1. 1-2 thousand fruit fly species exist.

2. Hawaii has the most fruit fly diversity (500s)

3. 106 of Hawaii's fruit fly species are picture wing drosophilids (pwd)

4. All Hawaii fruit flys came from 1-2 females.

   So this was just a stimulus with a bunch of statements thrown together. That means that there is normally something we can draw from the statements before we even care about the question. What we need to look for to make this easier is overlapping categories. If something is in two places in the stimulus then we know that we can combine the information to figure out more about them.

   So we have

   1. lots of fruit flies

   2. Hawaii has 500 fruit flies

   3. 106 Hawaii fruit flies are a certain type.

   4. all Hawaii fruit flies are from 1-2 individuals.

      So, this trick didn't help up much here because so much of the stimulus is about fruit flies in general. the best way to look at this then would be to stay the groups. Biggest group at the top and smaller groups down from that.

      All FF (1-2,000)

      --all Hawaii FF came from 1-2f, 500 types

      ----106 of Hawaiian types are (PWD)

   By using the largest group and working your way down it is very easy to tell inferences. This is an easier question where it is not really needed but the method will still work on harder questions of this type. When you use this trick pick one piece of information and look back up the line and that is everything you can quickly know about that type. If you look down those are things contained in the overall group.

A) All of the picture-winged drosophilids in Hawaii are believed to be the descendants of the same one or two ancestral female fruit flies. what's our subject? PWD. If we move up in our structure then we know this is immediately correct, but let's check it out. Next part, they are descendants of 1-2FF in Hawaii. Is that up from PWD? Yep. Correct answer. I did not do this question this way but just wanted to show a way that should work on harder ones.

B) Picture-winged drosophilids are found only in the Hawaiian islands. We know about this group in Hawaii only. We do not know if that group exists elsewhere. Maybe they are invasive in Florida.

C) All of the 1,000 to 2,000 species of fruit flies worldwide are believed to be the descendants of one or two females. We don't know this and even though something similar was presented in the stimulus it was about Hawaii flies only.

D) If 500 new species of fruit flies were discovered, then Hawaiian fruit flies would no longer be the most taxonomically diverse population. This takes a lot of assumptions helping out the answer to make it work. For 1 they can't be Hawaiian FF or they would just make Hawaii bigger and they can't be spread out in between too many different categories of fruit flies because then the spread may still allow Hawaii to be the most diverse. If we are making up our own story to fill in the blanks then we are helping the answer out in our head and it sucks more on paper than you think.

E) Some fruit flies originated in Hawaii and spread from there to other parts of the world. Could it be true? Totally. Do we know anything about this? Not at all.

1. We can't store radioactive waste on site (where it was made) in the long term.

2. P- No one has a safe plan or place to put the waste permanently

3. C-We should shut down the plants and build no new ones. (AKA stop making the waste)

Okay so we need to stop making more waste. That's great. I can be okay with that conclusion the problem is the rest of the paragraph was talking about the problem of dealing with the waste that was already made, so what are we going to do about that because it never really gave a solution... Not addressing the waste that already exists is the other half of the nuclear waste problem and we should look for an answer concerning that.

If you didn't see that to get to the prephrase then use the 2 step method for flaw questions.

• Is the argument ignoring/forgetting/doing this?

• Is this a mistake? (if you had a really annoying friend and they tried to argue this is a problem would you tell them to shut up because it is common sense or would you say "Okay, you have a point."?)

A) it would prevent the development of safe technologies for producing electric power This is treating the problem like it is clean power overall but our problem in the stimulus is what do we do with all the radioactive waste.

B) it does not distinguish between nuclear plants that have, and plants that do not have, a reputation for operating safely Similar to A this is acting like there is a different more general problem in the stimulus than there is.

C) it does not provide for the permanent storage of already-existing waste Yes, this is what we predicted. Pick it and move on or quickly glance at the other two and make sure their subject isn't close and then move.

D) the generation of electric power from fossil fuels is relatively safe This is discussing a type of power that is never mentioned in the stimulus directly or implicitly. If it is a topic that isn't presented at all it would be very hard for that to be the problem in the argument.

E) the risks of unsafe disposal of waste from nuclear power plants lie in the future, but the benefits from such plants are in the present It is tomorrow's problem... Is the argument saying all this unsafe not stored correctly waste is tomorrow's problem? no because it told us about it and then never addressed fixing it or when.

1. Maria is running for election

2. If Maria runs Jerome will not.

3. C:Maria will be the only candidate in the election.

So, what happened to anybody else? To make this argument work we have to assume the only other person who was going to run for election was Jerome and then it rules out Jerome to get to Maria only.

