Isn't "the true meaning of an author's statements can be understood only through insight into the author's social circumstances" a biconditional?

understand true meaning <--> insight SC

In my opinion this interpretation allows the line "... we should be able, at least in part, to discern from Smith's social circumstances the 'true meaning' of Smith's statements" to make more sense, since we can use the SC to understand the true meaning.

#help

I feel like both explanations didn't use conditional logic as much, so here's my interpretation of the question in conditional logic form:

Domain: topic: calculus, subjects: pre-university students

Premise: /ready --> may abandon

Conclusion: teach --> ready

---------------

PSA means we need to connect Premise to Conclusion. We can rewrite the Premise such that:

/abandon [won't abandon] --> ready [they are ready]

now we need to connect "teach" to "/abandon"

Correct AC (A):

Only those who, without losing motivation, can meet the cognitive challenges that new intellectual work involves should be introduced to it.

If we teach someone X, we need to make sure they won't lose motivation [won't abandon].

Teach --> /abandon

Now we have a valid conclusion:

Teach --> /abandon --> ready

@rk695 I think that your emphasis of (that could potentially be dangerous) is precisely what makes A the incorrect answer. The correct answer should be definitely AGAINST the columnist's conclusion, which is basically "don't financially sway people from danger."

AC(C) goes against the columnist by clearly listing the government financially swaying people from danger, "financial disincentives to deter participation."

AC(A) is at best unsupported, because you have to make a further assumption that these equipment and gears COULD be used for dangerous activities. But neither the stimulus nor the AC says that; you have to add your assumption on top of it.

@VincentLaGuardiaG. But then ur overlooking the possibility that it might be a correct answer

@Ebony The stimulus says that if violations are routinely unpunished, then [X]. So the condition is triggered when violations are unpunished over and over again.

The argument implicitly assumes that we don't want [X] to happen, so we should not let routine disobedience go unpunished.

However, we can't use this stimulus to get to the conclusion that "so each and every violation should be punished." The stimulus only talks about routinely violating. We don't know if a single violation is a routine violation.

@elena I'm not sure what u mean by "some" includes "all." "All" (100%) includes "some" (1-99%). I think it would help if u flip ur (correct) diagram -- [FT <-s-> /I] because according to the stimulus, [FT <-s-> successful designer] and [successful designer -> /Ignore]. So there's some overlap between formally trained and successful designer. And anyone that's a successful designer also has the trait [/Ignore].

So necessarily, [FT <-s-> successful -> /Ignore] means [FT <-s-> /Ignore].

Not all means "some not." Formally trained graphic designers - "some NOT" - ignore.

@DanielHaughton Choice D is not correct because a graphic designer who learns their trade on the job could be an unsuccessful one. In that case, we have no idea whether or not they will ignore clients' wishes.

To be clear, this doesn't mean that if u are unsuccessful, you WILL ignore clients' wishes. We simply do not know what unsuccessful designers do, and AC (D) includes both unsuccessful and successful designers who learn on the job.

@sherryyudu I don't think u can say Carrie is agreeing with (E), because in the stimulus, Carrie says "our motivations are not subject to our conscious control."

So even if you read "sense of duty" as "moral obligation, the fact that a person's motivation is based on "sense of duty" doesn't trigger the sufficient condition for "morally good." In other words, according to Carrie, motivations are irrelevant for determining a person's action as morally good. So I think both Carrie and Daniel disagree with this statement.

@k13lawwwwww The key is that all Harrison students are either living in Pulham or Westerville. So all students are in either of two sets. And ignore the part about "small fraction of the classes are night classes" since that's fluff.

We want to look at students taking at least one night class. If you aren't in this set, that means you're taking NO (0) night classes. So if 29% of Westerville students take at least one night class, the other 71% do not take night classes.

That means the other students [taking at least one night class] all come from Pulham. In order for the total percent of Harrison students taking at least one night class to be 38%, this HAS to mean more than 38% of Pulham students are taking at least one night class.

Another way to think about it is this. Let's say you are only taking 2 classes, and your average GPA is a 3.0 (ouch). Let's say you got a 2.0 in one class (more ouch). That means you must have gotten a 4.0 in your other class.

For your average across two classes to be a 3.0, your other class must have been above a 3.0 to "balance out" the 2.0 from your first class. Similarly, for you to get a total average of 38% across the two sets, you need a value higher than 38% in your second set to "balance out" the 29% from the first set.

I'm going to add another reason to why the "significantly" in AC (A) should not be a problem for this question, and might even help the answer:

The stimulus talks about whether conversing on cell phone is more dangerous than conversing with a passenger.

I think it's reasonable to say both actions are somewhat contributing to danger. (While not needed for the argument, someone not talking to anyone at all would likely be in less/minimal danger, since talking inherently is a distraction.)

This means that both actions are already somewhere on the danger scale, meaning both actions live in the world of "increased risk of accident." We want to say that [conversing on cell phone] significantly increases the risk of an accident. There's an unstated implication that [conversing with passenger] may also slightly increase risk of an accident (but less than "significantly"). So the first driver has to be in a significantly increased risk of an accident. This brings the premise to the conclusion.

Hope this helps!

This is how I approached this question, a bit differently from the video:

(We talk about democratic society in our conclusion, so I push it to the domain that we are in fact in a democratic society.)

P1: class segmentation (differing incomes, little mobility) exists.

P2: class segmentation --CAUSES-> political factions (interrupts good governance)

P3: econ expansion gives opportunities to improve standing

Concl: Societies should constantly pursue economic expansion

A: so class segmentation --CAUSES--> political factions (assumed as "discord") --CORR-- more inequity. This doesn't strengthen the conclusion at all. 1) Doesn't talk about economic expansion. 2) If this correlation is true, doesn't make conclusion more likely. Provides no support for conclusion, which is what we should be doing.

B: political factions sometimes don't interrupt good governance? 1) too weak to strengthen, also 2) doesn't make conclusion more likely that we should always be pursuing economic expansion even if political factions sometimes are OK. What about when they're not?

C: So economic expansion --> LESS class segmentation.

Using our causal diagram, LESS class segmentation --CAUSES--> LESS political factions (thus less interruptions). This is a good support for the conclusion. Correct strengthener for the argument.

D: If no financial investment by rich, then economic expansion cannot occur. But our conclusion says we "should" pursue economic expansion constantly. Doesn't strengthen the conclusion.

E: Connecting from our causal claim, this is saying class segmentation --CAUSES--> political factions <--CAN BE/sometimes--> obstacle to economic expansion. How would this support the conclusion that we should constantly support economic expansion? Does not make conclusion more attractive nor likely.

AC B wrong -

Is the author using "alibi" to EXEMPLIFY the kind of info police interviewers seek? Look at what the author is attaching to "alibi" -- "confirm or disconfirm." The role of alibi is to be confirmed or disconfirmed. In other instances, a good alibi could be exactly the kind of information police interviewers seek. But here, the author doesn't write "alibi" to mean, "hey, these are exactly the kinds of info police interviewers seek"

AC C correct -

Instead, the author is writing "alibi" to mean, "hey, these are exactly the use to which an effective interview procedure might be put."