Sneaky.

Here's how I think about AC (C). The stimulus conclusion is about office workers and office equipment. Any weakening answer should introduce an alternate cause that applies specifically to office workers. A weakener AC that applies only to factory workers (like C) doesn't necessarily weaken the argument's conclusion at all.

In fact, with (C), the conclusion is still as strong as it ever was. It's entirely plausible for the argument's conclusion and the answer in (C) to be true at the same time. The factory workers could be using those stress-reducing techniques, but the office equipment could still be extremely bad for the office workers.

(E), however, is an alternate cause that CAN also apply to the office worker group, which is what the stimulus argument is concerned with. (C) just ignores the office workers.

If I get the question right, then for review, I'll only read the written explanations. If I get it wrong, I'll immediately jump to the video explanations.

I think it was easy for me to get tripped up with E because of the words "more likely" in the stimulus. I'm used to the word "likely" indicating a potential causal reasoning argument. But "likely," by itself, is only implying a correlation. And the stimulus doesn't introduce any language indicating there actually is causation.

A quick, shallow-dip trick for a question like this is to immediately recognize that they are trading on a Numbers vs. Percentages flaw. The premises discuss absolute numbers, indicated by "frequent" (there is a large number of small studies reported on in newspapers; that's just an absolute number). The conclusion brings up the word "likely," which indicates percentages/probability/etc. When premises and conclusion jump from absolute to percentages, the right AC will mention something about that. Commonly, you should start questioning the TOTAL that those groups were drawn from. The right AC in this question talks about the TOTAL number of small observational studies, so it's correct.

Best way to get this correct quickly on a shallow-dip is knowing that the argument structure has an intermediate conclusion that supports the main conclusion. The gap in the argument is likely to be between that major premise and the main conclusion; not likely to be in the gap between the minor premise and major premise. All the other AC's mention the minor premise, which just isn't extremely relevant to the support structure of the argument. Only D narrows in on that intermediate conclusion.

Common flaw I've seen recurring in hard questions the past few weeks. Purpose is not equivalent to the natural consequences of something. Just because there are some byproducts/consequences of an action, doesn't mean that action was intended/purposed on achieving those consequences.

Probably the most evil question I've encountered in my entire study journey. Just. Wow.

I keep making this mistake on PrepTests. Curvebreaker 170+ questions will hinge on the ability to recognize INTENT versus OUTCOMES. This is actually a key element to the practice of law (for once). Proving something in court often requires proving both the bad consequences (actus reus) and the actor's state of mind/intent (mens rea). This question, and many other 170+ questions, will test whether you can spot the difference.

For the last set of examples in the video, I think it's helpful to just visualize the rule that a plural subject has an implied "all" statement (sufficient indicator) in front of it. If a sentence says "dolphins eat food," that's that same thing as "all dolphins eat food."

@Dexterity Wouldn't the first statement "Failing a condition triggers everything to its left. (<---)" need to be qualified by saying "triggers everything to its left, but negated?"

@Kellbell206 I would definitely memorize. You just can't get around it.

Very good tip here: Plural subjects imply the presence of an ALL or ANY statement in front of it, making it a sufficient condition.

"Barbies who do A do B" = "All Barbies who do A do B" = A---->B

I would like to share an additional quick-and-dirty rule/trick that will be helpful.

"NOT...UNLESS":

Let's say you have "Not" and later in the sentence have "Unless".

Like this: Not A, Unless B." Rather than going through the rules, just remember that "Not... Unless" is the same as A --> B. So, "Not A, Unless B" = "A--->B." You can replace "Unless" with any other Group 3 indicator and the rule works the same way.

"UNLESS...NOT":

There is a similar procedure if the order is flipped. If you have "Unless A, Not B" that becomes /A--->/B. Or the contrapositive, B--->A. You can again replace "Unless" with "Without" or any other Group 3 indicator and the procedure is the same.

@trinityoneilll So I believe the key here is differentiating between words. "No" "Cannot" "None" "Never" = GROUP 4 (Negate Necessary). But "NOT" is just regular, plain-old negation. In your question, "No" would be a group 4 indicator, and not a regular negation. Regular negation usually comes from the word "Not."

Example:

1) If not A, then B = /A ---> B. This is plain-old, regular negation of a condition by using "Not."

2) No A's are B = A ---> /B. This is Group 4, negating whatever you choose as the necessary condition. The reason it is Group 4 is because we see the indicator word "No." And the word "No" (Group 4) is different than the word "Not" (regular negation).

Hope that helps! If I'm wrong, someone feel free to correct me.

I'm an advanced student just reviewing the core curriculum. Apparently, I've been misrepresenting what "ALWAYS" means the entire time I've studied. I thought it was a sufficient condition indicator, turns out it's a necessary condition indicator.

Always = necessary

(whatever follows "always" is the necessary condition)

This is back to basics for Necessary Assumption questions.

I read AC (B) and thought "that is so basic that there's no way it could be an answer for a hard NA question." That's exactly the point! NA questions are looking for an assumption that, no matter how small, is so basic that the argument would fail without it. It can be something that the author would say "hmmm. yeah i didn't think of that, but OF COURSE that has to be true for my argument." NA correct AC's can be basic as **** and still be correct; in fact, most likely will be correct.

Further, incorrect answers on NA questions will often be strengtheners, but just go TOO FAR to be bare-bones necessary for the argument. AC (E) goes too far. Sure, it strengthens... but it absolutely is not required to be true for the argument to survive. Aboriginal people could've used it for other things, and also used it for canoes. That's plausible, and doesn't undermine the argument in any significant way.

@DanielBednar this is the article that made it all click for me when I was endlessly confused: https://lsatdemon.com/resources/logical-reasoning/negating-assumption-negation

I've found the best way to think about them is to think what MUST be true? It doesn't have to be obvious, and prephrasing is often unhelpful because lots of times the answer choices will bring up small little assumptions that you just would've never even thought of. But what answer choice would make the author think "huh, yeah, didn't think of that, but yeah that's gotta be true or else my argument is screwed." That's the correct one.

This is a new cookie cutter flaw that keeps reappearing and that I keep getting wrong: just because I know something (bc it's given to me in the stimulus), doesn't mean the individuals/groups mentioned in the stimulus know the same thing.

The stem says "these results contradict," but doesn't say the scientists know that these results contradict. That's a flaw. JUST BECAUSE WE KNOW DOESN'T MEAN THEY KNOW.

Here, the conclusion was BROAD that the disclaimer serves no purpose whatsoever. But the only evidence it gives is one scenario where it doesn’t serve its purpose (when the email advocates for something illegal). What if the email doesn’t advocate for something illegal? We have to show that if it doesn’t advocate for something illegal, that the disclaimer still serves no purpose. That would allow us to draw this broad conclusion.