why is it that sometimes "cannot" can be used to negate a necessary condition and sometimes it doesn't?

Now that i'm getting a better handle of harder questions it gets hard to supply assumptions so readily. Was stuck between A and D and ultimately knew that if I conceded the assumption that the play the critic is talking about is a "tragedy"- then yes, answer choice A would most definitely weaken.

Answer choice D on the other hand- requires many assumptions. What does it mean if this play is similar? Is that good? Is it bad?

@Allen_the_Alien I initially thought the same! I now think it's because I misinterpreted answer choice A. I think the answer choice is deceiving because it makes you want to think hey the diatom (algae) AMOUNT hasn't changed!! but really it's describing the diatom's features. It's essentially saying: Diatoms themselves haven't changed in composition and have the same features as they did during the last ice age. This undermines nothing.

Sufficient assumption question. We want support the flow of the argument in the right way. We want to tie the bigger idea of "purpose of art" in the premises to "debate on what constitutes art itself" in the conclusion.

The entire support system of the argument is about the purpose of art and how that causes experts to debate ideas- one of them being what constitutes art itself. THEN we have a final piece of support "the edifice has cause experts to debate what constitutes art itself,..." so we what is missing?

it's answer choice D!

if fulfill purpose of art -> qualifies as art and NOT Answer choice A because we need to get to the conclusion of what QUALIFIES AS ART

@crorosco02956 Hello me from 2025. How about the fact the stimulus mentions that action shows are preferred by "most television viewers" easily assumable that this means action is popularrrrr THEREFORE if they only consider popular programming like that of action shows, then their obligations are not satisfied.

Is the only reason answer choice D is wrong is because of the superlative nature of the stimulus? Answer choice D is providing us with a conditional of all things that are beautiful are the best artworks whereas answer choice A allows us to have MOST beautiful artworks = best artworks...

WOW. I didn't even catch "the" in "the only..." in the stim.

When I read through both arguments, I instantly noticed that Stephanie was saying some irrelevant BS BUT I didn't quite put it that well into words so when I looked at answer choice C I eliminated it as the right answer choice.

Sydonie's conclusion :

Any [type] of disciplinary structure in schools will create resentment

Why? (aka support)

Parents have different approach(es sometimes) in raising their children.

Stephanie's conclusion : It doesn't follow that because of these different approaches (sydonie's premise) there will be parent resentment for any disciplinary structure.

Why? (aka her support)

Because a survey has shown all parents have labeled "good discipline" as something high on the list of what they want their schools to provide

So supposedly all parents can agree on one thing "good discipline" but will they agree on how good discipline is enforced? Sydonie is talking about disciplinary structure- so stephanie mentioning one thing parents agree about (and not talking about enforcements) is not actually doing anything to doubt how powerfully sydonie's premise is supporting the conclusion and that is the flaw.

@ZoeLight I think the real question is why should we look at B as "if we sustain economic growth, we should not reduce biodiversity" what are the indicators that let us know which idea is on the sufficient side and which is on the necessary side? #help

Why did i think that the sufficient condition wasn't triggered? Specifically here: "Whenever she considers voting in an election to select one candidate for a position and there is at least one issue important to her,..."

I genuinely didn't see it mentioned in the stim that she was considering voting... is that something we have to assume OR is it because of how the question stem is worded that we can assume she is actually considering voting in an election

Something that allowed me to get grounded in the world of the stimulus was to really focus on the conclusion AND notice the flaw in the argument. I understand that sometimes the flaw isn't apparent and even when it is, sometimes we don't have the band-width to accurately diagnose it. Here's what led me to the right answer answer choice:

Suspiciously, "green-manure" crops was mentioned only once. (I made the mistake of equating green manure crops to be equivalent to alfalfa don't do this! but hopefully when you read answer choice E you're able to snap out of it like I did). Instantly I saw the casual mechanism at play.

