The flaw in the argument consists of an overlooked possibility: process of elimination can lead one to a definitive conclusion, albeit indirectly. A (campers) and B (lightning) haven't been proved to have caused something, but that doesn't mean both haven't been proved. Why? Because all other possibilities may have been disproved. In turn, and since the possibility of A or B still exist, A or B must be the cause.

Both the stimulus and AC A possess the same overlooked possibility: the process of elimination may lead one to a conclusion, albeit indirectly. That possibility is ignored in both, thus making their flaws identical. It's for this reason AC A is correct.

From the tutors.

@O_Captain_My_Captain Hey, it basically means that if you have a specific category you're discussing in the conclusion (paper currency), then your evidence or support (playing cards) must link both ideas together for SA questions. The categories have to match.

Like I can say Apples are yummy, and let my premise be about how apples are expensive. That means that I must have thought that expensive leads to an apple being yummy. Hope that helped. If my categories do not match, then the conclusion would not be strong or even make sense.

Wow, I can't even articulate how much I hated this. But anyway, after A LOT of thinking, here is an example of this.

Birds can fly.

Bats cannot fly.

Besides birds and bats, there are many other animals in the forest.

Hence, there are animals in the forest that can fly but are not birds.

The premises don’t say anything about the flying ability of the “other animals.”

To make the conclusion work, we must assume: All of these “other animals” can fly."

An answer choice like E would be like “Bats are not the only animals that cannot fly.”

which shows other animals are out there that also cannot fly, hence we can't say all of them fly.

OPTIONAL - but we can also use the other premise in the stimulus to do the same flaw.

In this example, I gave, we could have also said, for the conclusion that

There are animals in the forest that cannot fly but are not bats. And it would be the same thing.

So instead of B --> Fly we would have used Bats --> not fly premise.

and for the stimulus

Original was “There are celestial objects that generate light but are not stars.”

Anchor premise that was used: Stars → generate light (S → L)

And we can change it to

Or "There are celestial objects that do not generate light but are not planets"

using P --> not L instead of S --> L

Same flaw.

Hope that helps.

C - "No one incompetent to practice a particular specialty completes the evaluation program for that specialty."

You can read this as Only people who are competent complete the evaluation

Incompetent --> not complete

Contropositive = complete --> competent

Negation

There exists at least one person who is incompetent but completes the evaluation program.

None of Cassatt's works is painted using a brush style that is not exhibited in any of her known works.

The negation would be

SOME of Cassatt’s works are painted in a brush style that is not exhibited in any of her known works.

The negation of NONE becomes some and the negation of some becomes NONE.

Conclusion - So the suggested criterion is obviously flawed.

The sentence being asked to identify is - "...that the computers that exist now have beliefs and desires."

A - suggested criterion conclusion = that the computers that exist now have beliefs and desires. Which is absurd according to our author. So its a unacceptable conclusion that this criterion would lead.

B - The author calls the implication “obviously flawed.” That is the opposite of uncontroversial. It should have been controversial instead.

C - Examples are used to illustrate or explain, not to discredit. Very obvious when it happens. What we had was an absurd implication. Implications = evaluative/logical consequence, which is not an example.

D - Nope. The statement is not the author’s claim. It’s a rejected implication that the author actually thinks is false.

E - If an argument concludes that a claim or principle is flawed, false, or unacceptable, then any statement used only to show that flaw, cannot be a premise whose truth is necessary to the argument’s success.

If a statement is introduced only to be rejected, its truth cannot be necessary to the argument’s success.

Final comment on this - The unacceptable consequence is never a necessary premise. The argument succeeds only because the claim is false or absurd.

Hope all that helps.

A - Even if people turned off the sound, that would at best put those commercials on the same level as competitors’, not explain why they had higher sales.

Something you may or may not have assumed about dealerships for A.

• The situation where it says it was turned off applies generally, so it doent have to mention which dealership it was that had that turned off.

