@brydon125 Hey ! Could you specify what you mean here? Are you saying that /(A->B) should be /A and B, as opposed to A and /B? I was also a bit confused as to how we're distributing out the contrapositive, but I feel like the statement is correct whichever way, as long as they don't go together, since that's what we're trying to demonstrate.

Is (D) not a strong counter because it would in fact bolster their position of murder rates actually having gone down if law enforcement increased alongside the increased population?

Is (D) preferable to (B) here because we are addressing safety? #help

I see that (C) is a trap here. We are only told about the quotation being an acceptable translation, not that it wasn't distorted, so that's why (A) is the bridge we need to address that gap. In (C), further, "then there is no reason to fear adverse consequences from reporting the remarks" seems to not appear relevant - reason to fear? Our argument is concerned with whether the actions were appropriate or not. How did you all approach this distinction?

@superchillasian Hi! I did the same process of elimination as you -- (A) is selfish, (B) is not in voters' interests, (C) is not in someone's interest or at least one party is dissatisfied here, (D) is also selfish although I was thinking ....I guess the legislature and the "public," the officials are benefitting? So I was stuck on it a bit; (E) I didn't see immediately though, and I'm wondering how you reasoned through it. My initial (faulty) thought was, wouldn't city residents not want their electricity rate to increase? So isn't that not a benefit for them? But I really understand your logic of it's the best choice for them and the community to prevent the shortages...Just we have to make the unstated assumption that if the rate goes up, electricity use will go down?

@LowriThomas Hi! I'm wondering if it is not considered too strong to say that they "must" be regarded this way -- can't they not just be deemed as containing the waste, but not waste themselves? Or is this just the type of error that we wouldn't see on the modern exam?

@superchillasian I got hung up on "must" too - "they then must be regarded as hazardous waste." Why do they have to be regarded this way? And the piece about transforming it threw me off too, I'm not sure how you read that bit, but I guess they'd transform it into something that doesn't worsen the quality regardless since they are a net positive for the chemical plants....

@LeorKo12341 I really feel the same way as you on this, and dug deep into trying to understand the reasoning for this one.

It seems (E) is not our answer since supposedly the author doesn’t suggest that contributing equally to the fund and paying by the cup are the only two possible choices, and that would need to be more explicit for (E) to be correct.... the author just states their opinion as to what the best way is, everyone splitting the payment.

I guess the reasoning for (A) is that the conclusion is "all coffee drinkers should pay equally" and the reasoning/support is "it is better if everyone pays equally". Conclusion, although X, Y, and the conclusion and Y are virtually the same; "this should happen. Because this is better." I think it's difficult to argue that that is circular reasoning or a mere restatement but that appears to be the case for it. #help

@szuyinfang346 Just wanting to bump this!! Not sure if this is something we aren't concerning ourselves with since it is a very old test but I found this to be a major error in (A) and something that at least on the modern exam would be considered a flaw. #help

@sesh561 I took this to be saying that too! Like oh, for health you wouldn't consult just any random Joe, you'd consult a good doctor, the same way a good public servant isn't any random Joe, but (E) is incorrect since these judgments aren't made in the first place?

@KevinLin Thank you!

Helena: Extroversion not biologically determined. Even when a kid's parents are introverts, if they're adopted into an extroverted family, they tend to be more extroverted than the ones that stay in those introverted households (implied: nurture also plays a role, not just nature?).

Jay: Nuh-uh, because some of them stay introverted, regardless of how young they were when adopted.

How young they were? Who cares? Helena didn't say anything about that. Anyways.

(A): Jay seems to think Helena's conclusion is a lot stronger than this.

(B): This could still be consistent with what Jay is saying. "Some of these children" and the "most but not all" could work together here. Jay seems instead to think that Helena's conclusion is a lot stronger - that there are zero cases that aren't instead dictated by nurture as opposed to nature, etc.

(C): This instead seems to highlight something that could be used to "Weaken" Helena's argument, or something she didn't factor into account, but doesn't seem to be what Jay is challenging.

(D): This one could be something Jay is defending against. By bringing up that there are instances in which nurture does not change a child's nature, Jay appears to be challenging that nurture is always the answer.

*I got stumped because I thought myself that Helena's saying "it is not biologically determined" could be taken to mean that biology does not play a role, but these statements are not incompatible. It can be not biologically determined and still be impacted by biology -- all she's saying is that biology is not the end all be all!

(E): I got really stumped by E, given my pre-phrase of a way Helena's argument could be interpreted ("nurture is more important than nature"). However, E being soft and saying "sometimes more influential" is compatible with Jay's response, that for some of them that isn't true. Let me return to (D).

@AsemanShahsavand Can we further say that (A) is incorrect, or not as good of an AC as (E), because it says "a general principle"? I was between (A), (D) and (E), and eventually chose (E) because "the tradition surrounding a certain code" was more accurate, as well as a "defense of the code." We don't see "modifications" of the oath/"principle," like in (A), and in (D), I guess you could say we don't see criticisms wholeheartedly rejected but rather considered and responded to?