A) According to its management, Brown’s Stores will move next year. Without Brown’s being present, no new large store can be attracted to the downtown area. Therefore the downtown area will no longer be viable as a shopping district. Making this less convoluted and more general it is wanting both options to be placed together. Not having the first store means that there may not be any other stores placed there so you can have the first store, or both stores. It is not saying you get the first store because you have to have a store and we don't have the second store (while ignoring the potential of any other stores).

B) The press release says that the rock group Rollercoaster is playing a concert on Saturday. It won’t be playing on Friday if it plays on Saturday. So Saturday will be the only day this week on which Rollercoaster will perform. Okay, we have a band playing on one night. We remove another night as a viable option and then conclude that the only option is Saturday. This matches the error in the stim. Removing one possible options and concluding based on that while acting like there are zero other possible options that could affect it.

C) Joshua says the interviewing panel was impressed by Marilyn. But if they were impressed by Marilyn, they probably thought less of Sven. Joshua is probably right, and so Sven will probably not get the job. This isn't ruling out options while ignoring others, it is just sort of ranking someone's possible options of the options.

D) An informant says that Rustimann was involved in the bank robbery. If Rustimann was involved, Jones was certainly not involved. Since these two are the only people who could have been involved, Rustimann is the only person the police need to arrest. Okay, so this one is interesting. The set up is exactly what we need but the problem is it corrects the flaw. Our flaw was that there were other potential options the author was ignoring or oblivious to and this answer directly says there are not other options. If there are not other options then it is okay to rule one of two out and say it just be the other one.

E) The review said that this book is the best one for beginners at programming. If this book is the best, that other one can’t be as good. So this one is the book we should buy. This is operating on declaring one options as better than the other not on ruling out anything. It is still picking between things but the way it is doing it is different from our stimulus.

1. Comets don't generate light

2. Comets reflect light from other places.

3. Scientists estimate size by brightness

4. Scientists overestimated the reflectiveness of Halley's Comet by 60 times.

What do we easily know from this? Well if they are judged mass based on how shiny something is and this single known comet has a less shiny material than they expected when they did their calculations then the calculations are wrong. the comet is likely larger than previously thought.

A) Some comets are composed of material that reflects 60 times more light per unit of mass than the material of which Halley’s comet is composed. Do we really know other comet are composed the way scientists thought? No. We know for sure that they were wrong concerning one of the comets but it is completely possible that they could have been wrong about all of the comets.

B) Previous estimates of the mass of Halley’s comet which were based on its brightness were too low. This is exactly what we predicted based on the statements.

C) The total amount of light reflected from Halley’s comet is less than scientists had previously thought. So we know that the formula that scientists were using to get mass was wrong or this specific comet based on the way that the comet is made but that foist mean that they measurement that they too for reflectivity was incorrect. They could have gotten a perfect reading on light and then just plugged it into a bad formula.

D) The reflective properties of the material of which comets are composed vary considerably from comet to comet. This totally could be true just as easily as it could be false. The thing is we just don't know about comets as a whole. They could have been wrong only about Halley's Comet or they could have been wrong about the whole class of comets. The ambiguity in this is the same reason why A is wrong.

E) Scientists need more information before they can make a good estimate of the mass of Halley’s comet. We don't know what qualifies as a good estimate so how are we supposed to know if this is something that we can draw from our statements? We can't make a judgement call on this answer.

This was a great visual. For people who have a more solid understanding of these or for those who need more practice it would be great to build other conclusions off of the setups that you have so that they can see how some most and all conclusions could be supported or not work off of the same set of premises.

The platforms are changing in August so the test and what you can do on it (such as highlighting parts of answers) will look entirely different after June. Taking it for the experience is likely not going to help you any more than taking a PT in semi realistic testing conditions at home could. Personal timeline decisions are ultimately up to you but if you are not at your goal score skipping it is something to think about. Taking it in August gives you more time to study too then if you still want another few points you could take it in September as well. Everyone is different with personal lives and timelines so maybe more people will chime in with what they think there. I just wanted to point out that you would be losing a testing opportunity on a test that is changing a lot looks and functions wise by the next testing date. You can play with what your drills and sections look like (pre or post Aug) so you know what is coming up. Hope this helps or at least gives you more info.

Please add me as well when space is available.

@RachelT No, I just dropped to a regular 40 hours so I have more time. I am on my own so I can't leave my job until I am back in school and being supported by student loans. I wish I could just study but food and shelter are sort of important. Life happens. Just keep working towards your goals. You will get there.

I figured I would type out explanations on any old tests that I don’t see full explanations for.  I am doing this at work in between assignments so apologies for any mistakes. Maybe this will help people prior to 7Sage getting full explanations up on these tests again. 

