@beneley2k reread the stimulus and just insert the right answer choice after the second sentence. It clicked for me as soon as I did that.

It's hard to understand alone because it's stating an assumption that seems so obvious you wouldn't think you'd have to add it but if you read it in that order it'll click.

@AlexCaches If I was uncertain about an answer then I always do blind review on that one, even if I got it right. I feel it's helped me waste less time in the future when I'm uncertain for similar reasons.

@SofiyaBerman It helps to just match each relevant element.

Interpret the groups' "views" and "policies" as opinions. (The stim concedes that the views are likely not facts and the policies would likely be controversial).

@DrewBetts I thought about this too. My understanding of it is that there's 1) Questions that ask to identify what strengthens/weakens MOST and 2) questions that ask to identify the "EXCEPT".

You generally shouldn't go for the negation of a premise when the question is asking you to pick the answer that most supports or denies something (because its likely not doing much to support/deny) but when it's an EXCEPT question, its asking you to identify the odd one out. The wrong options don't have to all weaken/strengthen the argument in the best way.

@WendellAdom The conclusion is that the data on the weed killer is misleading (wrong). D would mean the study was well conducted, which would make the data more "correct". So it goes against the conclusion that the data is "wrong".

@brandenesrawi very good tip

@PatrickO’Rourke Fell for it too because I was trying to save time. I realized it immediately on blind review. The explanation is good but you can also arrive at the right answer pretty fast by reading the question stem carefully; it's asking about the hypothesis, not the argument as a whole. The stimulus is super explicit about what the hypothesis is and there are no referentials to the premise-phenomenon. The trap is referring to it. So I'd say if you see a similar combo (asks about a very specific part of the stimulus and the stimulus is explicit about what that part is), then know they really mean what they said. I.e: they're asking you about the hypothesis. Hope that makes sense.