- Official Score
- 173
A lover of tricky problems, standardized tests, and teaching, Elijah has been tutoring professionally since 2020, when COVID-era virtual learning left many high school students in need of extra help. He has coached clients to scholarship-earning scores on the ACT, the GMAT, and with 7Sage, the LSAT. He loves to see his tutoring clients go on to attend their dream schools and work their dream jobs. Currently a resident of Kansas City, Elijah maintains a love for his hometown NFL team, the eternally mediocre Jacksonville Jaguars, and an interest in a wide variety of sports. When he isn’t tutoring, he may be exercising, enjoying a game of chess, or helping his own homeschooled kids understand the place value system. Elijah holds a Master of Theological Studies from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Discussions
Student question: So the argument is saying that every time we don’t have a specific obligation to an entity, we don’t have that same obligation to another entity?
Tutor answer: The argument isn't necessarily assuming that every time you don't have an obligation to an entity, you don't have that same obligation to another entity. But the argument is at least assuming that in the case at hand, obligations to the trees themselves are the only possible obligations we could have not to cut them down. If the argument's premises are true, then it has successfully established that we owe no obligation to the trees themselves. But the argument has not shown that such an obligation to the trees is the only obligation that could prevent us from cutting them down. This is what answer choice D is articulating. Answer choice E introduces the idea of property. If the trees you want to cut down are (on) the property of another person, then you do indeed have an obligation not to cut them down, an obligation owed to the property owner rather than to the trees themselves. Ironically, or perhaps intentionally, this introduction of the idea of property by an incorrect answer choice helps us to see that D is the correct answer choice.
Student question: In this question, the word suffer is new, and it seems a little aggressive. If not being able to complete it is cited as a wrong answer because of the possibility, what information other than it being better implies without being better, it is suffering?
Tutor answer: Answer choice C is using the word "suffer" as a synonym for "be worse." The point of answer choice C is not the "suffering," it is the first part about the possibility of not finding the book and the consequences for the quality of the paper. The stimulus establishes this logical chain:
Better Paper --> Quotation --> Accurate Citation --> The Book
So the possibility of not finding the book flips the whole chain to the contrapositive:
/Book --> /Accurate Citation --> /Quotation --> Worse Paper (paper suffers)
Student question: The correct answer is not supported, either. I agree that we can know that the gossip content doesn’t serve the journalistic purpose. However, A and B both aren’t exactly it. And they both are flawed inferences. For A, the flaw is we don’t know why the gossip content is included. We only know people buy the newspapers for non-journalistic reasons. Maybe the journalists included it for the journalistic purpose but it turned out to not serve the purpose. Can the reason why people buy it (what’s given) support the journalism’s intention (what answer A is about)? For B, the problem is with the strong wording “prevent”. Maybe other contents help the media achieve the journalistic purpose.
Tutor answer: I think it's fair to consider that the reasons journalists write/include certain stories and the reasons people buy/watch news may not be the same. Theoretically, journalists may have real journalistic intentions, but people are interested in the stories for other, nonjournalistic reasons (they love gossip). However, when it comes to "sensationalistic gossip" about celebrities, it's hard to imagine that the journalists sincerely think they are "informing people about matters relevant to the choices they must make." The only possible conclusion, then, is that such material is, at least sometimes, included for "nonjournalistic reasons," as A says.
Answer choice A's use of the phrase at least sometimes makes it much easier to accept. Maybe we can't definitively conclude that sensationalistic gossip is always included for nonjournalistic reasons, but it's no stretch to believe that it is at least sometimes included for nonjournalistic reasons. The author's view of jouranalism appears to be that newspapers and TV news programs have some real journalism and some real journalistic intentions, but they must also include sensationalist gossip (at least sometimes) for the sake of getting an audience in the first place.
Student question: Are we supposed to infer from the passage that the Nicaraguan pine forests are at a low elevation because of the ‘but’ used to described the Mexican and Guatemalan forests in contrast? I found this question hard to answer because the Nicaraguan forests are not explicitly described as at a low elevation. Thank you very much!
Tutor answer: We can infer from the passage that the Nicaraguan pine forests are at a low elevation, but the sources of this inference are not the 'but' you mentioned. We can tell because the author used the comparative "higher elevations" to describe the Guatemalen and Mexican forests. Well, higher than what? Higher than the Nicaraguan pine forests. Also, the last sentence of the passage says that "This succession is also evident elsewhere in similar low tropical elevations in the Caribbean and Mexico." Okay, similar to what? To the Nicaraguan pine forests. The upshot is that the Nicaraguan pine forests are also at "low tropical elevations."