B - Although you HAVE to assume that recall leads to purchase or higher sales, it is still reasonable to do so. Its RRE afterall.

RRE answers don’t need certainty (only plausibility).

C - Complicates the issue even more. Because if now we know most of them relied on it were automobile dealerships, then we would really wanna know how it went up.

D - Turn not all to some are not. It becomes, "Some of the commercials produced for automobile dealerships at this studio did not contain video of people talking"

• This wouldn't matter, because now we have one or two commercials that dont have the problem with the audio. It still doesn't explain the increased sales.

E - E slightly undermines the whole comparison. It's saying forget the comparison, most local D dont even rely on ads.

Whether they rely or dont rely on ads dont matters, because you still have a case where one group has a higher sale.

Its also suggesting that something else caused the higher sales. Its like okay, but what? It wouldn't even matter because we dont even have to prove what caused what. Just need to explain the higher sales in comparison to the other.

• Evidence: New France issued playing cards as money.

• Conclusion: Massachusetts was not the first to issue paper currency.

Implicit assumption: The playing cards count as paper currency.

• If the cards were not considered paper currency, the researcher’s reasoning fails.

Even if it says the playing cards were used like money, the passage never explicitly says the cards were paper.

Hence, A.

B - The argument is comparing Massachusetts vs New France, not China.

C - The argument doesn’t care whether Massachusetts had cards or not.

• The focus is on New France issuing paper currency before 1690.

• Even if Massachusetts did have playing cards before 1690, that doesn’t automatically make them paper currency.

D - Not relevant to whether Massachusetts was first or not.

E - “Every government left records” is irrelevant to whether New France was first outside China. This answer choice doesn't separate New France and Massachusetts from each other.

A little reminder

Anything in the evidence must fit that category to support the conclusion.

Hope this helps!

We have to wonder and ask why film Escapade II is not using free, advanced screening that may benefit them.

The next premise shows that the interests are high among filmgoers and awareness of the film.

Conclusion - The film's distributors must have decided not to do anything that could reduce interest in the film.

This makes us think about how using advanced screenings must have either not helped or that it could have been something that would reduce the interest.

A - Although "free", "distribution" was mentioned, they in no means were talking about how cost is relevant to the argument. The conclusion's focus is on the interest.

B - YES - If advance screenings dampen the interest of filmgoers, then that's why the film's distributors didn't use them.

C - This answer choice is attempting to distract you from the subject matter. Our conclusion is focused on film distributors and not select audiences. Plus, we're talking about general audience interest, not select audience enjoyment

D - Those are matters that the argument separated, never said one leads to another one. We dont have a statement that says awareness = intention

E - This is a statement about projected attendance, not about why the distributors skipped advance screenings.

When you're going back and forth with the answer choices, read the conclusion again.

"...admittedly, it is the purpose of advertising agencies to induce."

This premise was meant to trick you into assuming advertisers create the desire if you're not reading carefully.

Instead, advertisers exploit preexisting desires.

A - There were no conditions to make a purchase. The argument isn’t redefining desires as needs.

B - people's desires are not created falsely; it's their desires, and advertisers didn't create those desires.

C - Who even knows if that would be the case or not after the purchase.

D - YESS. Advertisers use existing desires, and it's not created by advertisers because people already have them.

Exploited = Used

E - This implies people’s desires directly cause them to believe the advertising claims.

• The argument says that advertisers act on preexisting desires to create beliefs about their products.

• So it’s the belief that advertising induces, not the desire itself, that leads to purchases.

The wording in the conclusion was a dirty move.

anyways,

You need to pick up on the fact that “Best available” means the highest quality among products on the market.

"If it were as good as, or better than, our product, it would cost as much, or more."

This assumes that price reflects quality.

Implicitly, it says: no cheaper product can be as good, which already presupposes that our product is the best available.

Hence, A.

The premise and conclusion both rely on the same assumption about price and quality.

B - The argument only talks about the best available on the market, not the best that could ever exist. "best product that could be produced." So, since this is not happening, then it's out.

