I chose answer choice A for this question because the "fallen short of expectations" line in paragraph 1 was the author stating how optimistic early predictions were not met. We don't know who made these predictions, so we can't say it was the computer specialists' expectations.

Additionally, what we are told in the passage is how the attempts made by people working on computer systems had an idea for how to apporach making legal decisions (either by applying stored set of rules or by comparing past cases.) This was achieved by the computer systems. It is then the author's argument that what these systems accomplished do not fully encapsulate everything that is needed in determining a legal case, due to nuances in interpretation and inherent flexibility of laws. I don't think it's a stretch to say the author agrees that although the systems did what computer specialists made them to do, it still falls short of what legal practitioners need.

Regarding answer choice E, I found it to be something the author either made no mention of, or implicitly disagreed with.

...a kind of comprehensive knowledge of the world that is far beyond their capabilities at present or in the foreseeable future.

This line from the author outright states that they cannot foresee systems having this capability. Does this imply the author would agree that research breakthroughs somehow would be required on the part of computer specialists?

The last paragraph included tidbits of "researchers designed case-based systems" and "criteria for similarity are fixed by the desginer". But I fail to see where the author implys the neccessity of research breakthroughs by computer specialists for developing adequate reasoning systems. At the very least the assumptions involved being more than that of AC (A).

I thought the flaw from the stimulus was that they assumed one explanation to be the only explanation. Hence "only fingerprints are from the owner, therefore the person who took the diamonds MUST have worn gloves" Even though its possible they wiped off the prints? Or used another method?

Answer choice D therefore made the most sense for me, as it assumed one explanation to be the only explanation. "Since all of hher cavities are on the left side, she MUST chew more on the left than on the right" Even though there may be other explanations for why her cavities are only on the left side?

Looking back however, I see now that AC(A) is more similar in structure to the stimulus. Given the background information of "only fingerprints are from x" and "only eaten food from y". The thing that tripped me up was the negative conclusion at the end, where "the cause MUST NOT have been..." as opposed to "MUST".

I think I've become too trusting of treating stimulus context as automatically "true" and only analyzing the structure of the reasoning. I did not anticipate the potential flaw to be "ignoring the obvious despite evidence to the contrary". If I caught that as the flaw, I think AC(A) would have been much easier to spot.

You're really going to hit me with a "you can assume its the most damaging without the article explicitly saying it" after I've seen no less than 50 explanations going over how "it's never stated in the passage to be MOST, therefore you can't make this assumption."

The assumption needed is with patents -> software innovation would be more profitable than without patents.

This weakens the claim that patents impede software innovation because it gives at least one instance of patents giving software innovation an edge (it makes them more profitable).

I think most people (myself included) were really stuck on the idea of an answer similar to patents promoting innovation. We kept trying to find something that maybe led to patents leading to more innovation of some kind. But in the end, all that's needed to weaken the position is giving one instance where software innovation as a concept, benefits from patents vs no patents. The bar of impede is low enough that one point of benefit weakens it.

I guess the key here is that "to represent mathematically" is NOT THE SAME as "modeling". If it were, B would be incorrect. Because the paragraph doesn't actually go into why it was difficut to mathematically represent Pin Factory. We don't know from the 4th paragraph the specific difficulty(s) with mathematically representing Pin Factory, only that it is difficult.

Very frustrating question since modeling by definition means representing something mathematically. To say that "a difficulty with modeling the assumption is that it is very difficult to mathematically represent the assumption" just sounds very redundant.

The correct answer (B) here assumes that Payne's contemporary scientists did not accept her theory due to it lacking a reason for the Sun producing energy. But how does that make sense when the iron hypothesis also does not have a valid energy theory?

Lord Kelvin's contraction hypothesis did not hold up under fossil records, and we know this was known at the time beacuse we are told Payne was led to reexamine the hypothesis and data.

I do not see how we can say that nuclear fusion explains why Payne's findings were rejected when we are not specifically told why in the first place.

For this question I was confused on (C).

The explanation video and the explanation paragraph seems to confuse the spleen itself to store oxygen, which according to the question stem is not true. The spleen stores blood that is oxygenated. If C establishes that oxygen stored in the lungs and blood are not adequate, then does it not weaken the hypotehsis that seals also store oxygenated blood in their spleens? Even if it does not weaken the hypotehsis, I cannot see how it "provides some support" for the hypothesis. Unless the test writers meant to differentiate "oxygen in bloodstream" from "oxygenated blood stored in spleen" which would be equally confusing.

I misinterpreted AC (A) to be introducing the idea that maybe astronomers have been mistakenly identifying a nearby neutron star as something left behind by a recent supernova, but in reality the neutron star was always there. The "nearby" wording threw me off.

For this question I think I overanalyzed the wording here. I was down between D and E and chose E because of the plurality of "conflicts" which matched up the starting paragraph 3 "these difficulties". Also, my justification for picking E is that the concept of there being 2 different equipoise is something the author himself introduces. Therefore, to other current clinical researchers, the "general notion of equipoise" is just simply the theoretical one.

This may have been too far of a leap to make considering the other answer choices specify the type of equipoise, but the "main difficulty" part really threw me off.

Answer choice B appeared to have so many assumptions associated that I ruled it out in favor of AC(D), which at least gave a hint that Belcher and Hu's research was doing something, namely (maybe) narrowing down peptides grown thanks to better control of parameters. I know this is also a huge assumption but it just seemed more relevant to me than AC(B) would have been. How are we sure that the peptide friendly materials are the ones that can substitute?

Also, the reasoning for D being wrong is that "it only tells us what happened in the past, not giving any indication of what will or might happen". Meanwhile, B is just stating a fact about semiconductor material in general, leaving us to make all the connections to Belcher and Hu's research results.

I hope my actual exam won't have a question like this.

This was really helpful as a review of the question types in LR. Thank you!

@Daisy228 the preceding clause of "many editorialists criticize these attacks" should indicate that the author is still talking about the "attacks" rather than the politicians when stating "voters pay them scant attention".

I'm confused on what makes something an argument based on the definition of support, which is one claim being true increases the likelihood of the other to also be true. What if in this argument, the conclusion claim was instead: "Walt has never been to the Magical Kingdom?" If all the premises are true, it doesnt neccessitate the fact that Walt has NEVER been to the Magical Kingdom, but it does logically increase the likelihood of him never being there because he's never kneeled at Goofy's altar? Would this still be an argument just with very weak support? What if the conclusion was worded as "Walt has probably never been to the Magical Kingdom?"