Student question: I was between B and E but chose E because I thought it would be incorrect to assume that even if they analyze data that conflict with Jones’s theory, that doesn't mean that they will revise it to be closer to Jones’s theory. I don’t understand why it is ok to assume that it would be revised to be closer to Jones’s theory.
Tutor answer: B shows us that researchers in this field operate under the assumption that Jones's theory is correct/accurate. When data falls in line with Jones's theory, it isn't questioned; it is assumed that the data-collection errors mentioned in the stimulus have not occurred. It is not surprising that researchers who think of Jones's theory this way have a tendency to correct questionable data to be more in line with Jones's theory.
Student question: I thought that looking at any improvements outside “immediate symptom relief” brought us into long-term therapy territory, and this argument only focuses on short term therapy, so I eliminated this answer. I’m still not understanding how A is right. Help please, thank you!
Tutor answer: Thanks for your question! "Immediate" and "short-term" are not the same thing. "Short-term" therapy might be several months, whereas it's hard to imagine "immediate" meaning anything longer than a week. So it's reasonable to consider that not all "short-term" improvement is "immediate." The studies may warrant a conclusion that immediate improvement in short-term psychotherapy must be the result of some commonality among different kinds of psychotherapy, but they do not warrant a similar conclusion (the stimulus' conclusion) about any improvement in short-term psychotherapy. If the studies failed to address other important kinds of (short-term but non-immediate) improvement, then there may have been significant differences in these non-immediate improvements among clients receiving different kinds of psychotherapy, which would undermine the conclusion of the stimulus.
Student question: after "However" how is that not the conclusion? Doesnt However in general signify the conclusion is after?
Tutor answer: "However" is not a conclusion indicator, it simply indicates that what is about to be said is somehow surprising in view of, or not in line with, what has been said before. In this stimulus, "however" indicates the contrast between $10 million and "$400 million over two years." The fact that the city now needs $400 million over two years is not the conclusion of this argument. Rather, the contrast between $10 million and $400 million is intended to support the taxpayer's assertion that the lack of maintenance spending which led to the $400 million emergency was a prime example of fiscal irresponsibility. In other words, the city should have spent more money on bridge maintenance (answer choice A).
Student question: I was between A & E, I chose A because i found a gap in the argument to be that maybe there is another reason why adults now smoke less: the previous teens who smoke less are now adults. Also, AC E seemed wrong to me because says failed to consider other causes contributed, but who said that maybe there are ohter causes? all the passage says is that advertising is a significant cause, not the only cause
Tutor answer: My thinking is that the point made in A would be one of the "other factors" that E says the argument failed to consider. E is a stronger answer because it brings into view any number of possible alternative, or even overriding, explanations for the observed drop in the popularity of smoking among adults. The argument simply assumes that correlation implies causation, and the correct response to such an argument is, "Well, what about other possible causes behind the observed phenomenon? How do you know it's not attributable to something else instead?"
Student question: I highlighted the second sentence as the conclusion and then the third sentence as an intermediary conclusion supported by the fourth sentence. Are the second and third sentences essentially the same? Or, would it be wrong to see the second sentence as the conclusion?
Tutor answer: The second and third sentences here are not the same. Notice that the second sentence doesn't say, "the sentinel's watchful behavior is not entirely self-interested." It says, "_______ does not mean that its watchful behavior is enitirely self-interested." There's kind of a "lack of support vs false conclusion" thing going on here. I would break down the stimulus like this:
S1: Evidence that might be understood as contrary to the argument's conclusion
S2: Statement that the evidence in S1 is not contrary to the argument's conclusion
S3: Conclusion
S4: Evidence in support of conclusion
Student question: For this question, identifying the right answer boils down to the following conditional: theory is false AND /conceivable observation to refute it → /empirical theory. What’s confusing is the conditional makes it seem like you have to fulfill both sufficient conditions joined by ‘AND’ to definitively conclude something is not an empirical theory, but the correct answer choice only shows that there’s no conceivable observation to refute it. Why are we allowed to conclude that Psychoanalysis is not an empirical theory without knowing if the theory is actually false?
Tutor answer: Thanks for your question! There are two things happening here. One is that you're confused about and and or in the conditional scenario you're working with. Here's a parallel example to consider:
"A theme park ride is not fun unless it is fast and unpredictable."
