@haena yes thank you for framing it so nicely. I am a little overthinking this perhaps. And there’s also this wrinkle that if you resign due to conviction, in most cases you will have already been indicted. And you will not have been convicted without that, so there’s causation there. Yes! I know that’s not relevant but still, worth venting about.

"Natural cause" in B would surely include volcanoes, right? So B in fact makes it impossible for 8 craters to be volcanoes.

The only thing that B makes possible is a supernatural cause.

Volcanoes are not a supernatural cause.

This is a great post but the tutor was very busy when I initilaly reached out to him, then he pushed back to next week, but next week he was busy again. Then I pressured him to suggest a specific time for a telecon, he did suggest a time but (as expected) ghosted me when that time came. So, make your own judgment.

It's 2026. The network of government supercomputers now rules the world.

@jbrodhecker yes

So, the main reason B is not optimal: because even with a compelling reason, abuse may still occur? Like a medicine with side effects. There are cases where it should be prescribed, but it still hurts.

That also helps to rule out E.

What is the practical, real-life difference between "resign if convicted" and "resign only if convicted"?

I know that the latter basically says "you can get away with anything including murder, unless you're convicted, in which case you must resign", but how is that different, in effect, from the former choice? You still must resign when convicted, no matter if it's "only" and no matter what else you did or did not do.

Perhaps it becomes clearer if we structure it as a poll, such as:

• If you're indicted you must immediately resign

• If you're indicted but not convicted you must resign (what?)

• Only if you're convicted you must resign, or

• You must result if you're indicted, convicted, or have a bad hair day.

There is still some lingering confusion here, for me at least. It is also worth noting that normally, indictment is necessary for conviction.

Doesn't the reasoning contain an implicit contradiction? No true work of art is obscene, but when present with a true work of art that is obscene senator says it's not a work of art. Sounds a little contradictory?

We are not told the government actually destroyed the evidence. So, if the government's reply is true, then it could in fact disprove the charge. There is no wording such as "there is no evidence right now", or "there has never been evidence", which could make E clearly incorrect. It's therefore a guess between A and E.

Besides, if there never was any evidence to support the defendant, then it couldn't be destroyed. Cuz it never existed to begin with.

@PhoebeHopp yes thank you. But what is the role of the world “primarily”? On its face, it suggests a second motivation. It is confusing, in a way. Do you agree?

@MichaelWright thank you - yes, probably agree it does not come into play. But attention to these wordings sometimes throws one off - as in, what if they meant it? You know

Is "approach extinction" the same as "go extinct"? I do not think so. So, it's wrong to interpret the first statement in this way, no? I'd rather say "if deforestation continues, one necessary condition for extinction of koala will be achieved". Eg if deforestation goes on, koala population will drop to 120 koalas. It is known that 120 koalas is the threshold of extinction, but no extinction has occured yet. You can still do something to cause them to rebound.

Isn't the recovery of fish during shutdowns - by itself the clearest evidence that dioxin is the cause? It is a little disconcerting that stimulus presents it as argument against dioxin. Like, duh

Isn't the word "primarily" explicitly allowing a secondary motivation (eg 60% selfish, 40% help others)? If so, A is incorrect.

Doesn't E say the same?

The website = the class

The houses = sociology majors; the condos = psych majors

Most of houses are on the website, but the majority of condos are not.

But it doesn't follow there are more houses than condos, either on the website or in general. There could be three houses owned by the parents of the three sociology majors, but thousands of condos (with dozens of psych majors living in each condo).

How (where) is E wrong? Crim. law does not apply to minors, because minors are not adults. By the same token, rule about closing unprofitable businesses does not apply to parks, because they are not businesses. Rule applies to category X but not to category Y. The only difference is that A supplies a fact pattern (last year the county park...) but E doesn't. But we're not asked to evaluate a story; we're asked to evaluate the argument part.

(D): if poss to understand word w/o knowing its dictionary def (DD), then understanding the word simply cannot require understanding any words in its DD. Therefore, the word can be understood w/o having to understand another word. Unless we assume there are words that are not in dictionary, which is an unreasonable assumption (yes?)

(B) requires us to assume that the intrinsic merit books must always be contemporary. But there are tons of merit in old books. So even if the new books are declining in quality, one can always publish old books, no?

The text doesn't say, "book publishers have traditionally published new books that had merit".

isn't there also a subset of ppl who are not loved by anybody but do love someone? They are from a romantic comedy. They are happy, we know that much. But are they kind? We don't know.

Is it important to mind these people? Let me know.

@YihanShi yes, thank you!

@KevinLin rather, the logic could be: if people now effectively order books "tailor-made", ''as-needed", then, likely, less books will get printed en masse 'in anticipation' of their being sold. So, demand for book-grade paper will fall.

This is the advantage of 'made-to-order' - you only make the sandwich you sell, not the sandwich that gets thrown out at the end of the week.

@missjaclynf978 it does but I still... wait, thanks

@YihanShi many thanks, but do we need to multiply P's of stages? Does doing a number of things, each of which is 99% safe, result in overall risk that is less than 99% safe? Like, every time I fly a plane, is it less safe than the last time I flew a plane?

Don't see much discussion of why E is wrong. I chose E, my theory being: if books are printed on-demand, that will eliminate the need to pre-print large editions of say 100000 copies that will lay somewhere, unsold. This would definitely drive demand down. Curious to hear why this would be wrong.

1. Disney is automatic and requires no assumptions to arrive straight at conclusion.

2. Tiger is intuitively strong but we must make some assumptions, and they can be debated, for example does aggressiveness, or the ability to cause injuries, always mean unsuitability?

3. Fat Cat is hypothetical - there is not one solid proof.