Agree. Something that has helped for me for questions like these is quickly asking "how" or "why" for a premise and seeing if any other premises can answer that. If not, then the premise in question is not supported.

The main reason why I, incorrectedly, marked off C through E was the use of the term "on average." I just felt like it leaves room for the typical case of one element of the average skewing the data one way. Could someone help me see why this wouldn't be a problem for this question? #feedback

For answer choice B, when negating a statement like "A has little effect on B" to saying "A does not have little effect on B," does that mean the possibility could be two different things?

1. A has much more of an effect on B

2. A has no effect on B at all

Is it reasonable to say that these 2 options are possible, and thus it reinforces that this answer choice is not necessary?

Strongly agree. If anything, it feels as if the first sentence almost encourages us to compare different chess programs based on how many moves they can analyze within a fixed time limit.

But I guess since it's essentially context, it's reasonably not useful for a MSS question.

So I chose A because of what JY said; I failed to notice a lack of an alternate explanation. What would you guys suggest the best piece of advice be to avoid this mistake again? Would it be to know what an argument is about beyond just looking at the argument elements? (e.g. premise, main conclusion, etc.) In this case, whether the main conclusion is addressing an opponent's conclusion or its premise?

For anyone who chose A like I did and couldn't figure out why it was wrong for so long, here's why:

A is so general that it's actually a point of agreement between Lyle and Carl. They both agree that modernizing plays will change their pedagogical value. How that value changes is where they disagree on. Lyle thinks it'll make it valuable. Carl thinks it won't.

A is like saying "getting shot will affect your health." Of course it will. But if Bob says it'll make you healthy while Steve says it won't, that's where the disagreement is.

That's why D is correct. It leans towards one side, while A was sitting on the fence.

B is wrong because it's claiming there's a relationship between the aesthetic quality of a play and it's usefulness for teaching history, when Lyle treated it more as a separate consequence in modernizing the play.

It's like if you were to say "seat belts may give some people a rash, but it'll reduce car accident deaths," and your opponent makes the claim "seat belts will incentivize people to drive more recklessly, which will make car accidents more frequent, thus not reducing car accident deaths." Answer choice B would then say something like "whether the increased likelihood of getting a rash from seat belts affects the rate of car accident deaths." It's trying to make a relationship from essentially a side comment that your opponent didn't address.

For D, Carl does address the matter of accessibility, but it's a tiny bit subtle. Lyle says modernizing the plays' language will make them more accessible. Carl directly responding to Lyle's claim of increased accessibility by saying "But modernizing these plays (AKA making them more accessible) will prevent students from fully understanding the context of the original text for its period in time."

Let me know if that doesn't make sense.

For whatever reason, I picked E during my timed session, so I'll just state why it's wrong in case anyone picked it too.

E is wrong because the debate of whether scientists can accurately judge how much matter is in our galaxy is not mentioned by either person. As the lesson by JY said, you can't agree or disagree on an opinion that isn't in the argument. E may be tempting to some because it's an assumption to easily base off the argument. That's why I chose it, plus probably feeling sluggish by the third section.

D is correct because it's explicitly mentioned by Klein, and Brown addresses it by suggesting an alternate conclusion to Klein's.

I kept struggling in trying to understand the world of this question, but I think I've figured it out.

My issue: I thought that the reason sales declined because potential customers would see these surveys and not buy the products of the companies in which their profits are decreasing. I found that difficult to grasp since the stimulus doesn't mention that these surveys would be published for the public.

My bias/assumption: I then recognized my issue was that I built a world around a stimulus and not take it for what it was. I thought, without the stimulus ever stating this, that profits didn't start going down until the surveys were being used.

The correct world of the problem: It then hit me that profits could have been going down even before the surveys went out. The stimulus is just summarizing patterns it saw during the course of the survey. So instead of saying that A caused B, maybe B caused A. The poor performances of some companies made them turn to surveys to figure out what was wrong, and that's why not all companies turned to it: they didn't need to.

I want to like your reasoning--and share your thoughts if you disagree--but I don't know if that's a correct way to think. Yes, the premise said law-abiding citizens do the MOST to contribute, but the lessons taught us that words like "some" and "most" can still include "all" or 100% of what the argument is about.

I think if an AC said something like "the argument fails to consider the possibility that there are other factors that contribute to creating an environment for crime to exist" then that'd work, but it seems like the argument specifically wants you to target the general principle mentioned at the beginning.

#help so I don't know if I agree with the "must" vs. "could" word issue in the argument. This is how I interpreted E:

E is a convoluted version of the "just because one explanation is plausible, does not mean that's the sole explanation" flaw. This is how I dissected E:

"An inconsistency" = 14 million year-old ice sheet has a 3 million year-old fossil under it.

"Is treated as though only one resolution is possible" = ice sheet must have melted.

I understand the importance of the word "must" but feel like the last sentence/premise is useless. Am I missing something?

From looking at other forums, I can see this question being a lot trickier than what it's rated. Something that helped me (which I don't know if it's right sooo #help just in case) is that for Larson and Franks, the stimulus said a reason, not the reason, implying it wasn't sufficient. That helped me not rely on ACs that said "Oh X could've done the assignment if he had Y" because there's no assurance it would've been enough.

Interested in joining too if it isn't too late!

Can someone #help me kill D for good? My logic was that creating new jobs would increase spending since new workers would come in and thus more people would be out in the province spending their working money. Is this too much of an inference?

I have an issue of when to quit making inferences in some answer choices