@HannahChenn05

Conclusion: there are not a large number of violent crimes in our society.

Premise (one of them): crimes are very rare occurrences.

There is a direct re-statement here. Very rare is akin to not a large amount of something.

@RichaVerma Hi! This is a phenomenon-hypothesis stimulus.

Phenomenon: there is an unusual circle pattern of craters on Earth. They appeared at the end of the Cretaceous period, before a huge extinction.

Hypothesis: asteroids have struck the earth through a highly organized natural process.

Since we are looking to support the hypothesis, we should look for additional evidence or information that would help suggest this circular pattern was organized and not random. Because the possibility of the round pattern of craters coming about in chaotic ways is totally plausible but seems to be ignored by the iconoclastic.

(D) provides information to suggest that the circular pattern did come about through a highly organized process. The asteroids are all in super specific orbits before shooting down on planet earth.

(A) and (B) both fit the reasoning pattern:

(1) Present two options

(2) Show that one is undesirable

(3) Conclude that we should choose the other option.

The difference, however, between (A) and (B), is that (A)'s conclusion is conditional: "if cost is our greatest concern......." Analogously, the radio producer does not say, "if cost is our greatest concern, then we should devote some airtime to popular genres."

(B) does not have this dissimilarity, which is why it is our correct answer choice!

@DIYASHEN If mice thrive, then humans suffer via lyme disease exposure. That's why limiting the mice population via fragmentation would have a beneficial effect on human health.

@Stas1973 I also want to point out that (B) and (E) are easy to eliminate because we don't know anything about what Pankaj believes should be the case. He never gives his opinion, but rather just states facts.

At this point we are left with A C and D.

As for (A), this also involves information about Pankaj's opinion that we don't have.

As for (D), we don't know what Ana thinks.

(B) underlies such a common weaken/RRE question technique.

When the stimulus gives us a general tendency/pattern in the premises (in general, bats are shy and don't bite), an answer choice can twist our conception if it states an exception to the rule. In other words, the AC says "the general rule we just told you about doesn't apply." This technique can make a great weakener answer choice and a great RRE answer choice. It's exactly what (B) does here.

@Stas1973 And congrats on today, you’ve absolutely got this!!

Thank you so much I can’t wait to break my streak too lol

@PowerUp_Tutoring Such a good summary!

As for (A), we can't infer anything about 'most people' solely off of experiments.

As for (E), we must infer that, since typing speed was limited due to a failure on the part of typewriters, the same feature would not likely be included if typewriters were not involved.

The editorialists' error occurs between the premises and the intermediate conclusion.

P: Basically everyone agrees that one has a moral duty to prevent family members from being harmed.

IC: Basically everyone agrees that it would be morally right for the parents of someone who is falsely accused to hide them.

Notice the gap: while we can agree that there is a widely recognized moral duty, we don't have reason to believe that this duty overrides other moral obligations. This is precisely what (B) points out.

It's cool how the written explanation differed from my process but arrived at the same conclusion.

Premises: justified --> know a lot

Conclusion: NOT [know a lot --> / regard as free]

• Holly's written explanation takes this a step further by translation the negation to: know a lot <-s-> regard as free.

• Although I didn't take this step in my process, it's much easier to identify the missing link by doing so.

When we know that A --> B, and we want to conclude that B <-s-> C, we need C <-s-> A. (C) goes even further by telling us that C --> A.

Justine and Simon's responses to (D):

Justine: Low legal costs was a factor that I never discussed. It's possible that I think low legal costs encourage or discourage going to trial, but I never mentioned anything about my opinion.

Simon: All I said was that high legal fees were the reason why they didn't go to trial. I never told you what I think would've happen if they expected lower fees.

Phenomenon: people from diverse cultures examined pictures with different facial expressions of emotions and all people identified the same emotion for each picture.

Hypothesis: it's genetics that causes people to associate particular facial expressions with particular emotions.

There is a giant assumption at play. What if it was not genetics, but something else, like culture, that was responsible for the face-emotion association observed? The author seems to think that this commonality indicated a genetic predisposition. This is exactly what (D) points out. If negated, then we don't have reason to believe that the phenomenon can be explained by the author's reasoning.

(B) uses the same word (disposition) to refer to a completely different phenomenon. It tells us that how one feels emotionally is not influenced by culture. But the author never talks about what influences how the person feels. They only talk about how they perceive the emotion.

We are geologists. On a mission, we find 8 huge craters in a long line that are all of different ages.

We conclude from our observations that the 8 craters were most likely caused by volcanic events.

Why? Because although they look like they were caused by a meteor, it's not likely that some were caused by meteors and others were caused by volcanoes.

But there is a giant gap underlying our reasoning.

(1) What if they could be caused by something other than volcanoes or meteors?

