This question is fine, but I'm confused as to why we assume that "sense" is equivalent to "feel / experience"? Sensing fear in the colloquial sense means something along the lines of "detecting fear in others" while "feeling" has to do with the actually experiencing an emotional state. If we take these definitions of the words, wouldn't AC B make a lot of sense? Since the amygdala would not just be involved in "sensing fear" but also "feeling fear"?

@Kevin_Lin I'm very lost still so sorry for the confusion. I understand your point about the necessary condition not necessarily occurring (I'm assuming because a spring thaw has not been explicitly mentioned to occur?), but is the river overflowing not the sufficient condition and the high snowfall + spring thaw the necessary condition? I'm probably confusing the two, but according to the AC, the river overflowing is logically subsequent to the high snowfall so it made me think so.

The "If A, then B. A is true. So B will be true" seems valid, but AC B is not in my mind. If it followed that structure, wouldn't it say something like "If high snowfall + spring thaw, then river overflow. High snowfall + spring thaw, so river will overflow"? But rather it examines historical data in that every instance that high snowfall + spring thaw has lead to river overflowing. Just like the fact there are minor tremors does not guarantee that there will be a major earthquake, I thought AC B was exposing the flaw that high snowfall (necessary condition) does not guarantee that the river will overflow (sufficient condition).

I got the right answer because all the other choices just sucked really bad, but honestly I'm having a bit of trouble with AC A, and its making me doubt eliminating AC B. First, I'm not seeing the connection between "modest amounts of exercise" (and thus dramatic improvement in cardio health) and the "equivalent of half an hour of brisk walking on those days" leading to obtaining "cardiovascular health benefits". Cardio health benefits from walking most days of the week are not specified to be "dramatic" or really implied to me under a scrutinizing lens. The stimulus just says that there are benefits. That disconnect makes me feel less sure about AC A, because how do we know that strenuous workouts on most days is equal to or greater than "modest amounts of exercise"? What if my strenuous workout is like squatting 500 for 1 rep? It's hard, but in the grander scheme of things its not all that much exercise. Also, is "the equivalent of half an hour of brisk walking on those days" not the same as one hour of walking two or three times a week? Equivalency in terms of volume seems to be there. And the "generally" doesn't seem to really complicate the question because the walking isn't established to be a necessary condition but rather a sufficient one ("one need only do...").

@Dylan_Rispoli I had the same concern as the other commenter. If we are to accept that the differential rate of oxygen use is what is actually serving as the measure of metabolic activity, how do we know that AC C is referencing the differential rate of oxygen use? Because if it is not and is rather referencing the actual rate of oxygen use, I can't find anything in the passage to substantiate that.

UPDATE: Literally three seconds after posting my comment I realized the AC included the word "show", which must refer to the fMRI since that is the only thing showing anything, and we know from the passage that the fMRI picture is based on differential rate of oxygen. This actually makes a lot of sense.

@Al_foroodian@sfu.ca This is a really good analysis. The only problem that I found while thinking it over is that the question talks about the oxygen rates shown, not the actual oxygen rates themselves. Since it approaches it from this standpoint, it necessarily brings in the "subtractive" method used by the fMRI, because the fMRI is the only thing presenting the rates. And now I'm stuck all over again lol

@steamboatwillie Very good point, I think JY gives an unfortunately unhelpful explanation as to why we should avoid AC A. I think the best way we could push on AC A in this case is the wording of "discouraging other predators from moving into the area." This basically says that no new predators will move in, aka the number of naturally existing predators (which could be 0 or really any number, contrary again to JY's assumption in his explanation) will remain relatively stable. We already know from the stimulus that wolves are "artificially" brought in. So there is at least one new predator introduced to the environment, which we would expect to diminish the growth of the moose herd. Yet the growth continues, so this AC does not provide a good explanation as to why. AC C provides the only potential "counter-productive" effect. The introduction of wolves must have some kind of net positive (or relatively neutral) effect on the herd's growth, and AC A cannot provide that.

#help I don't understand the logic behind premise one being "left-right" flipped. The explanation simply makes no sense. They seem to be exactly the same in structure? [Premise 1: Doom preceded by harbinger.] [Premise 2: Harbinger recently.] [Conclusion: So Doom in the future.]

On the topic of a sufficiency-necessity flaw, does AC B not provide exactly that? It confuses the idea that, in the past, it has been necessary for a high-snowfall winter to take place in order for the river to overflow with the idea that a high-snowfall winter is sufficient for the river to overflow. Dunno why we are assuming this to be a valid argument unless we are bringing outside interpretations into this passage...

@ConnerKline How is the jump made between being "determined by subjective evaluations" and "involving a certain degree of subjective evaluation"? I feel like the word "determined" understands subjective evaluations as playing a "very strong" or "deciding" role while AC C seems to gesture at subjective evaluation more loosely as simply a contributing factor.

@bgurevic262 I think it's because PCB poisoning is explicitly framed as "further exacerbating" the condition (of emaciation?). Thus, the main contributing causal factor is brevetoxin rather than PCB since it is logically prior (the brevetoxin must have lead to the metabolizing, and the effects of PCB followed as a result of that).

