Why D is attractive to me:

1. In the 1st paragraph, African Americans' contribution to the cultivation of rice is discussed. That matches "contribution" in D

2. "In addition to this cultural explanation, Vernon speculates that rice cultivation might also have been a political act" matches "Cultural and Political" in D

However, the "cultural and political" something only covers the content in the last paragraph, and the author used "might" to indicate an uncertainty.

So why is A a better AC?

"The Introduction of Rice Cultivation into What Is Now the United States by Africans" refers to the content in the 1st paragraph, and "Its Continued Practice in the Years During and After Slavery" refers to the rest of the passage!

Well, lesson learned: In title question, don't be tricked by some flashing random words. Instead, find an AC that can cover the content of the whole passage.

@sophielevitt This fact is not a flaw. But the author's ignorance of this fact commits a flaw in his argument.

I feel the correct AC of this question just focus on the gap between the intermediate conclusion and the premise, rather than the gap between the intermediate conclusion and the conclusion.

I focused on the latter gap and thought that if we will never figure out such a question, then funding to solve this question is meaningless and unwarranted.

Then I was fooled by E.

In my mind, E would be a correct AC if it were written as "presumes, without providing justification, that people can be able to know whether there are some feasible means that can be found to deter large meteorite strikes." (super dense one)

I see 2 issues with B

To begin with, I thought B would be better written as "failed to distinguish two types of relationships—the relationship between TV advertisement and buying behavior and the relationship between violent movies and violent behavior. However, if you think in such a way as above as well, this might be because you think in the following way:

Bardis may have committed a mistake when he was making the analogy. Bardis is assuming TV advertisement is different from violent movies. But what if they are similar, and thus the claim that was denied by Bardis will make sense?

However, thinking in such a way drives our attention to the gap between premises, rather than the gap between premises and conclusion. Don't do this. It seems like fighting against premises.

In sum, B is a bad answer choice from head to toe.

Why I got so confused with this question is because I mistook "can only be a matter of taste" for "can be a matter of taste"!

The former one indicates that "-> matter of taste"

while the latter one indicates nothing, just restating bullshit.

@jakekane In my mind, "utmost respect" just doesn't matter in the argument. When I was reading, I processed this word as "attention" in my mind.

Now I guess the author means that because those anonymous news stories are offered by those who take great risk to do so, they and their stories deserve respect.

If we understand respect as certainty, then it will go against the author's own conclusion. To make our understanding make sense, we need to perceive "respect" as something alagin with the author's attitude in the conclusion.

initially I chose B because I felt the stimulus is about "advertisement vs. the realiaty"... crazy

for this comparative passage, I found the split method didn't work that well when I did not have enough time to solve this question, because many ACs need to rely on passage B to rule out, and only reading A didn't help me rule out a lot of ACs.

i chose D initially and ruled out all ACs that contain "morally right" because I felt the author has never talked about this.

for D, i felt the author has ever talked about something is immoral, and the CEO done something for his own benefit. That might explained why D is so attrative to me, because we do have evidence for CEO maximizing his own benefit.

Turns out, the key to this question lies in the last several sentences in the last paragraph.

It is a little bit complex. let me try to abstract it, "if one let his company harm the public interest for his personal reason, then this is not morally justified."

contrapositive: morally justified -> not let his company harm public interest, even though he may risks his personal interest

this is close to A.

I should have realized that the test makers might wanna trick me by using contrapositive!

Plus, it really important in understanding the last several sentences. It is not just as simple as the statement in D.

frankly speaking, i don't know what's the meaning of "linchpin".

now when i look back, i see the structure of the first paragraph much clearer. and i found that knowing the meaning of "linchpin" doesn't matter that much, because the question is asking for the usage of a long phrase.

so why does the author use such a phrase?

the author first talks about persecution playing a role (my vague understanding of the phrase) in the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, then talks about how "refugee" is defined. And then discuss the reason for persecution.

okay, so i feel talking about persecution is our precondition before discussing refugees.

and that's what E says. but I feel the "central factor" in E is stonger than my expectation.

here is my breakdown of this question in a mathematical way:

so for El Niño, it's like, when people talk about 3(3=1+2), they failed to identify 2

for a: we wanna know 2, (2=3-1); we failed to consider 1

for b: we wanna know x, (x= y*z); we failed to consider z

for c: we wanna know x; we failed to consider y (we get x by y)

for d: we wanna know x; we failed to consider y (it's like irrelevant) (in my mind, number of false report do not affect the number of crime committed. because police officers will not record this misreport. The number of false report affect the number of crime reported at best.

for e: we say that with 2, we can get 3; but we failed to consider 1. (2+1=3)

@AlexMarko

1. I think A and D are wrong because they use words like "many" and "some." The conclusion in the stimulus is about a tendency—"significant decrease"—but it does not mean that in every case it follows the pattern. Otherwise the author will use a conditional, rather than words like "decreases," to state something will 100% happen following the conditions.

   There are some exceptions to this tendency, and A and D are pointing out such exceptions. But these exceptions don't hurt the tendency.

   Search for a positive correlation graph on the Internet and check it. It might be helpful in understanding. (in such case, A and D will be spot that doesn't fall on the line, but the line still exists.)