23 is tricky because you could argue "in favor" of most of these trap ACs. (A): the author sidesteps this, that the interpretation made it difficult, but this doesn't seem to be the author's genuine source of strife. Their being broad is unfortunate, and difficult to interpret, but..let's move on. (B): the author says difficulties arise here, and they're difficult to interpret, but this seems like something that just must be the case, like in (A). (C)/(D): the author once again says this requirement makes things difficult. (E): the author's voice is a lot more prevalent than just saying things are difficult or complicate the situation when addressing the 1984 case. The author says, "Here, the provincial court's ruling was excessively conservative in its assessment of the current law." We see the author being directly critical about the ruling, which is greater evidence for being negative than describing all of the other ACs as posing a difficulty. Does anyone have advice for not getting tricked in these situations? #help

Re: (B), this is unclear, so we can't say that it was mentioned. What we have is "Some respected opponents even cite historical doubts about the oath's origin and authorship, presenting evidence that it was formulated by a small group of reformist physicians in ancient Greece and that for centuries it was not uniformly accepted by medical practitioners." Doubts about authorship /= we aren't using the same oath. In fact, the passage seems to indicate the opposite, that we are using the same provisions as the ancient formulated oath (wherever its origins may be), and that critics believe that is faulty and it should be remediated.

Re: (C) -- "and not any changes in the medical profession or society in general," this is not true!

I think (D) is a trap that shows the dangers of us "doing too much" for an AC. One could reason that the ozone layer regenerating at a slow rate --> damage from forever ago is still being done, or there is now more cumulative damage (which is already us bringing in outside assumptions), but then it does not comment on whether that would harm humans or not, we'd have to make that jump to say that "more ozone?! more hurt!" -- but we don't even know if they're getting hurt in the first place, same thing with AC (B), continuous damage doesn't give us information about who is getting hurt, why, or why not. (C) patches this gap.

@RSD I see, thank you!!

@KevinLin Thank you! So is it also that we have to draw the conditional out with what it gives us, i.e., any/sufficient here is "doesn't reach full potential," so it would be wrong of me to conclude something about those that Did reach full potential?

@m&m thank you dear friend!

Discussion in A: "No number of white swans, for example, can ever prove that all swans are white, but a single black swan disproves the hypothesis."

So we are seeking, in Passage B, an instance of negative evidence being enough to disprove Newton's theory. We see that the "observed orbit of Mercury" led "to the rejection of Newton's theory of gravity," which is what (A) suggests -- Mercury was the "negative evidence." My only hang up for (A) was thinking that the "calculations of Mercury's orbit" were the negative evidence, not Mercury's existence itself, but, alas.

Combing through the answer choices: (D) (E) can be eliminated for being extraneous, (B) Uranus' orbit doesn't prove or disprove anything and in that scenario Neptune is what allowed them to not change but confirm their predictions, so (C) is incorrect for that reason as it did not disprove.

Claim: Positive evidence is never conclusive. But negative evidence rarely is either.

Quick eliminations: (A), Uranus is not discovered in Passage B. (E) does not describe negative evidence. (D) describes something that affected their hypothesis, which led them to in fact make a (temporarily) conclusive deduction ("some scientists began to think that perhaps Newton's laws were in error"), so likely not the best choice for suggesting negative evidence cannot be used to make a conclusive statement. (C) appears to suggest that the negative evidence was conclusive ("ultimate failure," as opposed to "initial failure" in AC (B)).

Where do we see a situation in Passage B where negative evidence (one instance of something disproving a hypothesis) is not enough for a hypothesis/theory to be borne out? AC (B) -- while the initial predictions for Uranus' orbit did not seem to turn out right ("negative evidence was obtained"), the scientists' theory ended up being right, thus demonstrating that although they did find negative evidence, that negative evidence was not conclusive.

"disturbing force" as defined here, I would say, refers to extraneous stimuli or other external things that may impact a scientific result or the way the results are interpreted, etc.; something that may prevent the tests from being borne out the way they are supposed to. When thinking of Passage B, then, I was wondering whether to find a "disturbing force" from the first scenario, something that prevented them from predicting Uranus' orbit, or something from the second scenario, which prevented them from predicting Mercury's orbit.

So then, Neptune, which initially threw off their prediction ("disturbing force") and then later their hypotheses were adjusted and they theorized there may be another planet nearby), would be the "disturbing force" in the Uranus situation, and I thought perhaps Vulcan would be the "disturbing force" in the other scenario.

For eliminating, (B) "the sun" and (E) "the moon" could not be disturbing forces, as they are constants, and also not mentioned so much in the passages. Uranus and Mercury are the subjects of the tests, so it would be difficult to say that they are the disturbing forces themselves (re: the explanations saying that they are the "focus of a prediction").

For #21, is (B) further incorrect because the passages mostly concentrate on revising hypotheses, as opposed to entire theories?

For question #1, would it be improper to just write it as "pandas proper --> drive out poachers?" Like in order for them to prosper, driving out the poachers is the necessary thing that needs to happen? I'm having a bit of trouble seeing when something needs to be separated into two things instead of left as one larger sentence...Like do we need to add another bit that specifies the pandas that were relocated here, or is what I'm doing some version of "kicking it up to the domain" by assuming that the pandas I wrote my condition about are the ones that relocated to this part of the forest? I got the same conditional here as the Rule/Except framework... #help