@oliviaking.109 Just because fish tissue accumulated toxin doesn't mean they weren't affected, and the absence of that discussion does not exclude it from the realm of possibility. It is entirely possible that the fish were also emaciated / affected in some way. Since this question asks which one is "most strongly supported", E is a lot stronger than A.

#help Absolutely terrible question. Even if it is a "most strongly supported" question, AC B does not do anywhere near enough of a good job to even consider it as a choice. If the people ate Plants A through D, that says NOTHING about if people elsewhere ate A + B, B + C, C + D, etc. There is nothing about AC B that would even remotely suggest other people are not also using / eating the same plants, ONLY that there is no singular group out there that ate a similarly wide variety of wild plants.

AC C seems to make the most logical, smallest leap. If we assume that a "more advanced stage in the use of wild plants than any other people at the time" is related to the idea of eating a wider variety of wild plants than any other people at the time (which works temporally speaking), then it logically follows that the plants found were uncultivated. That I feel is a MUCH smaller jump to make.

@7SageTutor I'm not quite sure I understand fully. I feel as though that pattern of reasoning you presented isn't quite analogous to the stimulus of the question though. Something closer might be "Some people claim I'm mean. But the amount of nice things I do is equal or greater to people who are similar to me. So these people are wrong." If the only premise I provide is that I do nice things ≥ other people, shouldn't we assume that I believe that is the sole indicator of my meanness? Shouldn't we just work with the information we get? I feel that stating that the author doesn't bother to specify other indicators removes the stimulus from the vacuum that it exists in.

Another point: If we did choose AC C and the comparable series did possess popular appeal, there is no comparative element to be applied in the argument without assuming that sales of memorabilia is an indicator of popular appeal. So correcting the "flaw" proposed by AC C still does not result in a sound argument. Very confused.

#help Why is AC B not the correct choice here? Honestly, my main reasoning is that AC D just seems too weak for me. It seems completely plausible that the most overconfident business managers could be LEAGUES less overconfident than the entrepreneurs. In fact, the stimulus indicates as much: "in general the entrepreneurs were much more so than the business managers". To this point, it might follow that the most overconfident business managers aren't really all that overconfident at all. They could be to a minuscule amount and still be considered to be the most overconfident, which doesn't lend much support to the conclusion at all.

Secondly, I saw mentions of the "in spite of the enormous odds" part of the prompt being referred to a red herring, but I don't see how that nuance doesn't directly correlate with AC B. It logically follows (and strengthens the conclusion) that if entrepreneurs (a generally more overconfident segment of the population) did in fact understand the odds stacked against them and yet still went after the goal of starting a business, overconfidence in general would do the same.

Does this part of the stimulus not justify AC E: "With such intensive training, chess players who may not have superior innate capacities can acquire skills that circumvent basic limits on such factors as memory and the ability to process information." If superiority of innate capacities does not necessarily matter with chess, then it logically follows that "the importance of motivation and interest in the development of superior performance [aka the drivers behind intensive training] shows that in some fields the production of exceptional skill does not depend in any way on innate talents of individuals."

@Kevin_Lin Thank you for replying! That's a great point. I think I made the assumption that because drugs successfully treated those with aggravated back injuries, they must have been necessary, thus connecting back to the second claim that drugs are a necessary part of the treatment as noted in the stimulus. I still feel as though AC D is a more applied version of AC B, but I also kind of realized that AC B is the underlying principle and probably the better answer as a result.

#help I'm left unconvinced by any explanations of why AC D is incorrect. I ended up choosing AC B during the test and BR simply because it seemed to be the most straightforward of the two, but I feel as though I cannot substantiate a reason to eliminate AC D. If "Some back muscle injuries that have been aggravated by improper attempts at physical therapy, such as home massage, have been successfully treated with drugs", then those that need drugs (aka those that have been aggravated by improper attempts at PT) are those that receive drugs. I know that this idea of "some back muscle injuries" might cut down the subset being referred to, but the conclusion of the stimulus is simply that drugs are necessary for all those who receive them, and AC D would fit into that category. Those who receive them are the ones who have been aggravated by PT and thus need them. Maybe the only ones in this population of patients who need drugs are the ones that got messed up by PT. Doesn't seem like much of a stretch to me.

In fact, isn't AC D just a more applied version of the general principle outlined in AC B? Wouldn't that make it a better answer? Very confused.

Q1 is just plain wrong in the written explanation. Even if "It" could be defined to be a referential phrase, it is not at all referring to "keeping deep wounds free of bacteria". It is, in a sense, a "dummy" pronoun used to fill the gap of needing a subject for the sentence. It doesn't refer to anything, but rather is just a placeholder. Using JY's logic expressed in past explanations, replacing "It" with "keeping deep wounds free of bacteria" would yield this sentence: "Keeping deep wounds free of bacteria is difficult to keep deep wounds free of bacteria", which makes no sense. Also, "that" is another referential phrase that is not identified within Q1.

@brownga0294 But claims are not premises? Couldn't claims could also be conclusions? Thus, if the argument is made up of one premise and one conclusion, that does not exclude the possibility of it still being two claims. #help