The sentence should be translated like this:
/(fast + unpred.) --> /fun
A ride must be both fast and unpredictable to be fun, but it does not have to be both slow and predictable to be unfun; failing just one of those two conditions is enough. If the ride is fast but predictable, then it is not fun. Or if it is unpredictable but slow, then it is not fun. It it helps, you can "split" the statement into two conditional statements:
/fast --> /fun
/unpred. --> /fun
You only need one way to get to /fun, so either /fast or /unpred. will do.
Now, the other thing happening here is that the scenario we just talked about is not happening in this stimulus. Notice that the stimulus never uses the word "and." It really should be diagrammed like this:
/conceivable obs. that would refute if false --> /empirical theory
We can't even say whether psychoanalysis is "false" or "true" because it's so flexible that no conceivable observation could be made to show us this! This gets hard to think about because of the philosophical/epistomological nature of the topic, but we can see how answer choice C is an application of the conditional statement we diagrammed.
Student question: I got this right for the right reason but I was nervous that AC C was worded too strongly. If you rearrange the sentence, it reads: If a microbiologist can’t cultivate a species in isolation, then no microbiologist can have complete knowledge of any species of organism (pls confrim if i translated correctly). But conclusion says they lack knowledge of MOST microbe species. How can the AC “most” close the gap for “most” ? I know sometimes the AC can be broader than what the conclusion covers, but if they cant cultivate ANY species in isolation, then wouldn’t AC C mean that they can’t have complete knowledge of ANY species?
Tutor answer: It sounds like you're a bit comfused about Sufficient Assumption questions, or maybe about the relationship between an "any" statement and a "most" statement. Let's say you're trying to support the conclusion that "Most people who have ever eaten pizza like pizza." An answer choice that tells you "Any person who has eaten pizza likes pizza," would be the correct answer. It would be sufficient to draw the conclusion. The fact that it is more extensive than the conclusion it has been asked to support is not a problem. "Any X is a Y" and "Most X's are Y's" are perfectly compatible statements. This is why we teach that "some (and most) can mean all." All/any/every/each are not precluded by "some" or by "most."
Student question: I was stuck between C and E but ultimately chose E for drill and BR. I reasoned C for the reason the answer is correct, but my logic for E was that we don’t know for sure that the timber company isn’t a petrochemical company. Bc board members usually invest in company, which means they invested in the industry, I felt like closing that gap led to a smaller assumption gap than what we’re left with after C, which is that the timber company could still maybe be a petrochemical company. Could you please explain what I did wrong and how I can prevent this error in the future.
Tutor answer: Owning investments in the petrochemical industry is not a reason given in the stimulus that a person would be required to disclose their investments; what matters is sitting on the board of a petrochemical company. If your concern is that the small timber company might also be a petrochemical company, E doesn't close that gap. Cecile could sit on the board of the company without owning any investments in the company or in the broader industry. I think you might be missing the jump in the stimulus from requirements to reasons. The logic goes: "Cecile is not required to disclose her investments; therefore there is no reason for her to disclose her investements." But there's a huge assumption there. Just because you are not required to do something doesn't mean there is no reason for you to do it. C is correct because it addresses this assumption.
Student question:
I was unsure about C because it sounded like a stretch. I know the last paragraph says that the regimes tend to result in the three causes but the author’s last sentence seems to imply that if these rulers were smart, they’d follow suit and make these democratic political changes. I’m wasn’t sure if that meant the author was confident that these rulers would in fact be smart and make those changes.
Tutor answer:
We don't know whether the authoritarian rulers would in fact be smart and implement democratic political reforms, but we know that if they are dumb and don't implement the reforms, they will lose their power. We know this because implementing the reforms is "their only home of retaining some power in the future." Now at this point, we might feel unsure whether the deposition of this particular authoritarian ruler will be followed by a shift toward democracy or simply by another equally authoritarian regime. But the first sentence of P2 says that the three changes "can contribute to a society's no longer condoning the continuation of authoritarian rule." This means that it is not just the particular authoritian ruler who will be deposed, but the institution of authoritarianism itself. So in either case, smart and willing to make reforms or dumb and dethroned by force, the country ends up more democratic.
Student question:
Why is B wrong? “NGF was the first of many cell-growth factors to be found in the bodies of animals.” This means that other cell-growth factors were discovered. Going from not knowing that something is a cell-growth factor to knowing that it is surely constitutes a more thorough understanding.