So the stimulus is comparing two people who both took a car without permission. One person got hit by a taxi and was charged with theft. The other person was stopped by a cop for defective taillight and got a warning. The author is arguing that the blameworthiness is the same because they both stole a car and the accident that happened to one of them was not the fault of the thief. From here we have two choices of what the author might say. Alicia should have gotten a theft charge too or Peter should have got a warning. If the author is going for saying they are the same based on the things that could be contributed to them fault wise then he's going to pick one and say the other should have been treated the same way.

A)The interests of justice would have been better served if the police had released Peter Foster with a warning. Do we know about the interests of justice? no. So we can't say anything about this it could be a yes or a no.

B)Alicia Green had never before driven a car belonging to someone else without first securing the owner’s permission. We also know nothing about this.

C)Peter Foster was hit by the taxi while he was running a red light, whereas Alicia Green drove with extra care to avoid drawing the attention of the police to the car she had taken.

D)Alicia Green barely missed hitting a pedestrian when she sped through a red light ten minutes before she was stopped by the police for driving a car that had defective taillights. Could this have happened? We don't know. It is possible.

E)Peter Foster had been cited for speeding twice in the preceding month, whereas Alicia Green had never been cited for a traffic violation. We don't know about their pasts. Anything is possible there.

I was in a similar situation to you. I was working 50-80 hours a week for about two years. At the time I had to continue working to generally pay rent and survive. Studying at 50 hours is possible. The more you work the less you can feasibly study. If your job is complex and takes most of your mental energy there may not be enough left in you to study well even when you are trying to study. Studying and working depends on a lot of factors and different people may need to make different choices there.

Letters of Recommendation can be gotten now and used later. Just inform the people you may wait before applying but you would like to have their letter because you enjoyed X class or working on X project with them (for work). So at least go get your great rec's while you are in contact with these people.

I figured I would type out explanations on any old tests that I don’t see full explanations for.  I am doing this at work in between assignments so apologies for any mistakes. Maybe this will help people prior to 7Sage getting full explanations up on these tests again.   

1. Alicia "borrowed" car and police only gave her a warning.

2. Peter foster "borrowed" a car and was charged with theft.

3. Peters "borrowed" car was hit by a taxi while he had it.

4. Alicia was stopped for defective taillights.

5. It is true that there was damage in one case.

6. Damage was not the fault of the "borrower"

7. Blameworthiness for "borrowing" is the same

8. Alicia should have been charged with theft.

That conclusion really could have gone with Alicia getting a theft charge or Peter should have only gotten a warning. it is using one to prove the other and until the conclusion there wasn't a clear path of which one the author would pick as the example and which one was the one that should have had a different outcome with the police. It is taking them to be similar cases and trying to prove that the outcome should have been the same.

Argument Part Question- check back into the argument and see what you break it down as before you head to the answers. I put this down as a concession we are giving the fact up that the cases are different in one sense but then arguing our point that they should be treated the same for X reason.

A) It presents a reason that directly supports the conclusion. What is this? A premise. Was that our expectation? No. Move on.

B) It justifies the difference in the actual outcome in the two cases. I don't see how it could justify the difference. It is just stating the difference.

C) It demonstrates awareness of a fact on which a possible objection might be based. Yes, concessions are there to head off the point that someone else could use to argue against them. They downplay the other side of the argument and then give their reasons why even in spite of that we should do X.

D) It illustrates a general principle on which the argument relies. Is there a general golden rule for this situation? no. Is there a specific law about what we are talking about? no. Not only does this not match our prediction but we can't use this answer if there is nothing in the argument that we can point to and say yes, this is happening here.

E) It summarizes a position against which the argument is directed. It is not the summary of the other sides argument but it is just saying yeah, some of the evidence points in your favor. It is the support for the other sides argument.

I figured I would type out explanations on any old tests that I don’t see full explanations for.  I am doing this at work in between assignments so apologies for any mistakes. Maybe this will help people prior to 7Sage getting full explanations up on these tests again.   

Office Manager:

1. Not order recycled paper. (MC)

2. need to make a good impression (P)

3. not print on recycled paper (SC)

Stationary Supplier:

1. Recycled Paper not Necessarily inferior

2. The finest paper was always made of recycled materials.

3. They only started using wood for paper because they ran out of rags.

So, Office manager is saying the paper just isn't good enough. It is a quality complaint. Stationary supplier responds with the finest papers are recycled. The thing is that the finest papers is a subset of all of those types of recycled papers so we don't know that our office manger is selecting the finest gold leaf recycled cloth paper. He's probably just buying regular paper... Just keep that in mind in case there is a point about what type of recycled paper is used. The next thing the Stationary supplier does after making his example about the best of the best scenario is throwing out a history lesson. History lessons are fine in some arguments it just doesn't address the point that we need to address so it is sort of useless to us. Like, the whole argument is useless because none of it addresses the quality complaint issue. The supplier just sort of talks about the best thing and then sidetracks onto a different subject.

