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@bob247hammer I fully agree. We're trained to hold weakening answers to such a high standard, that when I saw 'C', I was like "yeah right" ... what is this, statistics class? So what if there are more accountants? ... if this was a real weaken and not an 'except' stem and you picked C you'd get killed.
The only way I'm able to make this ok is the fact that D is even worse, it's totally irrelevant to the core of the argument. I think since the stem is 'except' it's a kind of bizarro world where you're seeking the WORST weakener ever...
@NinaC789 Agreed, I was looking for an AC that would call out this disconnect too...
@epayne17 Agreed, was able to eliminate A and B easily because their conclusions were black and white, D spoke in terms of probabilities!
@KyleCrocco I've been scratching my head over this one ... seems like a pretty big assumption to me
At first I balked at "Inclination decreases as knowledge increases" not being causal.
Seems causal to me ... but, strictly speaking, this is only describing correlation between two things. There is no causal relationship defined here.
Causation would look like this: "An increase in knowledge causes/results in a decrease in inclination"
@coconut lately it's been helping to think of the sufficient assumption as a gap in the argument. the premises tell us some stuff, then boom, a conclusion which usually is pretty out there. It's like some reasoning went on behind the scenes and we weren't told. the sufficient assumption is like an extra premise that the author can use to get to that conclusion for sure, 100%.
Just ask the argument, "how on earth can you reach that conclusion from what you've said so far?" In this question, they say all this stuff about the circumstances of the coupon denial, then come out of left field and say "welp, they must have been trying to hurt Marty's". and our job is to say 'woah woah woah, how do you conclude that?'
For these kinds of questions, unlike weaken, we actually want to help this author, so we say ok, we want your conclusion to be true :) Let's imagine a world where the premises you have told me somehow magically make the conclusion 100% true. So we take these facts about coupon refusal and say "boom, in this world, when a company does these kinds of things, they MUST be doing it to hurt their competitor. Just ask yourself, what can I say on behalf of the arguer that would tie their premises to their conclusion without a shadow of a doubt. The result can sound crazy. But as long as you can take the premises and use them to reach the conclusion, the lsat is happy. I hope this helps!
I'm still unclear on how this is a Pseudo-Sufficient Assumption question stem, anyone have any tips for identifying this?
@needsomenoodles My thoughts exactly..