C - This implies that a causal relationship is being reversed. BUT No causal language or statements even exist in the argument to begin with.

Such as - A causes B, therefore B causes A.

Might sound like circular reasoning to some, but it wouldnt be because even with a reversed causal relationship, we would have new info. But ciruclar Rasoning wouldnt have any new info in their arguments.

D - part vs. whole. So nope.

E - inconsistent claims are complete opposites of each other.

Such as - “All our products are completely safe. Several have been recalled for choking hazards.”

Contradiction: cannot both be true.

If you get confused on what inferences to make and can be made, just trust what you know and what you dont know.

Our sentence says "Putting a tap in a healthy maple that has a trunk 12 or more inches in diameter will not harm the tree."

(healthy) AND (12+ inches) ---> not harmed

Contropositive

Harmed → (Not healthy OR less than 12)

Answer choice A says it’s more than 12, meaning the tree is not less than 12.

• If its more than 12 inches as A says, then the “OR less than 12” option is eliminated.

  What’s left, or what's being forced now?

  Not healthy, because the contrapositive was an OR statement.

• That’s why (A) works.

B - Healthiest/usually - RED flag. why? Because, as the description says, you cannot infer relative or comparative claims from purely absolute statements.

Example

A healthy dog that weighs at least 50 pounds will not be harmed by this medication.

Wrong answer choice thats like B

The healthiest dogs are typically the heaviest ones.

C - Who knows what it would mean for a maple tree that's been harmed.

little sap/ big sap wasn't even mentioned; we just have info on a GIVEN sap.

D - We dont know what inferences we can make from a tree with less than 12 inches. No info on that.

E - Attractive answer choice BUT, just because something is best for syrup making, doesn't mean it's most commonly used. Maybe not a lot of people know about it, who knows?

Hope that helps!

Duress = Force

What you needed to notice was that being a volunteer doesn’t automatically mean you’re making a fully free choice.

Even informed and compensated volunteers could still be under duress or pressured, so the choice isn’t truly free.

As we can see there is a gap. All we need to do here is to mention this.

Hence, A.

A - “Possessing information about the possible consequences of the choices one makes” refers to the volunteers being informed about the risks of participating.

B - Read this as “Transaction can NOT be justified merely on the grounds that those participating in the transaction do so voluntarily.”

Negation = “Transaction can SOMETIMES be justified merely on the grounds that those participating in the transaction do so voluntarily.”

OR

"SOME transactions can be justified merely on the grounds that those participating in the transaction do so voluntarily.”

however you wanna do it.

This goes beyond what we need, why? because “No transaction" is a universal quantifier. It’s claiming something about all transactions, not just the specific one in the argument.

Our argument was narrow (testing procedures), so B is a lot stronger than what we needed.

BUT if you said, "Some testing procedures can be justified merely because participants are voluntary.” Then it's worth considering it because now it's narrow.

A - "whether or not they are closely related genetically." This is key. This means genetics isn't much of a factor for the ability of Chimpanzees to copy each other's behavior.

Behavior can spread socially, independent of genetics.

B - Not only do they bring in new genetic characteristics, but also some other new behaviors? This doesn't isolate cultural factors from genetics.

C - Facing different environmental challenges doesn't tell us if it's cultural factors being the determinant or genetics. It just says that they struggle.

D - So we can tell who is who based on behavior. Okay, is it through cultural factors or genetics?

E - This only says the East African groups are close to each other, not to the West African groups. If this were a resolve question, it would complicate the issue even more.

Conclusion:

"Therefore, the president is mistaken in claiming that academic programs should be tailored to suit student demand."

A - The phrase “argues for a view” refers to the faculty member’s own

So this is saying that the faculty member argues for a view (the conclusion), without showing that an argument against that view fails.

This is wrong because the faculty member does indeed provide a reason: "But the education of students is not analogous to the providing of consumer goods."