(2) What if they were caused by many different meteors?

Our reasoning just sort of evaded this possibility by eliminating the half-half possibility and jumping to "all volcanic events." But what about all meteors?

*Note that there is not a failed consideration of one meteorite being the cause. Why? Because the craters are all of different ages. This is a premise that we must bear in consideration. In fact, (E) depends on us forgetting about this premise. This isn't a possibility that we are trying to eliminate.

(B) is written in an odd fashion. What does "natural cause" even mean here? If we were to replace it with "nothing," we would get "Nothing would likely account for eight meteorite craters of different ages forming a straight line." This clearly eliminates the overlooked possibility of (2).

I still am not 100% certain about how to interpret "natural cause," but the fact that "x" would not likely account for this possibility is getting us closer to the "nothing" end of the spectrum.

If we were to negate (B) by saying that "a natural cause could likely account for eight meteor craters of different ages forming a line," then what the heck we are screwed! This is totally a reasonable possibility.

@PowerUp_Tutoring First of all, thank you for pointing this out.

Second of all, you are 100% correct. "If.... [hypothetical situation]" answer choices are very frequently correct and nevertheless supported via the information in the premises.

I withdraw my initial comment.. lol.

(D) is a tempting trap, but we don't know that the obtaining of goods or services will contribute to a balance or imbalance. Why? Because we don't have a current comparison count of resources for other countries and these countries in question. So how are we to say that an increase of obtaining goods would compare to the goods that other countries have?

The main point hinges on the new lens of risk-taking. P2 explains this framework by looking at personal risk. P3 applies the same framework to government decisions.

Thus, is it must be true that these decision makers evaluate risk in the same way as in the personal example.

Incredible!

@mkoduah1 It doesn't address the neighbours claim because it only establishes that pesticides are not spreading via spraying. The neighbour is talking about pesticides spreading via runoff water.

Does that make sense? Let me know what you think.

It was tricky here to follow the psychologist's reasoning.

"All of these birth-order studies" includes (1) the studies of adult personality that use standard personality tests, and (2) the studies based on parent and sibling reports of personalities.

In order to make a conclusion about the study results, we must ensure that both studies are being captured.

Conclusion: birth order doesn't have a lasting effect on personality and does affect how a sibling's behaviour is perceived.

Do both of the studies lead to this conclusion? As for the second study (2), it seems so. But as for the first study (1), all we know is that effects on personality have not been detected.

(A) fills in this gap: it must be the case that lack of detection indicates lack of phenomenon.

(D) weakens by providing an alternative explanation of the phenomenon. The sewage itself contained antibiotics. That's how the bacteria acquired resistance to antibiotics, not through heavy-metal exposure.

@missmads It isn't. Say it's referring to 1710. This would still contribute to an explanation because the tech revolution would continue to increase due to this more general trend.

@Daviiid Hi! I don't think the word 'must' has as much importance. It could easily be replaced and kept the meaning with 'are' or 'are solely.' The psychologist doesn't say "all inclinations are genetic and no inclinations are subject to the environment." This would be a much stronger claim than the one we are presented with. The psychologist is just saying "there are some inclinations that are purely genetic."

The nature of this argument allows for exceptions. So a weaken AC like "the inclination of scent is subject to our childhood environment" would NOT weaken the argument, because the author doesn't say that no inclinations are environmental.

Does that make sense? Let me know what you think.

There are two massive assumptions at play in this argument. If we only focus on one, we may lose sight of the one in the answer choices.

(1) the author takes a correlation (likelihood of fat intake and dairy intake) and makes a conclusion that assumes causation (reducing dairy intake reduces heart disease risk).

(2) the author takes one factor of heath improving and makes a conclusion about overall health improving.

(A) focuses on the latter flaw, of course, but both are present.

Reducing speed limits doesn't save lives and doesn't protect the environment.

Why? Because cars that drive slower spend more time polluting, and spend more time at risk of collision.

There is a fat gap between the premises and the conclusion. It's true that a car that drives 50km per hour spends more time on the road (polluting/at risk of collision) than if it were to drive at 100km per hour.

There are two major assumptions going on:

(1) Say that we grant that lower speed limits leads to more pollution and more collision risk. There are still other elements of life-saving and environment-saving that the author doesn't consider. For example, what if lower speed limits leads to less wildlife accidents on the road (protects the environment), or makes the drivers calmer and more attentive to surrounding cars (saves lives). The author only consider two aspects of safety and environmental health.

(2) Do we have to concede that more time on the road leads to more pollution and more collision risk? No. 'Time' is the key word. What if driving faster by pushing the gas super hard pollutes more? What if driving faster causes more carelessness on the roads leading to accidents? The author merely focuses on time. And we can't let them get away with that, as (D) points out.