Honestly this sometimes happens to me too and it can be difficult on some of those 4-5 star questions to differentiate premises and context. Something that helps me though is to first keep an eye out for the conclusion and find that, which is usually apparent by some transition word. Then, I'd simply ask myself "why should i believe this conclusion" and refer back to the argument and find the statements that would support the conclusion and just run with those as my premises. Sometimes its easier to find this when words like "because", "since", "after all" are used, but other times its just trying to dissect little details and really take my time figuring out the role of each sentence.

Anyone have tips/tricks for pointing out trap answer choices? I can usually eliminate some choices with relative ease, but I find it difficult on NA questions to point out the ones that are strengtheners or "pretend to strengthen"

Would the negation test be something that could also be used on "Must be True" questions? Since on both NA and MBT questions we have to find a missing premise or assumption that must be true given the argument?

Is it a good rule of thumb to always avoid flaw answer choices that concede the truth of the flaw?

As a general rule for sufficient assumption questions, should we avoid picking answer choices that might describe the ideas in the premises/conclusion in words/phrases that arent precisely how the ideas were phrased in the argument? For example, I picked AC B, mainly because i think i confused myself with my diagramming, but I also thought “an act...which the person doing it is genuinely responsible” was pretty synonymous with an act thats “freely performed”, and since I thought it mightve been closest to the gap in the argument, I selected it. I do realize now that an act that someone is “genuinely responsible” for can be much much different than something “freely performed” (as the argument describes it), but I guess I assumed they were synonymous enough that it wasnt a completely unsupported/unrelated idea.

In any case, maybe this is a sign for me to rely less on diagramming lol, I managed to pick up the gap relatively easily and was between B and C, just didnt opt for C because I clearly made an error with my diagramming ://

Could anyone share with me how they would diagram answer choice D? I got a little thrown off by the "any" and then the "if", both of which are common sufficient condition indicators.

Been reviewing this question a couple different times now and still struggle to understand how D fills the gap between the major premise and conclusion. Anyone able to break it down in an easier way?? :///

Is anyone able to break down how the missing link it "What if the e-mail does NOT suggest that people do something illegal?" I think i am starting to understand what makes A correct and how it allows us to reach the conclusion, but I am not sure how this missing link is something we were meant to predict/anticipate going into the answer choices??

I think if you feel nearly 100% confident in the answer you picked and you need to save time, then a quick skim over the other choices and moving on could be beneficial. Otherwise, I'd simply recommend more practice and to not worry about timing. I'm in a similar situation where timing is a big thing holding me back, but continuing to practice under both timed and untimed conditions has helped ensure my fundamentals are on point. Over time, everything will become a lot more intuitive and you will see progress! Also, I find that getting more comfortable with process of elimination and getting rid of answers that appear to be bad answer choices can be helpful too.