#help

There are 2 ambiguous interpretations of the conclusion which made it hard to figure out how to approach this question.

The first interpretation reads the conclusion as comparing the relative risk of injury in the subset of small and large cars already in an accident: "One is less likely to be injured [when] in an automobile accident if one drives a large car rather than a small car." With this reading, answer choice D doesn't weaken the argument at all since the question of the relative rates of accidents between small and large cars is not in scope/already controlled for.

In the second interpretation, one reads the conclusion as comparing the risk of accident + injury, within the entire set of small and large cars on the road: "One is less likely to be injured [and] in an automobile accident if one drives a large car rather than a small car." This is the correct reading and would lead you to pick answer D.

I initially read it the first way, and only came to read it the second way after doing POE on all the incorrect answers, and taking a gamble on answer D while hoping that switching to the second interpretation actually turned out to be the correct one.

My question is, is there a way to unambiguously interpret the wording of the conclusion on the first pass to lead you to read "injured in an automobile accident" in the way the test writers intended? Are there specific verbal cues one way or another? I don't think I'm being unreasonable when it feels like the natural reading of that sentence tends to skew towards the first interpretation. Some insight would be helpful to answer these questions more quickly and confidently.

@MidoMashakel I made this mistake too and thought the same thing, but I think I've figured it out now:

Why C is wrong:

The fact that tadpoles will still prioritize themselves and eat their siblings during times extreme hunger is, like you pointed out, compatible with inclusive fitness theory (IFT). But being compatible with the theory doesn't mean it SUPPORTS the theory, which answer C is claiming. It just points out that there are some instances where IFT gets overridden by more basic selection pressures.

#help

I agree with another commenter that C and E should have been eliminated for the same reasons.

There is nothing in the passage to suggest that European literary critics ever studied Native American stories. The passage states that this term "trickster" is used in both literary traditions, but it's not clear that the European literary critics intentionally borrowed it. We're only told that this term has "recently appeared" in European literary criticism. If anything the author seems to imply that it's merely a coincidence.

I interpreted the "third civilization" D to mean "a proto-civilization that later evolved into both the Swahili and Oromo civilizations, both of whom inherited their tomb-building practices"

So this proto-civilization wouldn't have had "contact" with the Swahili per se, but literally evolved into them, so wouldn't contradict the stimulus.

I realize that E actually includes that interpretation and is a better way to put it

@ActuallyJozu Super late reply but for anyone else who sees this:

This would be correct if the question was "Which one of the following would the author be most likely to agree with?" In which case your analysis would be correct and relevant.

However, that's not what the question is asking. It's asking about principles that can be used to "analyze typical accounts of the origins of bebop," which means, "what analytical tools can we use to figure out what those typical accounts trying to say?"

Note that this a purely descriptive exercise, without any kind of value judgement. The correct answer choice should describe some kind of tool, or analytic principle, that the author uses to imply something about the belief structures of those who believe in the typical account.

Answer E, on the other hand, is a normative claim: "people should/should not do X." While the author might believe this, it actually does not answer the question, which is asking for a specific tool or principle that can be used for textual analysis.

Method: Look for a term in the conclusion that isn't mentioned anywhere else in the argument. This is most likely the "bait-and-switch" term that the test writers are trying to trade off of.

The conclusion says "Sound management of a resource requires... that the price reflect any unintended harm to the environment."

However, this term "environment" is found nowhere else in the stimulus. The closest thing we get is "unintended but harmful consequences to society."

If you catch the fact that this term "environment" appears in the conclusion essentially out of thin air, you already have a clue as to what the assumption is. If this is to be a valid argument, the author needs to somehow account for this term "environment," and define it with respect to other terms in the stimulus.

Answer choice A is the only one that does that.

@HardworkingGallantCat I think this is it -- answer choice C, unlike D, explicitly frames the comparison between traditional- and experimental hatchery fish, which makes it the better choice since the conclusion was about the comparison.

A key thing missing in J.Y.'s explanation about why answer choice C is wrong: The research experiment mentioned in passage B is strictly-speaking not neurological research.

The experiment in passage B studied "ritualized, sequential behaviors," and "vocal, facial, and bodily, interactions" between mothers and babies. These are all just surface-level behaviors. We can see there is nothing strictly neurological being measured in this study.

On the other hand, the experiment in passage A explicitly does mention neurological research, as it mentions "brain imaging studies" showing the "neurological processing of [music]."

Granted, in the last paragraph of passage B the author does give a passing mention to the "neurological basis" of music, but this does not amount to referring to "neurological research" in any substantive way.