A) It does not recognize that the office manager’s prejudice against recycled paper stems from ignorance. It doesn't have to recognize where either comes from to address the point made.

B) It uses irrelevant facts to justify a claim about the quality of the disputed product. The history lesson and talking about a subset of paper that we may not even need to care about is sort of irrelevant to the overall quality problems that the Office Manager has.

C) It assumes that the office manager is concerned about environmental issues. It doesn't assumes that at all. If it were assuming that the argument would likely hinge on the paper being better for that reason and maybe quality standards for recycled paper are different but you should still use it type of thing.

D) It presupposes that the office manager understands the basic technology of paper manufacturing. Like C I also don't really think it assumes this.

E) It ignores the office manager’s legitimate concern about quality. The first guy is saying he won't use X product because of Y and instead of addressing the concern about Y the second guy is saying we have the best paper and it is recycled and here is the history about recycled paper. In that way he is trying to say that the recycled paper can be high quality which is a response to the manager.

@Kevin_Lin Is this the complete list of what you guys will be using when assigning answer choice tags?

1. Hunting banned in one county.

2. In that county the deer population has grown to 6 times the amount it was when hunting was allowed.

3. Deer are becoming problematic and causing wrecks/injuries.

4. There used to be 0 injuries from hunting deer.

5. C- Hunting ban has caused danger to public safety.

Well, this argument was indirectly causal until it got to the conclusion where it is just straightforward saying the ban caused the deer spawning problem. But what if there is some other cause? Maybe deer noticed they were losing to bunnies in the population game and decided to step up, maybe people started using a fertilizer on their lawns that was an unknown deer aphrodisiac, maybe the deer have grown completely sentient and have decided to out populate us and take over the world. Albeit extreme this is to show the cause the author is laying out isn't wholly proven. One event happened and then another occurrence happened and the author is trying to pit them together and say one thing caused the other and is to blame.

When you notice the attribution of cause we can attack it like any other causal argument. Is there an alternate explanation, is the chronology off, is the cause effect switched, and is there any proof to strengthen or weaken it?

Chronology and cause and effect seem like they are pretty stable here so really we are looking at alternates and if we can help or hurt the evidence.

A) In surrounding counties, where hunting is permitted, the size of the deer population has not increased in the last eight years. Yeah, this helps the argument by showing that the issue with the deer population is really only happening in the area that decided to not hunt. That looks pretty good for supporting that the hunting ban had that effect. It also blocks alternate explanations like the deer population growing overall (because they want to take over the world or out populate the bunnies ;) )

B) Motor vehicle accidents involving deer often result in damage to the vehicle, injury to the motorist, or both. This is evidence that deer can be a danger. Our premises acknowledge that deer can be a danger already so this isn't really helping us.

C) When deer populations increase beyond optimal size, disease and malnutrition become more widespread among the deer herds. Irrelevant but tricky build. Optimal size for the deer population to be healthy may be a different size than the author thinks is good for humans. Maybe deer optimal size is ten times prehunting levels so this sick deer thing isn't even an issue right now. Do we know if deer diseases cause any issues for humans? Not really, we would need more information for that. This is a great trick answer for people who want answers to work and make assumptions in their head to help it out a little but going off of the direct text of the answer we just don't know enough for this answer to really support the increases in danger from deer.

D) In residential areas in the county, many residents provide food and salt for deer. Was this always happening? This is implying humans are causing some of the deer to stay/return to the residential areas by giving them things that they like. I think this answer focuses on human action to the detriment of the hunting ban causing deer danger issues. If people can be seen as causing the deer to be in the residential areas is there as strong of an argument for the hunting ban being the leading cause of all of the issue? Maybe the giant deer population wood be fine by themselves out in the woods but Karen thinks they are cute and is baiting them into the middle of town.

E) Deer can cause extensive damage to ornamental shrubs and trees by chewing on twigs and saplings. Okay we already know they can cause property damage. Having the specific how they cause the damage isn't really helpful of tying a hunting ban back to the deer explosion dangers.

1. Marine Bio think lobsters in traps together will eat each other when hungry.

2. Auth: traps have had lobsters living together for weeks.

3. Auth:8 lobsters lasted 2 months in one trap.

4. Auth: C-Marine Bios are wrong.

Well, for the authors conclusion to be true the lobsters would need to be hungry enough to eat each other. So, are they chilling in the trap eating everything that comes by or are they hungry enough to eye each other?

A) Lobsters not caught in lobster traps have been observed eating one another. So there is at least 1 lobster cannibal out there. Do we need this information about the group of lobsters that we aren't looking at to prove anything about our group? No.

