I'd say write as you normally write, not whether AI or not. There will be people who use em dashes like myself, and that's just a stylistic choice. But as a general rule, you should use em dashes sparingly. Also, if you use an em dash, then there should be some intent of using it, not because it looks "fancy".

The stimulus tells us that some firms are committed to testing on human cell cultures. These tests are to reduce need for tests on live animals.

D is incorrect because we actually don't know:

cell cultures used - > fewer tests will be needed.

All we know from the stimulus is that cell culture tests used can reduce need for tests, not the number of tests. The trap in D is to assume that the need for tests is the same as the number of tests. We just can't make that assumption.

E is correct because it is the most supported out of the 5 answer choices. Yes there are jumps, but it requires the least jumps out of the answer choices, and so is best supported. I think that's the key to MSS and MSS-type questions. It's not whether it must be true, but how much support does each AC receive from the stim and how are there more or less jumps required compared to the other ACs?

E says:

acceptable alternative ways exist -> better not to perform tests on live animals.

And yes this is supported. We know the acceptable alternative ways exist is about cell culture tests. And "better not to perform tests on live animals" is what the whole last sentence is talking about.

So compared to all the other 4 ACs, E is just the most strongly supported.

We always take the premises to be true, even the intermediate conclusion. So, A is incorrect because it targets the intermediate conclusion and premise relationship, even though we have take both to be true.

I use them for drills too. Not all questions have explanations, but if you google the stimulus, there's an old PowerScore LSAT Forum that usually breaks down the question.

We know from the stimulus that in the trial ,the new system always correctly accepted someone seeking access. The conclusion is that there will be a way of giving access and nobody else.

But doesn't the argument overlook the possibility of false positives or false negatives? If those were possible, would it not make the argument weaker?

D targets that assumption by bringing up the possibility of false positive/negative of someone who should have access but are denied accessed. If this possibility is true, then we have less reason to believe the conclusion to be true.

I think seeing the stimulus as a Phenomenon-Hypothesis helps a lot. By doing so, you realise that the argument assumes that there is only one hypothesis to account for the phenomenon. But we know that there can be multiple hypotheses to account for any given phenomenon. E calls this out where "resolution" is taken to mean hypothesis/answer/conclusion.

I just realised with this question that partial doesn't mean inaccurate. Something could be partial and be accurate, maybe it's just incomplete, or lacking of certain details.

@IsabelTing11 just want to jump on your breakdown for D. I don't think it's about whether we know it's primarily due to trade imbalances that we should be asking ourselves. I think the question should be rephrased a: if we know that problems are caused primarily because of trade imbalances, does this impact the conclusion.

I say this because I noticed that sometimes I don't take the answer choice as true, which then I eliminate based on relevancy or new concept. But in SWE we take the AC as true, so we should be asking ourselves what the impact of this AC is to our conclusion as a basis of elimination.

I like your breakdown overall. Great job!

@zunair Same me too! Big Up UK 🇬🇧!!

Would it be possible to toggle off GPA? I'm an international applicant and I'd like to see the predictions without GPA toggle. Alternatively could it factor in the Superior/Above Average/Average/Below Average results?

I didn't see the jump in premise to conclusion, so, even though I got to D through POE, I couldn't place my finger on why it is D.

As JY pointed out, the study is already catered to people involved in automobile accidents. The conclusion is about just general cars including those involved and those not involved in automobile accidents.

D makes aware of that gap and makes the support less likely to support the general conclusion from a subset of data.

Once again, MichaelWright killing it with the video and the very helpful diagrams!!

C is incorrect because "occasionally" means "few". "Few" means "some are and most are not".

C says: The rock in which the fossilized centipedes were found was formed from mud flats that were occasionally covered by river water.

Well we can translate this to say "mudflats that were sometimes covered and most of the time not covered by river water". Well if it's true that most of the time it was not covered by river water, then it seems to strengthen the argument that the centipedes lived on dry land. That's why C strengthens and cannot be correct in this Strengthen Except question.

The argument is already talking about a subset of skiers: people with ski injuries. So, C bringing up the possibility that the argument overlooks the number of skiers that has increased over the past 20 years doesn't apply. We're looking at those injured in skiing, the increased number of skiers overall has no bearing.

I thought that with E: social in nature could not be morality was similar to saying morals are not necessarily social.

But there is a difference. The former is talking about "could not be". This is introducing a possibility.

The latter is saying "not necessarily" or "does not have to be". This is introducing a necessity.