Tutor answer:
Your confusion here is coming from a misunderstanding about the meaning of answer choice B, particularly the phrase "more thoroughly understood." You are treating this as if it means "more thoroughly understood than they were before," when it actually means "more thoroughly understood than NGF." The correct meaning is indicated by the use of the introductory word "although," which indicates that the truth is different than what we might expect. Like, "Although Mikhail only studied for a few days, he scored a 176 on the LSAT." In the case of the passage, we would expect NGF to be the most thoroughly understood neurotrophic factor, since it was the first to be identified. But in fact, other neurotrophic factors that were identified later than NGF are now more thoroughly understood than NGF.
Student question:
I initially chose A and ran with it on my first run because I made an assumption in that if a computerized software is less expensive than a traditional source of audiotapes, then it would be more accessible. However, during my blind review, I saw that in the conclusion in the stim, it says that computers make it more accessible than MOST traditional sources. Would it be okay to make the initial assumption that being cheaper is more accessible, but this answer is wrong because audiotapes is tool out of many more traditional sources?
Tutor answer:
The problem with answer choice A is not the "most" in the stimulus. The problem is that expense is not the "barrier" to audiotapes in the first place. It may be true that a computer speech synthesizer is less expensive than a complete library of audiotapes, but that fact wouldn't strengthen the argument because, according to the stimulus, "Only a limited amount of information is accessible on audiotape." The tapes simply don't exist. The problem is not that they are too expensive but that there simply aren't very many of them out there. They are "inaccessible" not because they are too expensive but because they don't exist.
Student question:
I was curious why B was the right answer. The answer says Cecilia’s view “prevailed in her time”, but although I can tell it was later accepted, where does it say that it was accepted in her time?
Tutor answer:
Ah, I see your confusion with answer choice B. It is not saying that Cecelia's alternative view prevailed in her time; it is saying that there was a certain view of the sun's composition that prevailed in Cecelia's time, and Cecelia proposed alternative to that view was ultimately vindicated.
Cecelia Payne
proposed an innovative alternative to
the view of the sun's composition that prevailed in her time
Student question:
If the part of answer choice C about ancient Greece is implied, then how can this answer choice be said to be stated in the passage and therefore incorrect? I would understand if this was an MSS type of question, but since it’s a stated question I chose C.
Tutor answer:
I would say the part about the Ancient Greeks' inability to foresee modern medical dilemmas is supported by a few spots in the passage:
"Critics argue that the oath is outdated; its fixed moral rules, they say, are incompatible with more flexible modern ideas about ethics."
"Furthermore, its emphasis on the individual patient without regard for the wider social context frustrates the physician's emerging role as gatekeeper in managed care plans."
"More importantly, even the more substantive, morally based arguments concerning contemporary values and newly relevant issues..."
Even if this part of answer choice C is less directly mentioned, the part about the oath's "failure to address modern medical dilemmas" is a direct match for "failure to mention vital contemporary issues" in the passage.
Most importantly, answer choice B isn't mentioned or implied at all, so it must be correct.
Student question:
I used the same sentence given as support for A to support D. I interpreted it as if all politicians agreed that programs focused on more than survival were beneficial, that meant they supported the broader definition of necessity. Why is this wrong? I also was put off by A because it equated benefit of society with national good and it didn’t feel like they were necessarily the same concept.
Tutor answer:
The sentence of the passage you refer to doesn't allow your interpretation because it says this: "Even the most conservative of politicians admits that tax money is rightly spent on programs that, while not necessary for the survival of the state, are nevertheless of great benefit to society." According to the conservative politicians, the programs are beneficial even though they are not necessary. "Survival of the state" means that the "soceity" in view is the state/nation, so "national good" in answer choice A is fine.
Student question:
My prephrase for this question was that the complaints don’t necessarily mean Moore does a bad job. Maybe the complaints were from customers who didn’t like his pricing, but his work was still good. We don’t know that the complaints necessarily resulted from doing a bad plumbing job. With this prephrase in mind, I was led to AC E. I still don’t understand why E is wrong. If the people who weren’t dissatisfied with the work weren’t the ones filing the complaints, but rather had other reasons for complaining about him, then how would this not highlight a flaw in the argument?
