Context - For years, people have been predicting a catastrophic shortage of scientists and engineers is imminent

P1: Salary data doesn't indicate that there is a shortage right now

P2: Unemployment data doesn't indicate that there is a shortage right now

Assumption - The circumstances now aren't going to change for the worse imminently

C: Therefore, no crash is imminent

Answer choice C makes explicit a component of the assumption. It says that not only is there not a shortage right now, but the numbers of graduates that have recently been sufficient to keep us out of a shortage are going to increase over the next several years; clearly then, there can't be a shortage imminent.

There are more parts of this assumption that could have also been right answers (e.g. demand for scientists and engineers won't go up imminently, a big wave of scientists and engineers have decided to push retirement back from age 65 to 70, etc.).

The key here is recognizing that imminence is a future state, and that by talking about the current situation, the argument has only addressed half of what it is trying to refute. Supporting information for the assumption strengthens the argument.

Not sold on B over C

Another way to read the stimulus is that "a nanobe is too small to contain a reproductive mechanism, a prerequisite for life" should be drawn:

Life → Contain a Reproductive Mechanism

Why is this interpretation any less legitimate than the one offered above?

AC (B) does nothing to show that the nanobes may, in-fact, contain a reproductive mechanism. It shows merely that they may potentially replicate themselves via some other method (like viruses do and, according the AC (B), at least some cellular organisms can (but not must) also do)

AC (C) indicates that the "smallest known bacteria" being used for reference may (according to some scientists) not be the "smallest bacteria," and thus there may be some other means of containing a reproductive mechanism that we are unaware of.

Who do you think models for artists? Very often it's other artists. Nothing precludes someone from painting a self-portrait one day then modeling the next for another member of his social circle of young artists. You're just making a straw man and then rebutting it. Not a helpful comment.

We expect: High Quality corresponds with High Popularity

We observe: Marvis - High Quality, Less Popular // Traintrack - Ordinary Quality, More Popular

Critic Explanation: In this instance , popularity is almost entirely explained by convenience

To justify his logic, we need a principle that relates convenience/popularity to quality

(A) is immaterial (see video)

(E) says there is no relation between convenience/popularity and quality. While this explains the conclusion, it does not justify the logic (see video)

(D) relates quality (improve its products) to popularity (only when it is necessary to do so to attract customers) in the right direction to explain our observation.

I was thrown off by "improve" rather than "will make exceptional products" because it seems to presume that exceptional/ordinary are absolute rather than relative, but that's not the operant distinction among the answers that the LSAT writers want us to find here.

Q14 relevant text in support of AC A:

"Olsen relies heavily on statistical tabulations of the Botai horses by sex and age at death, looking for mortality patterns that might correlate with expectations regarding domesticated herds or wild victims of hunting"

"Another clue that at least some of the horses may have been domesticated and that some may have even been ridden is in the fact that their remains include full skeletons, entire vertebral columns, and pelvises. It is unreasonable to suppose that hunters dragged whole 1,000-pound carcasses back to their dwellings."

Olsen's hypothesis that the horses were domesticated and some were ridden is based on comparing mortaility patterns correlated to domesic or wild animals. From quote 2, there are some untouched horse bones among the remains. If these were relatively common, then it's evidence the Botai were not raising the horses only for food, which supports the part of the hypothesis that they were raising them to ride. Conversely, if they were uncommon, it may have been just a horse or two that they decided not to eat.

The passage says that, "(conventionalists) argue that, in the pursuit of knowledge, a statement is true only when there are no promising alternatives that might lead one to question it."

It helps to know the philosophical relationship between truth and knowledge, which is generally that in order for one to know X (I know it is raining), one requirement is X must be true (it should actually be raining).

The conventionalists believe that the correspondence between objects/behaviors and language is based on conventions, and therefore knowledge is "tenuous, relative, and inexact"

In the rain example, the relationship between the word "rain" and the phenomenon of liquid water precipitation is a convention, where do we draw the line of misting, drizzling, pouring, etc? The knowledge of "it is raining" depends on these conventions. If you and I disagree about the definition of rain, we may come to different conclusions about whether I know it is raining. Why? Because we disagree about the truth of the statement "it is raining" due to our differing conventions.