B - no popular opinion here.

C - This is right because two things don't have to be identical to be analogous.

in another words, because the analogy between students and consumers is imperfect, the president’s conclusion must be wrong is the faculty member's assumption and flaw.

D - Moral character nah. This is not attacking the source flaw.

E - Nope, inadequate reasons are very different than analagy flaw arguments.

Cynicism = doubt.

Hidden assumption = the audience can detect the famous person's skills

A - This reinforces the conclusion that audiences can distinguish good from bad. Why? because it shows that the audience is not there just because of the pianist's fame, but rather because they're also talented.

B - Does the opposite of what we want. If they are unknown to people, then this undermines our conclusion.

C - Larger wouldnt matter. You could still have a large audience that is there just for the person's fame.

D - This doesn't focus on the audience or the reason why the public sees the famous pianists.

E - Undermines the argument, because it tells us that people can't tell good from bad.

Even if someone else, not the mining companies, buried the streams, the conclusion that the policy caused the damage still holds.

That's why C is incorrect. Make sure you read the subject matter.

E - If the policy hadn’t changed, there would have been much less damage.

In other words, the repeal caused most of the damage.

Noticing how this is a causal argument helps with this one.

Because the argument was that the policy itself directly caused it.

@HudaHussaini Although it's good to pay attention to those quantifiers, in this case, however, the argument is telling us that stress-related brain activity is distinctive to lying. And E is saying that stress-related brain activity is not distinctive to lying, but also to being truthful. This means that now we can't use fMRI as an effective tool for detecting lies.

We dont need a 100% identical or strong wording in this case — just enough to destroy the uniqueness assumption if that makes sense.

C is wrong because even if you say something varies, which indicates that it fluctuates, hence weaker, it might still work in the end. We need to know how often it varies.

The argument is Causal. Which can be another indication of being able to eliminate C.

C - varies widely from person to person, indicating that if lying causes stress, the amount of stress varies.

Also, this answer choice makes you think that its weakeing the argument somehow by showing that stress and lying fluctuate depending on each person. Okay, but like how often does that happen? Is it often enough that the fMRI wouldnt be an effective lie detector tool? What if it can generally be effective?

C would be worth considering if the conclusion said it was the only best effective tool ever. lol.

E - This answer choice doesn't get rid of the correlation, but instead it undermines the conclusion by stating that it wouldn't be an effective tool for LYING.

Conclusion - "So the diversion of food to fuel is not actually a radical break with traditional practices."

A - The argument doesn't talk about good versus bad effects.

B - The argument's claim is not about showing that the practice does or does not have bad effects, but rather that we do have a precedented analogous situation.

C Correct AC - rebutting = refuting/disproving "a charge that a practice is radical.."

The conclusion says it is therefore not radical, which means the people who argued did think it was a radical break, "unprecedented attack.

contending = claiming or arguing.

D - Nothing about the moral foundation of a charge was mentioned.

E - There is no support for any objection, let alone moral objections.

To rebut a moral charge, the author would need to:

Either challenge the moral principle itself, or show the practice is not immoral, or maybe even argue that the moral concern doesn’t apply.

But the author never does that.

They just say We already do something similar.

E - The passage consisted of the distribution of political power, which is not the same thing as limiting the government’s authority.

@broermtd WHAT

A - One benefit to the deer. No more pesticides to kill deer off.

B - This says attempts? But like, did the attempts fix anything? And we assume they did, then what about the wolves?

C - It doesn't matter if the deer hunters are fewer now; you still have the same number of kills.

D - This only explains why we got more wolves. Not how deer are surviving and increasing despite the wolves.

E - This complicates things further. You would expect to have less increase instead of more at the end.

“Overlap in the ranges” is standard ecological language meaning shared territory.

Range = the area where the animal lives

Overlap = the areas intersect; both species are found in the same places

The other definition for range is usually shown when we're talking about data, numbers, not animals.

@Kevin Lin 2 I love this through explanation!