B) Two months is the longest known period during which eight or more lobsters have been trapped together. This is irrelevant. We don't need this information to be true to prove that the marine bios are wrong in thinking the lobsters won't eat each other.

C) It is unusual to find as many as eight lobsters caught together in one single trap. Okay, so maybe 99% of lobster traps have 6 lobsters. This does nothing. Let's try the weaken test on it. Not unusual to have 8 lobsters hanging out in one trap. Maybe 8 is the standard. Does this weaken the reasoning or hurt the chances of the conclusion being true? No.

D) Members of other marine species sometimes eat their own kind when no other food sources are available. Alright. Maybe dolphins are evil cannibals.. Does this do anything to the lobsters not eating another argument? Nope.

E) Any food that the eight lobsters in the trap might have obtained was not enough to ward off hunger. Okay so now we have some hungry lobsters in the traps. Do we need this to be true to make our argument? Yeah, and if those lobsters were perfectly well feed by other things they are not going to eat each other in response to hunger. So this is correct.

I figured I would type out explanations on any old tests that I don’t see full explanations for.  I am doing this at work in between assignments so apologies for any mistakes. Maybe this will help people prior to 7Sage getting full explanations up on these tests again.   

1. Present mathematicians would not immediately refuse the results of a complex problem as being the truth.

2. Past mathematicians would completely refuse the results of a complex question as proven true.

3. Some Past Mathematicians would refuse a complex answer to a simple problem.

4. Some present Mathematicians believe simple problems should have simple answers.

5. Some simple problems have had complex answers.

A) Today, some mathematicians who believe that a simple theorem ought to have a simple proof would consider accepting the results of an enormous computation as a demonstration of the truth of a theorem. All Present People consider the results. Some people who are in the present and believe simple problems need simple answers is under that overall category so this is proven.

B) Some individuals who believe that a simple theorem ought to have a simple proof are not mathematicians. We don't know this. We know there are somme mathematicians in the simple question simple answer group but we don't know that our mathematicians are the only ones in that group or not.

C) Today, some individuals who refuse to accept the results of an enormous computation as a demonstration of the truth of a theorem believe that a simple theorem ought to have a simple proof. Okay who is this talking about? people who refuse to accept results. When? Today. Ummm. This goes against the first sentence of the stimulus. Today people don't just refuse results. The rest of it is just that they believe simple questions should have simple answers... Okay but this group shouldn't exist based on our stimulus so C is out.

D) Some individuals who do not believe that a simple theorem ought to have a simple proof would not be willing to accept the results of an enormous computation as proof of a complex theorem. We don't know anything about people who specifically don't believe that and a complex answer for a complex problem isn't what people are fighting about.

E) Some nonmathematicians do not believe that a simple theorem ought to have a simple proof. We know nothing about non mathematicians.

I figured I would type out explanations on any old tests that I don’t see full explanations for.  I am doing this at work in between assignments so apologies for any mistakes. Maybe this will help people prior to 7Sage getting full explanations up on these tests again.   

1. 10% of these 70's cars had their engines fixed.

2. 5% of these 60's cars had their engines fixed.

Okay so looks like the older it gets the less likely it is to be repaired. Let's think about why... maybe 10 other things are breaking on the oldest cars and it just isn't worth it. Maybe the new cars have modern marvels like air conditioning so it is worth it to just get a new one. Maybe parts for older cars are ten times the price of the car. You get the point.

A) Government motor vehicle regulations generally require all cars, whether old or new, to be inspected for emission levels prior to registration. Everyone gets their emissions checked. Alright, what do we do with that info? Nothing we have no good or bad or why the difference exists and to make this answer right we have to add to it in our heads to make it work.

B) Owners of new cars tend to drive their cars more carefully than do owners of old cars. Okay, so if we make the jump and assume that the driving carefully should correlate to the engine repair this answer does the opposite of helping us.

C) The older a car is, the more likely it is to be discarded for scrap rather than repaired when major engine work is needed to keep the car in operation. Yeah, after a certain age fixing them just isn't as worth it anymore so people stop doing it. Great, explains the problem.

D) The cars that the National Motor Company built in the 1970s incorporated simplified engine designs that made the engines less complicated than those of earlier models. This does nothing. It is worse if you make the assumption that simple equals not as likely to break.

E) Many of the repairs that were performed on the cars that the National Motor Company built in the 1960s could have been avoided if periodic routine maintenance had been performed. Okay so 2+ could have not needed it if the owners changed their oil like ever. That isn't a big enough potential amount to do much looking at the lowest bar.

I figured I would type out explanations on any old tests that I don’t see full explanations for.  I am doing this at work in between assignments so apologies for any mistakes. Maybe this will help people prior to 7Sage getting full explanations up on these tests again.   

