I initially chose C and while it is good on first glance, it requires more unreasonable assumptions for it to work than for E to work.

People who regularly do physical work of a type known to place heavy stress on the lower back are encouraged to use techniques that reduce the degree of stress involved.

I chose C because it introduced an alternative explanation. Oh, see, the physical laborers are encouraged to use techniques to reduce their back pain. But notice how it doesn't COMPARE the amount of encouragement that the laborers get vs. office workers (e.g. people who regularly do physical work are... MORE/LESS/EQUALLY encouraged). Without this comparison, we don't know whether or not office workers are given this same encouragement. If they are, then this AC wouldn't do any damage.

Consistent physical exercise is one of the most effective ways to prevent or recover from lower-back injuries.

I didn't choose E because I thought, "Oh, who's to say the office workers aren't also getting in consistent physical exercise?" And yes, that is a reasonable question to ask. But in comparison the physical laborers, who actually have to show up to the job daily and do physical work, it is more reasonable of an assumption to believe that office workers are getting in less consistent exercise than them.

@EmilieRupprecht i emailed LSAC about it, as well as the new hide/unhide feature, and they told me they can't change it "due to the underlying structure of the new test driver platform" and "We recognize how strongly test takers feel about maximizing their time and focus during their test session, which is why we are publishing these resources now, so that August test takers can practice in the new UI and become comfortable with the features and how they work."

It's so frustrating because they made no mention of why these changes were made IN THE FIRST PLACE.

hahahah so fun

A better way to interpret the word "advantage" within AC B is "best interest".

@jameswjxie that's what i thought too, but I think the AC gets away with it because it's "probably had Mondarian ancestors" rather than it being definitive

actually a lot more insightful than i thought! i thought it was going to give me generic study plans but it takes quite a few factors into account

@businessgoose really great explanation, thanks!

This strengthens by defending the argument from the possibility that passage through cosmic dust occcurred before the ice ages starting to occur.

I think 7Sage needs to reword the explanation for AC A because it's not necessary to believe that ice ages, as a whole, BEGAN to occur 800,000 years ago. In fact, that's not even what the stimulus claims. The stimulus is claiming that only the REGULAR SEQUENCE of ice ages began to occur 800,000 years ago. This explanation needs to qualify that.

@Gradam that's a really good way to put it and also a reason why I immediately eliminated AC D without thinking

This one was an interesting one because it shifts how I think to approach weaken question stems. For easier weaken questions, it's pretty cut and dry and more often than not, there's an AC that contradicts the conclusion directly.

But I noticed for these harder weaken questions, the ACs do not attack the conclusion directly, but rather one of the premises that supports the conclusion. Here, one of the main premises that leads the doctor to their conclusion is the findings of studies 2 and 3. But if the findings of studies 2 and 3 are questionable, then the doctor's conclusion would also be questionable. (which is what the correct AC does).

@ediffess LITERALLYYY the answer would've been so obvious if i had just properly read the stimulus

I HATE THIS TEST!

I don't really understand why AC C does not follow the principle. The stimulus never says anything about the consequences of giving the gift; only what the gift-givers intentions were. In this case, Amanda is still gifting a bottle of expensive wine (above the custom) and intends to benefit the receivers, regardless of what happens afterward. AC C doesn't really imply that Amanda is gifting the wine only because the clients will continue giving her business.

meee

How come we assume that an ambiguous question is a poorly phrased one?

@lyriclamagdelaine I'm not a tutor, but I think a good way is to keep in mind what each question type is. For this question, it's a "resolve the discrepancy", which means you could choose any of the ACs as long as if they resolved the inconsistency (meaning they can totally bring up something not mentioned in the stimulus.)

The reason why this is allowed is because it's also a common flaw you'll see: the false dichotomy. For this problem, we might falsely believe that sponsorship can ONLY come from private or public funding. But the correct answer proves to us that there's actually a THIRD source (the artists themselves eating the cost of their work) that we didn't account for, and could totally explain the discrepancy.

So thus, you can think of these question types as "oh, I hadn't thought of that!" I believe "strengthen" is one as well. I highly recommend reading "The Loophole", as it goes into great detail about Powerful/Provable question types and identifying when you can go outside of the stimulus info.

I chose "C" but I realized now why I was wrong:

"D" is a better answer than C because it is actually proving that merely switching up your diet isn't guaranteed to make you lose weight. The people in answer choice D likely switched up their diet but ate at a calorie surplus, disproving the fact that this diet itself is guaranteed to make you lose weight.

"C" is wrong because the stimulus never argued that exercise wasn't a factor in weight loss. The stimulus is focused solely on whether the diet itself will help you lose weight. You can't compare one group on one diet with another group whose diet is completely different to prove that the diet doesn't work.

i didn't choose C because I assumed that more anglers = more competition = less fish being caught per fisherman. but this was incorrect to assume because stimulus is about the overall number of fish, and more fisherman should presumably lead to more fish being caught overall