I also think that the first and second LR are the real sections; the third LR (the fourth section) was unusual...

I was under the understanding that for strengthening questions we are supposed to make the premises more relevant to the conclusion? Based on that I understood C a little different - I think C is making the one premise, namely P2, more relevant to the C. If the number of students has increased, it seems the unemployment will continue to remain high because we'll have all these graduates in these fields. That just makes it more likely that the 'doomsayers are wrong'.

JY, would you agree?

JY, what exactly does 'few' mean? I thought of few = some, which made me think that 'if the alternate code has some provisions with the same qualities as the traditional code', then the author's conclusion that 'it is imperative that we adopt the alternate code' falls apart. Why? Well, because if it's got the same issues as the traditional code then it might not fix the issues with public confidence.

For C, the author can still say: it's fine but until the problems get eliminated we should adopt the alternate code.

I can see how C weakens the argument, but thought that E weakens it more when interpreted this way.

I think C does qualify as an example of the 'cultural phenomena' mentioned in the conclusion. I believe it's wrong because the example is not trying to show that there is a causal relationship between 'political structures and environmental conditions'. The example is just meant to support the fact that 'scientists do indeed need information from different societies to explain something' which is what the author wants us to believe.

After thinking about this question for over half an hour this is what I came up with: these candidates embrace the views of their respective political parties and the wealthy support the candidates that are linked to these political parties. Since the wealthy are dispersed equally, they will equally support their respective political parties. So the author's conclusion says they won't have to compromise their views since they are equally supported.

Answer choice B says, if the positions of the political parties they represent don't vary too much (say the republicans and democrats both think that income taxes should be increased), however the candidates' positions vary much more than that (meaning there is at least one of the candidates that thinks that taxes should not be increased), they will simply not get the support they need from the wealthy because they support the political party the candidate represents. Therefore the candidate will have to compromise his/her views.

This is the only way this makes sense to me. JY/Jon can you please confirm whether this is the right way to look at this?

Even with LSAC's response I still feel that the fact that the resistance to the insecticides increases, is enough to infer that the farmers have to use greater amounts of insecticides, which in turn is enough to support the main conclusion.

I think it would in fact make a difference if the word "several" where replaced by "most". The reason being is that we don't need to answer the question "Was it caused by sleeping with night lights as infants or not" rather "Whether the effect disappears with age". The author concludes that "if night lights were the cause, then…" so if the fourth study has the majority, say 99 out of 100 children, that are still nearsighted that will weaken the argument. The only question would be whether 100 is enough? Is that the standard used by the previous three studies or is that not enough again? If so then we need to make a bunch of assumptions which answer choice D explains clearly.

Is there another difference between answer choice A & B aside from the "one" and "everyone"?

The stimulus says that the textbook will contain essays by "several different authors". Doesn't that tell us that there will be more than one author? The other premise says that there won't be all three, so max two.

If we infer that there is min two and max two (exactly two), then either answer choice A or D could be right.

I would appreciate it if you could take a look at this.

I am still having a hard time understanding answer choice A - if it fails to show that the mythical creature (violent and savage) represents the horse (noble and gentle) in people's minds, how does that show that it must be the humans that are violent and savage? I understand the logic as to why we should attribute these qualities to humans, but cannot see how A reflects this. Help...

I'll give this a shot:

The critic qualifies modern literature different from general works of literature, in that modern literature is sympathetic to protagonists who advocate detachment. The second premise says that such sympathy (on behalf of modern literature) suggests that you (as a reader) not be concerned with societal good.

From these two he concludes that this modern literature can be damaging to individuals and the society at large.

The gap seems to be between the behaviour that modern literature encourages (to not care about contributing to societal good) and the damage that modern literature causes.

In other words, if you contribute to societal good (therefore disregard what modern literature encourages) then it will not damage you (which means it is to your advantage). And the gap can be linked even if we have only one person that does that (some individuals). This is what answer choice B does.

Hope this helps!

So, is it the word 'always' that Sergio mentions that implies the stone age here?

+1

Can you give a hypothetical example of C?

I got it right without using a diagram but during the BR I did and this is what I came up with:

/SL -> /F (/V) -> U

JY would you say that this is correct?