1. news emphasis the rare/less risk things.

2. Public sees the news and thinks it is 1:1 to the risks they face.

What can we take from this? People watching the news think dying in a plane crash is a whole lot likelier than it is.

A) Print media, such as newspapers and magazines, are a better source of information than are broadcast media. Do we have any information about news media in print? No. Is it talking about the news channels as their own thing that are the only ones do x (best, worst, whatever) to make a judgement about this based on the authors point of view No.

B) The emphasis given in the commercial news media to major catastrophes is dictated by the public’s taste for the extraordinary. Do we know consumer taste based off of the section? nope just what they see.

C) Events over which people feel they have no control are generally perceived as more dangerous than those which people feel they can avert or avoid. This strikes on something appealing but a little off. We aren't looking at things they feel they have no control over at all versus things they can avoid and deeming their perception as more dangerous on one. We are given that they are just thinking X is more likely X is in real life and Y is less likely than Y in real life. The application of "wow I have no control over this so it is more scary" isn't what the argument is focusing on. It is more "wow a lot of people seem to win the lottery when I watch the news so the odds are probably not that bad"

D) Where commercial news media constitute the dominant source of information, public perception of risk does not reflect actual risk. Perfect.

E) A massive outbreak of cholera will be covered more extensively by the news media than will the occurrence of a rarer but less serious disease. More extensive? This is going against what we are told about how rare exceptional things get all the coverage.

I figured I would type out explanations on any old tests that I don’t see full explanations for.  I am doing this at work in between assignments so apologies for any mistakes. Maybe this will help people prior to 7Sage getting full explanations up on these tests again.   

1. Conclusion: We are screwed. (currently no solution to healthcare costs)

2. Everyone in charge is just playing hot potato with the extra bills. (shifting costs instead of alleviating them)

3. 1980's elaboration/balloon example showing movement of costs to other places.

4. 2nd example primary care costs cut and emergency room trip costs increased.

   This stim is just one sentence of direct support and two example situations.

This is a MSS so really anything that has at least 1% support should be okay to choose as long as everything else is worse.

A) Under the conditions in which the current system operates, the overall volume of health-care costs could be shrunk, if at all, only by a comprehensive approach. Okay so if we can shrink the costs we have to hit everything at once. So I am going to use the balloon analogy but make it bigger. Let's think about an air mattress. In this world our air mattress has an air release and it needs a lot of pressure to open and release air. So if we push one spot on the air mattress the air just fluffs up the other side and doesn't. You can lay on it and try to hit all the high spots but the high spots just move to where you aren't at. Sound familiar? Let's say we get tired of this air mattress problem and drop a coyote cartoon sized anvil on the air mattress. It squishes everything at once so there is nowhere else for the air to move to and forces the air out of the air release. This is sort of what the answer is getting at. IF the problem can be fixed then we MUST (only) hit it hard and hit it everywhere so the costs can't just be moved down the line. There are other comments on A to read in depth if you want a non analogy explanation so I will leave this as it is and move to the incorrect answers that are not discussed on other comments.

B) Relative to the resources available for health-care funding, the income of the higher-paid health-care professionals is too high. Woah, Okay, Lets ignore the fact that this is talking about a totally other subject for a minute, who says too high? Too high compared to what? This is a relative claim which means that we have to compare it to something else to say what too high is and where is that bar at? It isn't in the argument. They don't say anything oner $100 is too much. So by choosing this you are adding in outside information or your own assumptions about where a line is to judge what is too high or not too high but the fact that we can't draw support from the argument to answer where the bar is and if a judgement such as too high is applicable to that bar then that means that we can't use this answer. So relative claim about completely different topic=0 support.

C) Health-care costs are expanding to meet additional funds that have been made available for them. So the ballon is growing because it has more air. Great. Do we see any evidence of this situation in the argument? No.

D) Advances in medical technology have raised the expected standards of medical care but have proved expensive. Okay, so this is about advance in tech being pricy. There is nothing in the passage to discuss advances in technology at all.

E) Since unfilled hospital beds contribute to overhead charges on each patient’s bill, it would be unwise to hold unused hospital capacity in reserve for large-scale emergencies. So emergency prep is costing patients more money so we should not do it. This seems to correlate with the argument because you have to assume if we stop doing that then when an emergency happens it will costs someone a lot of money. The thing is this implies that we should or should not do something by saying it is unwise to do so. We don't have prescriptive statements (should, should not) like that in the argument. Even if you don't agree that it implies a should statement the argument does not help you make any judgements such as when to say something is unwise. There is no support that we can draw from the more generalized statements in the argument to prove this specific situation and why it is unwise.

I figured I would type out explanations on any old tests that I don’t see full explanations for.  I am doing this at work in between assignments so apologies for any mistakes. Maybe this will help people prior to 7Sage getting full explanations up on these tests again.   