Because of this subtle difference, E does not match with what the stimulus is saying. These are completely different realms of thought because one is a possibility, the other is necessity. So, E doesn't follow from the stimulus.

@Kyle180 Yeah of course! And one more thing, reading in general is just a good idea too. It doesn't need to be academic, can be entirely something you enjoy. I find that reading more has helped me be able to retain more in my short term memory and you can practice the same translation things in your everyday reading as well. Reading Scientific American, The Economist, etc would help your RC, but doing some kind of reading at minimum would definitely be beneficial!

For me the biggest difference in my comprehension ability was translating each sentence into easier words and words I actually understood in both LR and RC. I always do it for each sentence, regardless of length, and prevent myself from moving forward until I understand what is going on. For longer sentences, I break it down into chunks. Not only does this make it more manageable, but doing so helps you build accuracy and speed (especially in RC) because you actually know what's happening! I find it that when I translate, I need to be extra careful not to throw in my own assumptions, but you build that ability with practice.

I also have a vocabulary journal with my WAJ that highlights words I didn't understand the meaning of. I'll habitually return to the vocab journal to recall definitions, which for me is better than relying on the internet when confused. I try to not look up definitions in the middle of drills/sections/pts, but will just use context to skip the word or guess it.

Give it a try and would love to hear how it's going for you!

Stimulus is entirely based on correlation and proportion / likelihood.

Answer choice B and E is about causal and cause. I felll for both because I didn't realise that the stimulus isn't about causal at all, so B and E bait you to assume some causal relationship happening when really there isn't.

It didn't click to me that Lichtenstein liked emotional art. "Lichtenstein's work was part of a general rebellion against the fading emotional power of abstract expressionism, rather than an aloof attempt to ignore it" says that directly. But I didn't translate that if you're against fading emotional power. then you are for emotional power. Also if Lichtenstein was also for realism (which is like real art) then I guess it also makes sense that he would be pro-emotion.

@SirHarvey True, but we know from the stimulus that in OPV there has not been any new cases of naturally occurring polio. OPV also has 12 new cases of polio caused by OPV. In IPV we only know that the new cases of vaccine caused polio would go from 12 to 6 new cases. The gap is: what about the new cases of naturally occuring polio in IPV? Is that number greater or less than the number we know for OPV which is 0.

The argument wants to weaken, so we should target this assumption. Like cost-benefit analysis, if we can show that the number of naturally occurring polio in IPV is greater than that of OPV, then the argument is weakened. Maybe we shouldn't switch the vaccines. In other words, we already know the benefits of IPV from the premise is that the vaccine-induced cases would go down. But do we know about the costs? Do we know about the costs of the naturally occurring polio cases?

A targets this gap. If A is true, then we know that there at least 1 new cases of naturally occurring polio each year. This targets that gap as previously mentioned. If this is true, then it makes our argument less likely true, even by 1%. We are less likely to take the conclusion that we should switch vaccines less likely to be the case, given that now we know a cost to the cost-benefit argument that the argument presents.

If you're still confused, I think there's a high chance that you're looking for something that completely wrecks the argument. Remember that in WSE questions, we want to make our support bigger/smaller. So we just need to make our conclusion less/more likely to be true, even by 1%. I'd recommend going through the CC again slowly. I've done it 3 times now and it's just starting to click. Good Luck!

@bichonlua I think it's important that we also want the "most weakens" answer.

It's true that B talks about "unsuspected" and that B could potentially weaken, based on interpretation. But the damage that A does towards weakening the argument is far greater than what B can do. A directly targets our assumption that OPV doesn't have new cases of naturally occurring polio. If it was true that there are cases of naturally occurring polio, then the damage done to the argument from that fact alone is far greater than the damage that B does.

@EliNorris there can be new ideas in the AC. We take answer choices to be true. Genetic predisposition is brought up as a potential other factor that causes Parkinsons and diets with iron. But author uses A to show that people who have genetic predisposition have equal amounts of iron in diets, which precludes an alternative hypothesis, which strengthens the causal relationship the author concludes.

@Willyc

In the stimulus it says "Although counterfeits of microprinted currency can be detected easily by experts, such counterfeits often circulate widely before being detected".

But also, we are taking the AC to be true. So, we take the fact that "when an anti-counterfeiting technique depends on the detection of counterfeits by experts" part as true in the A. We know that this part is a referrent to microprinting in the stimulus.