1. Chemical Fertilizer -LED TO-> Abandonment of Green-Manure Crops -LED TO-> weak ahh soil

The argument is assuming that:

Chemical Fertilizer -WILL LEAD TO-> RE-incorporation of Green-Manure Crops -WILL LEAD TO-> STRONG (swole- ahh) soil

Just because ONE specific cause isn't there doesn't guarantee that an effect won't follow. There are a million ways to potentially get to an effect and the stim only mentioned ONE.

So when the conclusion says:

"...farmer's need to abandon the use of chemical fertilizer." This doesn't HAVE to be true. Just because the stimulus provides us one causal mechanism that leads to an improvement of soil structure doesn't mean there aren't other ways.

How do we patch this error?

We go back to the argument's assumption and seek out a strong rule.

"If GREEN-MANURE CROPS -> CHEMICAL FERTILIZER"

OR

" When there's Chemical Fertilizer -> Green-manure crops"

Should we scrutinize intermediate conclusions like we do with main conclusions? Or are intermediate conclusions treated like premises (as fact)?

I've noticed that I keep missing questions like this one. Answer choice E provides a concession. It's essentially saying " long-standing airlines (w/ reliable records, etc. etc...) still (are likely to) have a couple accidents" That's completely consistent with the conclusion. The conclusion is saying that (for the most part) people who choose major airlines are safer than those on low-fare airlines. There could be a couple accidents within major airlines, they're still your best bet when compared to low-fare!!

The real issue lies in how the premise supports the conclusion (well... honestly I should say how it fails to support the conclusion). Just because there are reliable records that indicate the degree of safety, that NEVER tells us that the degree of safety is high or low they just tell us (essentially) that they have more records than low-fare airlines. So, more records mean more safe? That's something we have to assume. DON"T ASSUME. It's very weak support for the following conclusion. What if just because there is reliable records (once again we don't know if they provide evidence for more safety or NOT more safety) it doesn't follow that major airlines are safer.

WHAT IF (premise=accurate) more reliable records = NOT SAFE.

that's the pre-phrase that must be running through your head, it was in mine but I got caught up in the answer choices and lost sight of my pre-phrase.

My first thought was- just because newspapers "generally" report things that are dramatic doesn't always have to mean that small observational studies (that happen to be published more frequently in a newspaper) doesn't have to mean that they are dramatic. There are multiple reasons why something could be published we just know of one (albeit one where a most relationship is established). Just because we are given one reason as way something is reported doesn't have to mean the conclusion automatically follows... what is the small observational studies are NOT more likely to be within the (most category) of being dramatic. What if large randomized trials are really really hard to do so there's less of them around to talk about?

@soleluna883 rats! i don't think i've seen it before

chat, if I am able to pre-phrase the right answer, should I even read the rest of the answer choice monstrocities?

#help #help

@SlippinJimmy2026 I thought of slippery slope!

double negative in the necessary clause cancels out?

If Compact Disc -> Believe Profitable

...right?

I think it's a good idea to step back and look at the columnist's argument. His argument is really just the last sentence and from that sentence alone answer choice A can be quickly chosen. The columnist is saying that the we should be skeptical about the anonymous sources for news stories since their example shows that we should be skeptical about those who send unsigned letters. We're attributing the doubt from the unsigned letter to the anonymous news sources aka "similar attitude."

@EagerEye I would say... no. We take a premise as fact and if the "when cavemen have gone out to hunt, they have always brought their sharp rock" claim was a premise it has to be true BUT it doesn't necessarily follow that this historical claim will hold true in the future therefore any conclusion that uses it as support for a conditional claim is unsupported.

so when we have "only" and "cannot" in the same claim we just choose one or the other? I was thinking cannot meant negate necessary

#help someone please explain this^ I thought the same thing

Hi! What does a tutoring session with you look like? Are we bringing in questions we missed and going over them together or is it more of a class style?

Is D) just straight up anti-premise? That's what it's giving to me tbh (well at least the negated version)