1. Conclusion: We are screwed. (currently no solution to healthcare costs)

2. Everyone in charge is just playing hot potato with the extra bills. (shifting costs instead of alleviating them)

3. 1980's elaboration/balloon example showing movement of costs to other places.

4. 2nd example primary care costs cut and emergency room trip costs increased.

   This stim is just one sentence of direct support and two example situations.

   A) showing that shifting costs onto the patient contradicts the premise of health-care reimbursement. Okay... Let's try to point out the premise of healthcare reimbursement? got anything, general healthcare rule? I don't. If this said something like shifting costs onto the patient doesn't fix the healthcare costs system I would look at it a little more but it is acting like there is a general golden rule of how healthcare costs should work and we are breaking it. I just don't see it.

   B) attributing without justification fraudulent intent to people. So we are assuming without any reasons that these people have bad motives? The why or intent of people isn't given a moral good or bad. Everyone is trying to cut costs generally but fraudulently is too far to prove here. It isn't supported by what we know of the argument.

   C) employing an analogy to characterize interrelationships. Do we have an analogy? yeah, in my head I shortened it to hot potato to make quick sense of the argument but when I got to the next line I found out that they had their own analogy to make their statement clear anyways. Which analogy? Balloons. Are they characterizing the interrelationships like the answer choice wants? Yes. This is perfect and we can back it up by looking at the stim.

   D) denying the possibility of a solution by disparaging each possible alternative system. The first part sort of lines up if you assume the situation is current like the question but if the rest of the answer shapes up like a "we will never find them" thing that that is too far. Next part, disparaging each other system, if you picked this I want you to search back through the stem and reference where the other systems mentioned are and what the argument said to say they won't work. If you can't relate the answer back up to the argument and see where it lines up when you check it then it is wrong.

   E) demonstrating that cooperation is feasible by citing an instance. This needs analyses in the same way as D. Find the instance and then find the part where it says cooperation is feasible due to that instance. If you can't then you know this isn't an answer you can pick even if you are more unsure about the other answers.

I figured I would type out explanations on any old tests that I don’t see full explanations for.  I am doing this at work in between assignments so apologies for any mistakes. Maybe this will help people prior to 7Sage getting full explanations up on these tests again.   

1. Everyone knows exercise leads to better performance in physical organs.

2. Brain=Physical organ so your actions can lead to better performance there too

3. Read magazine to exercise your brain

Alright, so something leading to another thing is a causal claim. Is it the sole cause? We don't know so we should already be suspicious of claims using sole, primary, etc. What we know is we have some things that all fit into the category of physical organ and they all share this same trait (improves with exercise). Then we get told that there is another thing that belongs to the category physical organ called a brain. Okay. The argument then applies the same general idea that the other physical organs have going on to the brain. It ends with trying to convince you to buy a magazine to exercise your brain. All of this only works if we assume that the brain is similar to the other things in the category of physical organs.

Let's look at this idea another way. I and three of my classmates love NASA. So, if the principle points to a random kid in my class of ten and assumes they love NASA either he landed on one of the four of us that we know have this trait or he assumes everyone in the class also loves NASA (Assumption that everything in group shares trait)

A) It cites experimental evidence that subscribing to the product being advertised has desirable consequences. What would this look like? "We did clinical trials on this magazine and found conclusively that readers improved brain function in 6 months. So you should read this to improve your brain" is this happening this way? No.

B) It ridicules people who do not subscribe to Stimulus by suggesting that they do not believe that exercise will improve brain capacity. Calling anyone out and insulting people? No.

C) It explains the process by which the product being advertised brings about the result claimed for its use. A process in a causal argument would be the causal mechanism. The how it works and happens. In this case that could look something like "anything that requires the use of the physical organ makes the physical organ build more connections on a cellular level enabling improved performance of the organ" We don't really get the how the improvement works just the idea that the things can improve and the assumption by the maker of the argument that their magazine will work to improve the brain.

D) It supports its recommendation by a careful analysis of the concept of exercise. The concept of exercise... Like people juste debating philosophically the merits of exercise and what counts as such? This on is only tempting because of its vagueness.

E) It implies that brains and muscle are similar in one respect because they are similar in another respect. Here is what we are looking for similar things (physical organs) share the similar trait (exercise improves).

I figured I would type out explanations on any old tests that I don’t see full explanations for.  I am doing this at work in between assignments so apologies for any mistakes. Maybe this will help people prior to 7Sage getting full explanations up on these tests again.   

