For those who chose A, I think the "charitable" interpretation overly confuses why its wrong. The author thinks both lines of reasoning are correct. The only thing "flawed" here is human perception. Not the lines of reasoning. Therefore, A fails to describe how the argument proceeds.

Hey there! Not sure if you've already resolved this point, but its a good question that had also stumped me. And here's my reasoning for it.

While in SA questions, our goal was to elevate the argument to validity, there are assumptions that not only guarantee the conclusion, but are also required to usher in validity.

You are absolutely right in that the chair may have been feeling under the weather a particular day, and that despite James having all the recommendations, the chair still did not endorse. But for this argument to work and be valid, we must deal with the premises at hand. And E is required, within this argument, for us to reach validity.

I guess a way to put it would be that we aren't looking for a necessary assumption of the conclusion, we are looking for a necessary assumption of the argument itself. You are right that E isn't necessary for the conclusion, but for the argument it is.

Hope this made sense lol

You typically control for all else when you achieve a representative sample. All of the idiosyncrasies of the population are then parsed out through random assignment, but this diversity is necessary to apply the findings to the general population.

The way it is now, we can only apply the findings to people of this exact age, weight, and health, because if we extend further, the other variables introduced (age, weight, health) may inaccurately portray the facts on a broader scale.

That's an assumption that we are given no grounds to make. Is it diverse? There are probably hundreds of potential symptoms, which means this isn't diverse at all in the grand scheme of symptoms.

Furthermore, I think B goes more wrong in the "will typically." All we know is that some people experience this. Considering that the bar for some is so low, that literally only one person needs to experience these to satisfy some, we certainly cannot conclude that the symptoms "will typically" occur. Hope this helps!

Hello! Most can definitely imply many, as most has a higher lower bound. But it wouldn’t work backwards. Many wouldn’t necessarily imply most. The stronger, higher quantifier implies the lower. Hope this helps.

Technically, if you're describing the conditions of our actual laws regarding alcohol consumption, you'd be correct. But in the context of the sentence, this is not correct. The sentence reads: Anyone who is twenty-one years old or older is legally allowed to purchase alcohol in the United States. It's saying if you're in this demographic, you can legally purchase alcohol. It doesn't say it's the only way to purchase alcohol. Maybe if you're under that age, you could purchase rubbing alcohol for medical purposes. I think it's key here to leave out our biases of how our world actually operates and only analyze the world of each sentence. Hopefully this helped.

Also think this distinction is clearer in 3.2

First, when an indicator word is utilized, as in this scenario, it could be a premise or a conclusion that follows. The exact part of the argument is not distinguished just by its position after an indicator word.

But I do thinks this looks like a major premise. It seems that Because residents have failed set up a suitable outdoor protection for their cats, that this is not safe and enduring circumstance. And that given that this is not safe or enduring, therefore, they should cease letting cats wander and keep them indoors immediately.

Yet it can also go the other way, as well. It does require a pretty large assumption to jump from the fact that failing to set up a suitable outdoor protection is not safe and enduring. Therefore it could be its own independent premise. Because it is not a safe and enduring (p1), and given that there is no suitable outdoor protection for the cats (p2), they should cease letting cats wander and keep them indoors immediately.

Overall, due to the purpose of this section not being the identification of major/minor premises and sub conclusions, maybe they just didn’t feel the need to label it as so.

Hope this helps!