#feedback

Please stop putting questions from practice into the drills at the end. Two of these questions I didn’t even go through because they were questions I already immediately knew the answer and the explanations from because we JUST reviewed and answered them like half an hour ago. Sure I could review the question and redo all of my analysis on them, but a fresh question would be much better since I have to rationalize the right answer rather than already knowing what it is and giving me a predetermined bias to that answer.

I thought this was a weakening question… I feel so stupid. C is the PERFECT answer for weakening the argument, but this was strengthen. My brain is mashed potatoes. I read the question stem twice and still apparently thought this was a weakening question.

The frustrating part of the answer choice of "oldest mistake in the book" is that technically B is correct, if 250 or more than self-sustaining. BUT that doesn’t follow with what the ENTIRE stimulus says.

The stimulus says that current habitat is holding 70-100 and can't support more. 250 would mean self-sustaining, but the underlying implication is that all 250 must be in the same habitat, which we are directly told they can’t. 70-100 all on the same habitat isn’t enough, so if the total population reaches 250 but 70-100 are together in Florida and the remaining populations are in captivity in other places, then they’re not self-sustaining EVEN THOUGH there’s 250+. Therefore it’s impossible for the current population to reach the desired number if there isn’t more habitat.

This line of thinking has helped me a ton in understanding why mixing the sufficient and the necessary causes problems. It will present itself as a right answer because it technically is something the argument says, but it doesn’t FOLLOW the argument.

#feedback - In dark mode, the wording in the spectrum graphic does not clearly appear

Let me put the translations here so maybe someone can see the answer better:

“A factor”: a slipped or bulging disk

“Effect/ certain effect”: back pain

“A phenomenon”: the absence of a slipped or bulging disk

“A characteristic”: no back pain despite a slipped or bulging disk

Once I started putting these in for the abstract terms in my mind, everything started to click so much better.

So negating isn’t saying no to the argument, it’s just saying “you forgot to look at it this way.” If you’re saying “it’s not the case that some unicorns poop rainbows,” then what you’re saying is there are no unicorns that poop rainbows. If not some, then none. You can’t say “if not some then most” because that’s not negating but adding onto the original claim. You can’t say “if not some then all” because again, that’s saying more than what the claim gives you evidence for.

Instead, negating is just saying “aha you forgot that there are some unicorns that DON’T poop rainbows!” A better view, for me, of negation is not “denying” or “negating” the original claim, but thinking of the possibilities that the claim didn’t originally consider.

In my reversion to English, I keep forgetting to include ties. I have “no island is more tropical than any other” but exclude there could be a tie. I did the same for small and large animals and chess is the most appropriate.

To me, the negative of the animal claim is “not all small animals are faster than large animals.” I don’t see how the claim is saying that large animals are faster.

I’m also not understanding why we negate these claims if they aren’t logically equivalent to their original statement. It’s like we’re being asked to forget everything that the argument says and make our own conclusion with no evidence to back it up. It just seems irrelevant but I’m probably wrong.

I’m genuinely surprised that that last question is mega difficult. I thought it was a level 1 difficulty. I don’t know why, but something clicked for me on that question super easily and I answered it in like 30 seconds.

Meanwhile… The old people deference question I spent a ludicrous 5 minutes on and STILL got the wrong answer lol

I crossed out the two starting with “rational consumers” without reading the rest because I thought that it narrowed the possibilities too much, we’re concerned with consumers at large, not just rational consumers.

I crossed out B relatively quickly once I realized it just said: “When irrational to acquire information, it would be irrational to acquire information.” Once I read it like that, I realized “oh wow, this is saying and doing absolutely nothing.”

I had E as my chosen answer at first, and then I really thought about what the conclusion was and how exactly E could make it work.

The conclusion is if there are sentient beings, it is impossible for us to know unless they are as INT as us.

Why does their INT matter? At first glance, I thought E because of course in order to communicate with us they need to be at least as INT, so “bridge” made.

But the conclusion doesn’t have anything to do with other beings communicating with us, it’s whether or not we can detect them. If they can’t be detected through comms, then they’re not as INT. But what ELSE is stopping us from detecting them? The fact that we can’t send spacecraft out.

That’s what led me to pick D in the end, it’s the only answer that tells us that we cannot detect them if they’re not as INT because we don’t have the spacecraft to do so either.

To maybe better break it down (and include D as a premise):

P1: No spacecrafts currently possible outside Sol

P2: If any being outside Sol was capable of comms, it would need to be at least as INT as us

D: If communications are impossible, then we must use a spacecraft

(D connection: Since spacecraft option is currently impossible according to P1, they need to be able to communicate with us which means they MUST be at least as INT as us, which is what the conclusion states)

Conclusion: THUS, if there are beings outside Sol, we can’t determine that if they aren’t as INT as us.

A: the conclusion isn’t concerned with ANYTHING inside Sol, only outside, so this doesn’t guarantee the conclusion.

B: aliens “wanting” to communicate doesn’t do anything for the conclusion which still says WE can’t detect other beings, so I crossed it out immediately.

C: This reads like a more complicated and reworded P1 which doesn’t guarantee the conclusion. P1 says no spacecrafts, answer C says part of P2, also no spacecrafts

E: It doesn’t concern itself with the main point of the conclusion, which is we can’t detect aliens unless they’re at least as intelligent as us. E reads a lot like a different wording of P2, which doesn’t help to guarantee the conclusion.

Hopefully this helps somebody.