1. Many (2+) Environmentalists: Urge enviro awareness

2. Enviro: if accept responsibility then avoid harmful products.

3. Auth: consumers can't asses if harmful product or not.

4. Auth: Consumers can't intentionally choose benign products

5. Auth: because they can't intentionally choose well there must be no moral duty to do so because ______

So just by reading this I would probably expect a principle like "people have no moral obligation to do impossible tasks"

A) a moral duty to perform an action is never based solely on the effects the action will have on other people. One immediately suspicious word is solely. Is the argument trying to say that one thing is the only cause of something? No it is just saying if we want to live by a standard then we should do X thing to help X issue. If the argument is saying one thing is the only thing causing something then this word is no longer suspicious. Moving on "the effects the actions will have on other people" Is this what the subject of the argument is? no. we are talking about causing environmental harm not issues to other people directly. So 2/2 this answer is out.

B) a person cannot possibly have a moral duty to do what he or she is unable to do. This is worded in a different manner than my prediction but it boils down to the same thing when you parse out the language. If the base idea fits your prediction and there aren't any suspicious words or add ons then pick it.

C) moral considerations should not be the sole determinants of what products are made available to consumers. Same issue as A. Saying "sole" for an argument that is not directly looking at the sole cause of something and then going in a different direction idea wise from the argument.

D) the morally right action is always the one whose effects produce the least total harm. Are we making a rule for judging actions? no we are saying we shouldn't have a rule that is impossible to carry out.

E) where a moral duty exists, it supersedes any legal duty and any other kind of duty. Ok so I could see people passing the first part and I will let it slide because there is a rule in the argument even though it isn't the authors. So 1. We have a rule, and 2. Does the rest of the answer go in the same direction our argument is heading? moral beats every other type of rule out there? No. There is nothing else discussed in the argument and no tricky implications that it would. This isn't where we are heading.

Stick to your prediction and you won't waste as much time evaluating answers.

@Thao sure, zoom limits non business members to a certain time limit. If it becomes annoying we may be better off using the study room feature on here.

I figured I would type out explanations on any old tests that I don’t see full explanations for.  I am doing this at work in between assignments so apologies for any mistakes. Maybe this will help people prior to 7Sage getting full explanations up on these tests again.   

1. Nutritionists: People need to eat more fiber

2. Pill Ad: contains "44% fiber"

I over thought about this one even though I chose the correct answer. My immediate thought was "of the pill itself or of the daily required intake" The ambiguity there is of course the problem. So we need to find an answer that targets that ambiguity. Keep the main focus in mind to keep your timing down.

A) There are other products on the market that are advertised as providing fiber as a dietary supplement. So other things also have the quality thing we are looking at. does this matter for why the ad in our case may be misleading? no.

B) Nutritionists base their recommendation on medical findings that dietary fiber protects against some kinds of cancer. So this is not focusing on what is specified by the question stem. We don't even really need to consider this.

C) It is possible to become addicted to some kinds of advertised pills, such as sleeping pills and painkillers. "Some" do we know if our pills are in the section under "some"? No. So this couldn't be a super strong weakener even if the rest of the sentence looked like the biggest baddest weakener out there because we don't know if our pills fall under that category.

D) The label of the advertised product recommends taking 3 pills every day. This is the one that I over thought. My line of thought was if the total dose is for 44% of the recommended it wouldn't weaken anything and if it was 44% of the pill that is fiber it sucks still. I applied the ambiguity to the answer and considered it for too long for this level of question. It doesn't matter if the recommendation for how many you take is 3 pills.

E) The recommended daily intake of fiber is 20 to 30 grams, and the pill contains one-third gram. This shows that our pills are infinitesimal. Which shows the downside of the ambiguous statement is the true version.

I figured I would type out explanations on any old tests that I don’t see full explanations for.  I am doing this at work in between assignments so apologies for any mistakes. Maybe this will help people prior to 7Sage getting full explanations up on these tests again.   

Harry: You (anyone) can now travel by air faster than before.

Focus: travel time

Judith: Henry's info not true. Many flights only accessible to rich ppl.

Focus: Anyone (from henry's statement)

Mismatch is that Henry is looking at the time traveling takes and Judith is getting defensive about who can fly.

A) the majority of people are rich. Nope. Rich is in Judith's reasoning. it isn't in Harrys claim to misinterpret it from there.

B) everyone has an equal right to experience world travel. Is this something we would think from the real world? Yes. Is anyone discussing rights in the argument? No.

C) world travel is only possible via routes serviced by airlines. Henry is only focus on airlines. Neither Judith or Henry make the claim that airlines are the only way to travel around the world.

D) most forms of world travel are not affordable for most people. Same problem as C just going the other way (Overinclusive).

E) anyone can afford to travel long distances by air. Usually it is okay to be suspicious of a generalized qualifier like long distances but in this argument it doesn't misinterpret the group or quality we need because it is assumed world travel=long distances. This is correct.