Tutor answer:
I'm not sure that your prephrase is allowed by the stimulus, because it says "every complaint filed about a plumber's work," not just "about a plumber." It sounds like your prephrase is leading you to misunderstand answer choice E. E says nothing about who the complaints came from or exactly what the reasons behind them were (besides "dissatisfaction with Moore's work"). Rather, E is about the proportion of dissatisfied customers who filed complaints against Moore. Let's state the "extreme possibilities" of the idea in answer choice E:
Maximum: Every person who was dissatisfied with Moore's work filed a complaint against Moore.
Minimum: Very few of the people who were dissatisfied with Moore's work filed a complaint against Moore.
For E to be the correct answer, we need these maximum and minimum scenarios to lead to opposite evaluations of the argument in the stimulus: one should strengthen the argument and the other should weaken the argument. These opposite evaluations would indicate this fact which was not considered by the argument should have been considered. But we can't demonstrate that these maximum and minimum scenarios respectively strengthen and weaken the argument, so E isn't the answer choice we're looking for. E is about the wrong proportion. We aren't helped by knowing what proportion of dissatisfied customers filed complaints; we would be helped by knowing what proportion of Moore's customers were dissatisfied. Sure, it may be true that every plumbing complaint in the town is about Moore, but what if only 1% of Moore's customers have complained? This isn't what answer choice B gives us (which also works very well), but it helps us to see how answer choice E goes wrong.
Student question:
I want to get into the details of the vocabulary of this passage. P3: “seems unlikely ... could be reconciled”, “disputes ... are bound to continue”, “genuine communication between the two sides is virtually impossible”. Then the author finished P3 with “For reasoned discourse to occur...”, and he begins P5 with “What would be required to resolve the debate...”. So clearly the author states that he believes that the two groups cannot reconcile but still proceeds to give how they could reconcile. He never uses language to indicate that reconciliation could happen given his proposed method. But he does clearly state before, that reconciliation is “impossible”. So while I can see that B is right, I believe A is just as right.
Tutor answer:
Thanks for your question! Your attempted rationalization of answer choice A is a lesson in why every word of a text matters. You skipped the beginning of P3: "On the face of it." In other words, the situation has the appearance of impossibility, but if we look deeper, there is a way for the debate to make progress, and the way is laid out in P5. You also skipped the phrase, "the present debate" from the third sentence of P3. Presently, genuine communication between the two sides is virtually impossible. But the present situation can change! And the way of change, again, is laid out in P5. (As a separate, less important point, the presence of the word virtually indicates that the author doesn't believe genuine communication between the two sides is altogether impossible.)
Student question:
I don’t see the gap in the argument. Since the premise reads: if it leaks from damaged or oxygen-starved nerve cells, then glutamate can kill surrounding nerve cells, then wouldn’t it already prove the conclusion, since the conclusion starts with “glutamate leaking from damaged or oxygen-starved nerve cells,” thus establishing the sufficiency condition already, which triggers the necessary? Also, I thought answer choice A strengthened since glutamate is a part of “Any neurotransmitter that leaks from a damaged or oxygen-starved nerve cell,” so it supports the conclusion that glutamate will damage surrounding nerve cells.
Tutor answer:
The word if in the first part you quoted from the stimulus is the key to this question. We are told what glutamate will do to surrounding nerve cells (kill them) if it leaks from the cell in which it was contained. But the conclusion assumes that this leakage is occurring. This is not an entirely groundless assumption, but it isn't proven either. Leakage of glutamate is assumed to be occurring for two reasons:
1) Nerve cells in the brain have continued to deteriorate (This is a necessary condition in the event of glutamate leakage, but the sufficient condition of glutamate leakage can't be inferred from this necessary condition of nerve cell deterioration)
2) a correlation of this ongoing brain nerve cell deterioration with the highest levels of glutamate in the blood
The thinking in the stimulus is that the correlation of 1) and 2) shows/proves that 1) was in fact a result of glutamate leakage (i.e., that glutamate leakage is occurring). However, we still don't know, because the link between "glutamate leakage in the brain" and "highest levels of gluatame in the blood" is still an assumption. How do we know that the glutamate in the blood didn't get there by some way other than brain nerve cell leakage? How do we know that glutamate leaking in the brain even would/could make its way into the blood? Granted, these aren't unreasonable assumptions, but they are still assumptions that answer choice D helps to take care of. Knowing that a certain observed effect (glutamte in blood) could only have been caused by glutamate leakage guarantees that glutamate leakage has occurred.