Thus, those who adhere to the conventionalist view will also see truth as merely a matter of convention.

This seems at odds with the definition of truth provided in the selection, which states that a statement is only true when there are no promising alternatives that might cause one to question it. While that seems like a more rigorous definition than being "merely" a matter of convention, because the statement and any possible alternatives we'd consider are all based on conventions, the entire consideration reduces down to being "a matter of convention."

Comparison of relevant portions of reading for answers A and B to demonstrate why A is most analogous:

"...sometimes invaluable in presenting the physical details of a personal injury"

Do they present physical details?

Schematic: Yes

Map: Yes

"The end user is typically a jury or a judge, for whose benefit the depiction is reduced to the details that are crucial to determining the legally relevant facts."

Are they reduced to relevant details as they pertain to a specific audience?

Schematic: Yes, its specified use in a presentation implies the schematic will show that which the engineer feels is relevant and leave out other details (e.g. plumbing but not furniture)

Map: Somewhat, while a map will leave out some details, it is closer to a textbook depiction of everything in a body rather than an audience-specific depiction of only some relevant portions. There is no tailored audience for the map, some may be using it to navigate, while others use it to determine political boundaries, etc.

"...provide visual representations of data whose verbal description would be very complex. Expert testimony by medical professionals often relies heavily on the use of technical terminology, which those who are not specially trained in the field find difficult to translate mentally into visual imagery."

Does it depict something that commonly requires knowledge of specialized technical vocabulary that makes it hard to visualize?

Schematic: Yes, engineering terms can be highly technical and are more readily understood after specialized training.

Map: No, the terms to describe how one should navigate around an area are not highly technical. While there may be specific knowledge of an area, one does not need specialized training in order to understand what that knowledge means.

.

.

You can't just make up quotes lol. At no point does the selection state the illustrations would "clarify." It actually doesn't use that word in any context.

The conclusion in the stimulus is "this would be a misleading impression."

This can be reworded as a conditional statement "if one has this impression, then one has been misled."

Looking at the stimulus overall, it's clear that the attack is on a hypothetical. The author isn't saying "some people believe that music was dominated by synth and pop rock. However they are incorrect." Instead, they're discussing this conditional form. In that sense, the conditional in answer choice C fits the pattern.

Yes. This description clearly missed the key phrasing in the stimulus.

Hindsight is 20/20. In your imagined conversation, would she say, "this is great" or could she say, "we can't put faith in technology, especially morally dubious technology that likely involves GMOs, to save us from taking responsibility for how our population growth and urbanization are threatening natural resources; we need to act to reduce our population and urban footprint"?

I got this answer right through process of elimination because the other answers were all less compelling, but I do not believe that it is clear Kim would agree that investment in technology is worthwhile... not any more than she would agree that investment in prayer is worthwhile.

Arguments -

Kim: [Agricultural land for Food Production] AND [Urban Area growth] -> less natural resources

Hampton: Technology -> no significant increase in demand for [Agricultural land for food production]

Statements MSS that they would agree with which of the following?

B (ANSWER) - Continued research into more-efficient agricultural practices and innovative biotechnology aimed at producing more food on less land would be beneficial.

H: Explicitly supports / K: merely consistent with regard to biotechnology claim and more-efficient agricultural practices, but implied support for goal of producing more food on less land

C - Agricultural and wilderness areas need to be protected from urban encroachment by preparing urban areas for greater population density.

H: Neither explicit nor implied, his remark is merely about agriculture. K: merely consistent with her concern about urban area growth, there is no implied preferred solution (tech or ^density) in her argument

D - In the next half century, human population growth will continue to erode wildlife habitats and diminish forests.

H: neither explicit nor implied, same as C. K: Explicit

Because C and D harken to a portion of the argument that is completely ignored even implicitly by Hampton, they are unlikely to be the correct answer. This left B as the best remaining option.

The stimulus notes that the illusion is, "so necessary for political stability"

This can be interpreted as:

Political Stability -> Illusion

^sufficient ^necessary

If we take the contrapositive, we get:

/Illusion -> /Political Stability

which we can read as "Loss of the illusion will yield political instability" and can then flip to the answer choice C - "Political instability will increase if the (illusion is lost)"