E would have to be changed to actually weaken makes it too convoluted to be reasonable

good tip if your webcam isn't focusing is to put your ID in front of a piece of scratch paper, should help it focus easier, but kind of awkward to hold up

#help

I don't get how E is not right - it seems like there is the clear correlation → causation fallacy, but also the fallacy of division. The argument notes the correlation of the "average fat intake of residents" and then makes a conclusion about what individuals should do. What if an individual's fat intake is 0g per day? Then the conclusion is completely preposterous, you can't reduce from 0g.

I understand how E would be wrong, but only if the conclusion was reworded to, "On average, individuals ..." or "Most people ..." because it's speaking to an average individual, not an extreme 0g fat consumer for whom the recommendation is nonsensical. But the way it's written doesn't make that clear, since it's basically saying, "ALL individuals" when there's no way that can apply to people who don't consume any fat (which, is probably very few, so it's a bit unreasonable, but nevertheless frustrating)

No, because you can't say anything about the relative risk or causal inference from knowing "most" of one of the two categories - what if out of 100 babies, 95 were born with normal birthweights and 5 underweight. Out of the 95, 50 born to inadequate prenatal care (45 adequate). Of the 5 underweight, we can choose any arbitrary split between adequate/inadequate prenatal care, since it's not related whatsoever to the "babies born with normal birthweights," but this split determines the odds ratio.

What the question requires is weakening the argument, which it does by saying that the correlation is dubious if the missing data was replaced in the way described in B

It's called exportation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exportation_(logic)) - note the proof at the bottom, that we can get there with other "building blocks" like De Morgan's law, associativity, the equivalence of A -> B = not A or B, etc

The lesson in 7sage is here https://classic.7sage.com/lesson/mastery-embedded-conditional/

no, the question is, "which explains the discrepancy [that there has been no comparable decline in ppl killed by house fires] EXCEPT" - we don't need the correct answer (B) to show an increase, just that it doesn't explain why there has been no decrease. Not explaining decrease != this would cause an increase

And B does exactly that because it's an irrelevant piece of information for determining the trend of deaths, it's like saying, btw the sky is blue. It has no bearing on these two series (the amount of ppl smoking, which decreased from t0 to t1, and the amount of ppl who died, which did NOT decrease from t0 to t1). Just because we now know that the sky is blue, doesn't mean anything for why we didn't see a decrease in deaths. In fact, it's making it harder to say that the trend is just random, because since the fires tend to be deadly, it leaves us with a bigger discrepancy (doesn't mean the deaths increased though).

A way this answer choice B would be responsible for an increase would if they appended, "and this happened more often in time period t1 than it did in t0". But as it is, we have no idea how this effects the death rate - maybe in t1 less people are asleep with a fire as in B scenario than in t0, which would mean decrease in deaths. But we can't tell at all, so this is just an irrelevant piece of information, which is why it doesn't explain the discrepancy in the stimulus, and why it's the correct answer

the "human-made projectile" could be a 9mm bullet that happened to be there right before the researchers found the skeleton ... doesn't mean we can say anything about Eurasian settlers (ie ac A is correct)

have someone respond, "that can't be true! you increased the budget 6x!!"

and then make the stem "which of the following flaws does the person responding make?"

and then the AC would be, "the % increase doesn't indicate an absolute increase if we dont know the starting amnt"

I don't think B would cause an increase - what B says wouldn't change anything before vs after the decrease in amount of smokers. But, it's just saying, smoking in bed can be deadly... but doesn't explain a thing about why the # of deaths stayed constant while # of smokers decreased

The support for #15 C, about particular Roman women lived, is in lines 31-32, "we overlook the particular ways in which individual women engaged their worlds". It answers the question of which one psg A author would most likely to agree with

Attacking the premise would be more like, "no, there is no association between owning a pet and happiness" (the passage says that pet owners are less happy). Instead, it's attacking the support from that premise (that pet owners are less happy than non-pet owners) to the unstated assumption it makes (that there is a causal relationship, ie that if you get a pet you will be less happy).

This causal assumption is a major issue for supporting the conclusion. For instance, there could be alternative explanations (e.g. people who are unhappy go and buy pets, and become more happy, but still less happy than the ppl who were happy to begin with, and didn't decide to get pets. Selection bias)

the passage describes two scenarios, one illustrated by the gamble (the "traditional" way where you have a chance of losing, chance of winning, then you say that ppl are risk averse so they generally want positive expected value to take that bet) and the other by the "back against the wall" (in a situation where you're starting out with a loss, and the risk averse nature flips).

The stem in #22, is describing a chance at a huge win, or a chance at a "tolerable" loss - this matches with the traditional notions of risk averse / "rational" economic behavior, so the AC with "previously accepted views" of risk taking is correct

To answer your question, you need to keep those two models very separate and in your mind, and tell which one is being called upon

i did the same thing, and what made me understand why A is correct is the stem - it says that the critics would "respond favorably". The passage says that critics believed that directing his art toward political action was demanded, so that seems like link up the best. Why I thought D was attractive was the part about "lessened contributions" and "distinctly African American style", but it doesn't really mean that they (the critics) would respond favorably to a further separation of American (not AA) and European literary styles