@David_Busis ah! Very interesting.

@AbbigailWood True! The conclusion is that Miller is not the joker. The flaw is that Franklin ruled out Miller just based off of the handwriting. But it doesn't mean she's not the joker. She can still be the joker!

The logic is that if it's not miller's handwriting -> then miller didn't write the note. The flaw is the jump from not writing the note to her not being the joker.

Nice to go back after a lot of practice. Thanks!

@ScottMilam They answered 10,000 questions in 1 day lol. Was that a data scrape?

B is the correct answer because simply the study/link couldn't happen if that wasn't true.

If no one who inhales it would be under stress to impair their immune system, then we wouldn't be able to say that it can lower their incidence of illness.

It's as simple as saying: "Growth hormone is likely to increase someone's height". A necessary assumption would be that if they weren't taking growth hormone, then they wouldn't have enough growth hormone.

This one really hinges on why it's important to understand the gap. Typically for SA, it's less important. You can just diagram.

Why are we allowed to determine if it's for anyone to have powers with just Selena's case?

This one is tough! Got it right in the BR. I picked B first because I predicted that and chose it without really digesting the rest. MISTAKE!

Chat GPT helped it click for me:

For E: The inference is logically valid, even though it may seem counterintuitive at first. The historian is essentially challenging the psychologists' assumptions about the effects of the practice by showing real-world evidence that contradicts the expected outcome.

The inference is a rare connection of an opinion to a fact that contradicts.

I think (Psychologists) - "If A then B, if B then C. "

We know (Historian) "No C"

Inference (E): "If A then C C, then No C, no A." It's the contrapositive.

@RishikaBajjuri That would be a contradiction and they wouldn't put that in. It would be more like "The studies incorrectly marked people who weren't insomniacs as an insomniac". So that weakens the study entirely but it's not really a contradiction if that makes sense. But I am not sure that would still be correct because we aren't learning anything new about the connection to insomniacs then. For all we know, if the study was correct, then melatonin would actually work.

@CoralReefLaw amazing response. The first point about C was exactly what I was thinking. I'm surprised that's a 65% response. This one is really tough because it's not that C is good, it's that E is just slightly worse because it's any Saharan ant, not just those that use pheromones.

Yeah makes total sense. E is attacking assumption that the average price paid for a new car has increase only in and due to more than one person buying the new cars.

So yes, the average price paid increase, but not for individuals. So we can't make the conclusion that they spend more relative to their incomes.

A is the second best but now I see why it's wrong.

Food co-ops are a TYPE of CC. If it said food co-ops the entire time it would be correct.

Bicycles are a TYPE of PT.

It's the same flaw, but doesn't generalize a type to a category.

Learning: read closer and try to understand why the top two ACs are different. There's probably something you missed.

I got the flaw and just focused on that. I had no rationale to select A over C, just felt A was more simple.

Can you show an example of a question you did not understand?

The harder the questions the more abstract or hidden the gap. But remember, most have gaps. MSS and MBT won't since those are less of an argument.

The gaps are between the premise and the conclusion. Meaning, the support for the conclusion is not 100% bullet proof for the conclusion.

"I love tacos, so I unfortunately eat tacos every day. I should stop eating tacos every day."

The conclusion isn't being supported fully. There's a recommendation here. Something I "should" do. But why should I do something? We just know I eat tacos every day because I love them. And we know that's unfortunate. Just because it's unfortunate doesn't mean I can simply recommend that I should stop eating them every day. The gap / assumption / principle that would fill it could be: "If an activity is unfortunate, one should stop doing it." or "People should stop engaging in activities they believe are unfortunate."

7Sage's reason for A being wrong makes total sense. I have to start really matching the stimulus to the answer rather than the answer to the stimulus I guess. There was no evidence saying that they changed the curriculum because of low performance at all!

C seems to have a small jump equating quality of the student performance with the curriculum, but that's a reasonable jump.

@ArdaschirArguelles this was a great response.

A confused me but it makes sense. If we are told to focus on the consequences rather than morality because we don't know whether someone's actions are moral (ulterior motive or not), then that implies the intention (motives ulterior or not ulterior) must be connected to morality.

@KevinLin Can you take a look at my most recent comment. I believe it's by far the best explanation. I don't even understand the weakening in the description. Why are we talking about U.S. origin? The stimulus says we don't use it. We just send it away. But we do BUY it back. So C is just saying if there's more countries that are just sending it away, it lowers the likelihood that we are importing products with the pesticides.

The "agricultural products" here is not more pesticides. Not sure why 7sages thinks that. Agricultural products are grains. It's food.

Wow this clicked in the BR! Super hard question.

Basically it's saying that if other countries also just manufacture and and export, then it lowers the changes that we are importing products from countries that actually use it.

This objectively rules out and lowers the possibility of risk. Again this is proven, so it's the correct answer.

Wow I had a great write up about C vs. B and E. To make it shorter, C is a great answer but it's not as clean cut.

7Sage loves to make us think that every wrong answer is 100% wrong, but that's just not the case, especially with Weakens. It just has to be the best out of the options.

E is definitely wrong though.

@Abby_Davis Hey, can you read my comment above and let me know what you think? Thanks!

A is not wrong because of a "reverse causation". A is wrong because how one "perceives reports..." does not tell us anything about their willingness to spend money.

CAUSATION IS NOT EXCLUSIVE! That's the reason why you can weaken a causation by reversing it.

If A said, "if one's level of confidence in one's own economic situation decreases, than can negatively affect how one perceives reports about the overall economy which in turn adversely affects their willingness to spend", then it would be a great answer because it still shows that the media critics are not mistaken, which means the author's conclusion is flawed.

Remember, the flaw is that the media critics are mistaken. Which means that author doesn't think that negative news reports can harm the economy. So if people's own economic situation is negative, and they interpret news reports negatively, which can adversely affect spending, that is still saying that the media critics are not mistaken, which would be a correct AC.

@Wishmeluckokay Yeah I don't think this is reverse causation at all.

I don't see how this is reverse causation. I think B is correct because it's saying that the people that had the traumatic event and no PTSD had a higher cortisol level prior to new stress. They didn't have PTSD because they had higher cortisol levels. So it's not that the traumatic event affects how much cortisol one produces, it's that the cortisol was already higher in the first group which allowed them to not develop PTSD.

Maybe what I'm saying is the reverse causation but I don't see it. Wouldn't reverse causation be that cortisol affects how someone is traumatized from the event? Or maybe that they are in the no PTSD group because they had higher cortisol levels than average?

#help !

I picked A but it is a bigger jump than C. A requires us to assume that if they now pay less rent, they will use more energy. But we don't know that. Maybe that will want to keep their energy lower.

C clearly states that now the incentive is gone and an energy efficient appliance won't be chosen. It's an easy assumption that if the appliance isn't energy efficient, less energy will be conserved.

Opposite effect is better than a two-way assumption! If that makes sense.

Would A be also correct if it was about repressors? Not about nonrepressors. I think yes.

"as one gets old one gets wiser" is just a general trend correlation BUT the stimulus is looking for a rule / conditional. If the altitude increases, then the air thins. AC A isn't strong enough to make that rule.

This is a question that if you get it right, you can easily just think "Yeah of course makes sense", but you need to be able to really understand why A is wrong.

A is one because it's not a strict rule so because it's not a strict rule you can't strictly compare to other people.