Answer choice A doesn't help because it doesn't tell us anything new. According to the stimulus, glutamate is a neurotransmitter that will kill surrounding nerve cells if it leaks from the cell in which it was contained. Knowing that this is also true for any other neurotransmitter doesn't change our body of knowledge about glutamate, so it can't strengthen the conclusion that glutamate leakage is a cause of long-term brain damage resulting from strokes.
Student question:
How come we rule out answer choice C for something that “may happen” but we accept D on the basis that the author says it “might happen” is that not the same thing?
Tutor answer:
The difference is that in answer choice C, the "may" is in the passage and the answer choice itself is definitive, while in answer choice D, the "might" is in the answer choice. We can determine that the author believes something might be true (D) on the basis of what they said in the passage, but we cannot determine that the author believes something is true (C) on the basis of what the passage said may be true. In other words, the "degree of certainty" in the answer choice should be equal to or less than the degree of certainty in the passage. This is the case for D. But answer choice C has a degree of certainty greater than that of the passage. A "may" or "might" in an answer choice (D) can be supported by statements or implications in the passage, but a confident statement in an answer choice (C) cannot be supported by a "may be" in the passage.
Student question:
my problem w/ this one is that the passage says “These images were PROBABLY intended to...” So if the author is saying is saying “probably” that means he doesn’t have implicit belief because if they did they would’ve said something like “These images were intended to...” So I guess my question is why doesn’t this “probably” show hesitation and how can it possibly show implicit belief.
Tutor answer:
"Implicit" doesn't mean "unquestioning" or "absolute" or "unqualified." It means "not explicit." Explicit acceptance would be saying something in the passage like, "The anthropologists are probably right." The author doesn't come out and say this explicitly, but he does base his own further reasoning on the anthropologists' claims, so he implicitly accepts those claims. The "probably" that he uses in the passage is not about the anthropologists' claims themselves; it is about a specific extension or application of their claims. They claim that the paintings "were meant to grant magical power over the Aurignacians' prey." The author implicitly accepts this claim by articulating the probable application of this magical power: "to make these animals vulnerable to the weapons of the hunters," an explanation supported by further reasoning in the rest of the senence.
Student question:
I was a little bit stuck on this question because when I was doing it I seemed to focus on the conditional reasoning in the answer choices which messed me up. For E, I saw the If and took it as a conditional - sufficient and necessary. However, to clarify, for the right answer are we looking for an answer that mentions a country is a well functioning democracy if.. most people favour the bill, bill doesnt violate any basic human rights, and it is passed quickly? Also, would you be able to explain more why D is incorrect? I could understand how E is a better choice, but cant fully grasp the explanation given.
Tutor answer:
Let's start by expressing the whole argument as a single conditional statement.
"A country is not a well-functioning Democracy if in that country a bill that most people favor and that does not violate anyone's basic human rights can, for many years, be prevented from passing into law by influential people who would be adversely affected were the bill to become law."
Whew. We want to strengthen the conclusion that this country is not a well-functioning democracy. So working with the conditional statements in the answer choices, we want to somehow get to --> /WFD ("not a well-functioning democracy").
E) [WFD + MPF + /VHR] --> Passed into Law
Now we can flip this to the contrapositive, because we know from the stimulus that the bill in question will not be (for many years) passed into law:
/Passed into Law --> /[WFD + MPF + /VHR]
The way to read the right side of this statement is, "At least one of these three conditions does not exist." We know that MPF exists (most people favor the bill. And we know that /VHR exists (the bill does not violate human rights). Since at least one of the three conditions on the right does not exist, and both the second and third conditions do exist, the first condition (WFD) does not exist. In other words, this country is not a well-functioning democracy. Conclusion strengthened.
Now let's work with D and see how it does not lead to --> /WFD.
D) [Passed into Law + WFD] --> [MPF + /VHR]
The problem here is that, according to the stimulus, both conditions on the right exist. So we can't flip answer choice D to its contrapositive in order to get to --> /WFD. Stick with E!
Student question: hello the answer choice A is still not making sense to me
Tutor answer: Is it the word "only" that you're confused by? The reason answer choice A says "only offensive" is to rule out other possible reasons why the government might restrict the publication of the literature. If the literature is offensive and also inflammatory, and if being inflammatory causes harm, then it might be right for the government to restrict the publication of that literature. But if the literature is only offensive, then according to the argument, it is not right for the government to restrict the publication of the literature, because the literature, although offensive, is not causing harm. And causing harm is the only case in which it is right for the government to restrict liberty (like the publication of literature).