I got this right, but I was hesitant to equate "recognizing" legal entitlement (stated in the last paragraph) with "assigning ownership rights" (question stem). That's the only reason I struggled with this question, going back and forth between D and E, but ultimately choosing E.

@Bruh The correct answer A guarantees the truth of the conclusion, filling in the gap between the premises and conclusion. That's how I spotted it, because the other answer choices don't fill any gaps.

I get how it feels like a NA answer choice though.

@EmmanuelPasternak The conclusion is that larger size is a better defense mechanism, hence why the lake stickleback doesn't have armor. However, B gives an alternative reason for larger size, and it has nothing to do with defense. So the stimulus' entire argument is undermined. I also fell for C initially, but for that to work, we have to additionally assume what the LSAT tutors explain underneath answer C. Hope that helps

Is it just me, or does this feel like a level 4/5 question?

A gotcha question that didn't get me. FINALLY!!!

I'm realizing that sometimes in difficult questions, a LSAT "gotcha" is hiding the pertinent premise info in just a small phrase or word of the overall premise-in this case "performed regularly". The rest of the premise draws your attention to "skillfully exploring human nature" in such a way that it's the main element you're looking for as you go through the choices. But none of the choices that included that distraction were correct in the conditional structure. So that's what helped me find the correct answer, even though initially it wasn't what I was looking for.

@ga4842993 Another way to look at the conditional statement is we only know what causes the lawyer to be certain (the agreement should be used). We don't know what happens when the lawyer is not certain. I fell for C as well-I'm really just trying to parse this out right now.

@BrooklynHope It could be that the indispensable aspect concerns saving lives, or at minimum, it's a necessary piece of training to save lives, which sort of balances out the other possibility that long hours could jeopardize lives. That's how I see it. But you could also just do process of elimination, as the other choices don't really come close to touching on a necessary requirement, unless you made the mistake I did and fell for the trick of AC B. LOL

If AC E said "a book cannot be popular for reasons other than its ability to give readers pleasure", would that be a correct answer? Because then the negation of that would destroy the argument's reasoning of the book sales examples, since the argument is relying on the relationship between book sales and popularity.

Though it took me forever and my head is now swimming, I do understand why D is the correct answer, but I'm wondering if my initial thoughts above are also correct?

@Danny_F There is a big difference between A and B in that A states that something isn't happening (people aren't paying off debt at an accelerated rate) and B states that something is happening (people are financially helping relatives). If you negate both of those answer choices, only one destroys the argument. If B was also framed in the negative like A, then your argument makes sense.

@Schmoozer I also picked E, but only because I was approaching this question as a MBT. I believe the reason E is incorrect is because it doesn't connect the missing link between the premises and conclusion, which is the purpose of this question type. It's just its own truth that can be drawn from the stimulus. But the correct answer does guarantee the truth of the conclusion.