2. Here is an example in case I failed to fully explain the relationship between tendency and exception.

Tendency: taking antidepressants can significant relieve depression, with a success rate of 99.99%.

Exception: antidepressants just don't work for some patients, the 0.01% situation.

in spite of the exception, the tendency is still there.

Hope this might be helpful. If you need further declaration, please feel free to ask.

here is my understanding:

first, translate the stimuli:

All stress-caused high blood pressure can be treated by lowering stress. (stress-cause high blood pressure-> able to be treated by lowering stress.)

some high blood pressure can be treated with medicine

so some high blood pressure is not cause by stress

It seems like the author is trying to reason by contrapositive. The author intended to reason by "~able to be treated by lowering stress-> ~stress-cause high blood pressure)

however, there is a dangling, that is, "treated by medicine = not able to be treated by lowering stress."

So our loophole: what if actually this medicine is working by lowering stress. (by this, we prevent the author trigger the necessary condition in the contrapositive.)

and E is the negated loophole, what the author have to assume to prevent failure of the conclusion.

D is dangerous. To be honest, I still find D attractive when I redo this question 2 days later.

Originally, I thought D was wrong because it has the word "some".

Turns out, I now think that what makes D an incorrect AC is because E is a better AC. Compared to D, E is more rigorous and goes a step further. If E is not in the AC lists, I think D will be a good AC. (Without E, I may not even think of the situation mentioned in E)

Finally, the next time we meet such a question, to get it correct, maybe the best way is to leave some time, compare the 2 competing ACs, and pick the best one by ranking.

I misunderstood this passage as "problem-solution" style. Because I was totally caught by the word "conflict" in the first paragraph and neglected that the passage read like the author is just telling a personal experience, in a calm and neutral tone, a feeling that is quite different from "problem-solution" style.

I ruled out E because I just took for granted that the chief is using a mussel from farm!

for B, it is too specific, and thus not necessary.

to tweak B to be a correct AC: takes for granted that income from sales of memorabilia is sufficient to prove its popular appeal.

I finally understand how this argument goes: Mariah agrees with Joanna's conclusion but disagrees that the reason is Adam's lack of experience, rather than bias.

i made 3 mistakes in this question.

1. I was tempted to choose B initially, but I misunderstood the meaning of "characterization." I thought that "characterization" means taxonomy

2. I found no fault with D, and I chose it. Turns out, I forgot this is asking about the purpose, not about whether something is reasonable or not.

3. At blind review, I read the third paragraph again and chose A—the purpose of this paragraph.

I chose E because I inferred it from the first sentence, "a natural rhythm of life... relaxed." But turns out, this relationship is denied by later data.

@kwangleestuff519 thank you, e finally makes sense to me. Initially, I think E is good to show that the correlation of successful results and the program is just coincidence.

But now I realize that correlation is just stating a trend, not a rule applying to each individual, and that's why E doesn't hurt the argument. Children in E are just some exception.

@JohnB I think you’re on the right track! Here is my understanding of B, D, and E:

B:

1. The word “generally” is too broad. In the stimulus, we only tested one drink. We would need more examples to justify a general claim like that.

2. The argument never stated: “If a product is packed in the right way, then it will succeed.” (We can diagram that conditional as: Packed in the right way → Success)

The stimulus only tells us that when a product is not packed in the right way, then it will not succeed: (Not packed in the right way → Not success) Contrapositive: Success → Packed in the right way

So you can see B mistakenly treats a necessary condition (packed in the right way) as if it were sufficient.

D: As mentioned above, the stimulus indicates that when a product is not packed correctly, it will not succeed: Not packed in the right way → Not success Contrapositive: Success → Packed in the right way

And “packed in the right way” simply means not packed in a way that fails to meet expectations—which is exactly what D is pointing out.

E: E can be diagrammed as: Not selling better → Two versions packed in the same way

However, the only relationship the stimulus gave us is: Success → Not packed in the same way (Meaning: if it succeeds, then the two versions are not packed the same way)

But if a product doesn’t sell better, we don’t know the cause. Maybe it was packed differently but the packaging tired out the producers, causing them to treat customers poorly—and that led to bad sales. So making “two versions packed in the same way” a necessary condition for poor sales is way too strong.

Hope my long-winded explanation won't bother you:)

Spring? I think it would be better to submit your application before February or March. Although I did see people admitted after that time, I guessed they needed higher lsat and gpa scores, compared with earlier applicants. So maybe the January lsat would be good for you.

@Oleynik same!!

for c: if you assume that "the more yield amount per land, the less fertilizer applied", you might chose this AC

however, we're not told about this relationship in the stimuli. What if it is ferilizer make them produce more food per land, and they decide to use more fertilizer.

and there's another problem with c: c talks about the time between 1950 and 1985, while we want explanation for the time after 1985.

Thus c doesn't explain the conflicts in the stimuli.

why i picked E at my first try: i assumed the overall mineral amount in the sea is the same. And as there are more mineral brought to the cave to form stalagmites, there will be less mineral in the rest of the sea.

Why i did not picked B at my first try: i imaginzed that as the cave is under water, the cave will always be pumped with water. Tunrs out, if there is always water in the cave, there will be no stalagmites, because the premise says that stalagmites need water dropping to a floor.