Hey Matthew! I'm aiming for 170+ too and I'm Indian Christian with a Portuguese last name lol. Like what Hanaha said, I'm down to do a Discord or Fb Messenger thing.

From ChatGPT:

The argument states that dioxin is unlikely to be the cause of the reproductive abnormalities because fish recover relatively quickly during mill shutdowns and because dioxin decomposes slowly. This implies that the presence of dioxin downstream of the paper mills is not responsible for the observed reproductive abnormalities.

Option (C) weakens the argument by stating that normal river currents carry the dioxin present in the river far downstream in a few hours. This information suggests that the dioxin from the paper mills could reach the downstream fish quickly, and its effects could be acute rather than a chronic exposure. In other words, the rapid transport of dioxin downstream could mean that the exposure to dioxin is still ongoing even during mill shutdowns, potentially explaining why fish recover hormone concentrations quickly during shutdowns but still show reproductive abnormalities. This weakens the argument's assumption that dioxin exposure is limited to times when the mills are operational.

So, option (C) weakens the argument by introducing the possibility that dioxin exposure could be ongoing due to the rapid transport of dioxin downstream.

Pretty crappy argument.

Just because one purported cause is not responsible for one instance of the effect, does not mean it cannot ever be a cause of that effect.

I'm cheesed I got 5/8 on this passage :((

7SAGE GROUSE

This is a sneaky one - if the percentage of non-North American applications has decreased, logically, the percentage of North-American applications has oppositely increased, as an application can either be non-North American (every other continent) or North American. Surely an increased proportion of North American applications weakens the argument that North American interest in art history PhDs has waned.

For example

80 - 20 North American to non-North American

85 - 15 North American to non-North American

- weakens the author's argument

Alexa, play "Noguchi Gang" by Lil Pump.

The last sentence in plain English:

To effectively reinforce good behaviours in society, the benefactor needs to know who is expressing gratitude towards them. In other words, if the benefactors don't know the people they are helping, society cannot effectively encourage them to continue their good behaviour in the future. Since the benefactor cannot actually see the people they are helping, society's reinforcement is not sufficient for benefactors to keep acting in a good manner.

The benefactor knowing the people he/she is helping is a necessary condition for societal reinforcement of the benefactor's actions to be effective.

(A) The stimulus states that the Halley's comet material actually reflects 60x less light per unit of mass than was previously thought for Halley's comet. The 60x less light that Halley's comet actually reflects is compared to what scientists had previously estimated for Halley's comet, not compared to other comets. We have no idea whether any other comets exist whose material reflects 60 times more light per unit of mass than the material of Halley's comet.

(B) The stimulus says that the greater a comet's mass, the more light reflected. If scientists have previously estimated that a given unit of Halley mass reflects 60x more light than it actually does based on the amount of light that has been reflected, it would have to be 60x greater in mass to have reflected that amount of light. Thus, previous estimates of the mass of Halley's comet were too low. This is the right answer.

Example:

This comet has reflected 1200 photons of light, we estimate that the comet reflected 60 photons/kg of mass and the comet is 20 kg.

We've found out that it only reflects 1 photon/kg of mass (60x less than expected). Thus, since it reflects 1200 photons of light, the comet's mass is 1200 photons * 1 kg/photon of mass = 1200 kg. Previous estimates of the mass (20 kg) were too low.

(C) The stimulus only implies that the total light reflected per unit of mass is less than previously thought, not the that the total light reflected by the whole comet is less than previously thought.

(D) We have no idea whether this is true from the stimulus. All we know is that the actual reflective properties of the material of a comet can be overestimated by scientists, but the stimulus provides no indication that reflectivity varies from comet to comet (even though in real life this is true).

(E) We have no idea whether the satellite probe results mean scientists have enough or not enough information to estimate the mass of Halley's comet, so this isn't the right answer choice.

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Premise 1: Car phones pose a threat to safe driving

Premise 2: This bill lowers the threat to safe driving by making car phones illegal.

Conclusion: This bill ought to be adopted.

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In other words, this bill should be accepted because it reduces the threat to safe driving. A bill that reduces a threat to safe driving is sufficient for it to be adopted. Since any bill that reduces a threat to safe driving ought to be adopted, and any bill that reduces a threat to safe driving is a bill that would reduce a threat to public safety, any bill that reduces a threat to public safety ought to be adopted.

RTSD (reduces threat to safe driving) --> A (should be adopted)

RTSD = RTPS (reduces threat to public safety)

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RTPS --> A

Any bill that reduces a threat to public safety should be adopted.