I think this question can be confusing because it deals with demand and salability on two levels:

Level of parts and level of the cars themselves.

And, the principle of "more demand = easier to sell" applies to the two worlds.

In the narrow, "level of parts" world, the junkyard easily sells car parts that are less than 10 years old because there is a demand for them. On the other hand, car parts that are older than 10 years old don't have as high of a demand. Therefore, junkyards tend to buy cars less than 10 years old. Their decision (demand) to buy a car depends on the resalability of its parts, and it falls in line with cars less than 10 years old.

In a larger "level of cars themselves" world, the selling of cars is also dependent on the principle. We conclude that it is easier to sell cars that are less than 10 years old because we know there a more demand (junkyards) for them than cars less than 10 years old.

Mapped out, it would look like this:

Principle: More demand, easier to sell

P: [Junkyard] Demand of parts = Easy to resell

C: [Whole] Demand of cars = Easy to sell

--------------------------

NA: The demand of their parts = demand of cars themselves

I chose (A) during my timed review because I thought it bridged between "promise" and "ought" but in BR, I realized it was just the opposite of what seemed to be necessary.

Principle: ought → can

Conclusion: ought & /can

Premise: promise & /can

For (A) to be right, it should have said "ought → promise", and thereby the contrapositive: "/promise → /ought". But it states, "/ought → /promise".

If negated, it clearly shows that it is irrelevant to the conclusion:

"/ought & promise" - if someone failed to do something they ought to do, then they succeeded in doing what they promised to do.

I missed Q4 on this passage. In BR, I was able to see why (A) is correct.

(A) This seems to be what utilitarianism would disagree with and therefore, the author and Rawl will both agree with this. Author introduces utilitarianism with phrases such as "odd consequences" and "incredibly", which all suggest that he thinks the sacrifice of few for the appeasement of many is not a good indicator of justice. As for Rawl, he was reacting against utilitarianism so he would definitely agree that its not always the case that the majority's preference should be fulfilled.

(B) This seems to be the opposite of what the passage suggests. Rawl would agree that self-interest contributes to making fair judgments about distribution of goods, given that his thought experiment only used self-interest to arrive at a fair judgement. But as for the author, he seems to be silent on this issue.

(C) Author would disagree with this.

(D) Rawl didn't delineate which primary goods are the most valuable. He just stated that people would agree that there are certain primary goals which are necessary for people to meet certain goals. So Rawl and the author would be silent on this.

(E) They would both disagree with this.

Wow. I am so impressed and inspired by your story. Thank you for sharing and I hope you and your baby all the very best in the coming days!

Question 4:

(D) Passage A says, "we have judges to interpret" the law. So author A suggests that it is not within the purview of juries to interpret them. Passage B strongly implies that it is within the purview of juries to interpret the law because that's how they perform a useful function as informing the legislature that some laws may be problematic.

26. I originally thought C but quickly changed to D because in Passage A, it actually states that justice of acquisition is when a property that is NOT owned by an entity is acquired by an entity. In the case in Passage A, Native Americans already OWNED the lands so it can't fall under acquisition.

Its here. Oh god

I think the "then understanding a word requires understanding the words that occur in that definition" is not an essential part of the valid inference in (E).

In lawgic this translates to:

P: Understanding a word [UW] → Knowing its dictionary definition [KDD]

P: Babies → /KDD (all babies don't know the dictionary definition)

---------------------

Within the domain of the hypothetical, then these babies don't understand some of the words. But we never established that this hypothetical is true across all domains. Therefore, we cannot conclude (A).

Valid inference:

If some babies understand, then not [UW → KDD]. There are some people who UW but not KDD.

PT 76 also had a strange SA question where they experimented with totality. It seems there is a number of strange SA types reccuring on recent PTs... maybe its a trend...

Its interesting how (B) is so popular and under timed condition, I also fell for (B). In BR, it became clear that (B) was a really bad choice preying on a misunderstanding of the major conclusion.

I think (B) tries to attack the relationship between Major Premise → Major Conclusion, but actually fails to even do so. Our major conclusion says, "you should have access to more than one newspaper." But this does not mean that once you have more than one, you should be able to have a complete coverage. It just simply means that one will not be enough and at best, it assumes that having more than one will increase the likelihood that you will have better coverage. But, you could end up needing 3, 5 or even 10 more newspapers for "complete coverage". So in fact, (B) is compatible with our argument.

.

(B) is a really roundabout way of saying, "once it is accurately measured, it can be exactly replicated." This implies that although measurement is only one of the "certain methods of creating high-quality counterfeit" it is the threshold on which exact replication depends. So, taking that away, the proposed conclusion will prevent production of counterfeit banknotes

I think (E) is tricky especially because of the "not unhealthy" part of the conclusion.

I found (E) to be disguising to trade on another gap that is made in the stimulus:

- from "illness" to "not unhealthy".

Just because less frequency of illness is associated with sleep deprivation does not mean its "not unhealthy". We are strictly speaking about the frequency of illnesses when, in reality, some illnesses are more severe than others, so even if sleep deprivation does account for smaller frequency illnesses, it could be that there are more fatal illnesses associated with it. While sleeping 8hrs+, you get more illnesses but minor cases of flu.

On the other hand, (E) attempts to suggest this gap by saying that even if negative consequences (illnesses) are not associated with sleep deprivation that does not mean its generally not unhealthy (there could be other negative consequences that could suggest it is unhealthy).

But (E) is wrong on two accounts:

1) Its factually inaccurate -

The stimulus actually suggests that sleep deprivation and illness are associated - they are positively correlated (the less you sleep, the less frequency of illnesses). So, its not "not associated" as (E) states

2) It does not address the crux of argument's flawed reasoning -

I think "not unhealthy" is purposefully placed in the argument, coordinated with the wrong answer (E) as a sidelight to the main issue. If you mistake "not unhealthy" part to be main crux, and fail to see (E)'s descriptively inaccurate phrase, you would definitely fall for the trap. Yet, the meat of the argument is at the end of the conclusion "in fact, probably bolsters the body's defense against illnesses". If we erase the first part and just focus on the latter, it becomes more clear that we are looking at a correlation-causation flaw, with "bolsters" as the causation trigger word.

It's a shame that all this realization comes only in hindsight.

The structure of this argument is very cookie cutter.

Stimulus:

[Established hypothesis] [Opponents of established hypothesis = new hypothesis] [Our argument = criticism of the new hypothesis]

[Our argument]:

P: Biomarkers in Petroleum

C: New hypothesis is refuted

With structures like this, it really pays dividends to stay close to our argument. We don't know whether our author agrees with the established hypothesis or whether he is refuting the new hypothesis on the basis of established hypothesis. (A) and (E) interjects within our argument relationships that aren't necessary to our task but seems to be relevant because of their mentions in the stimulus' context - "fossils" in (A) and "fossilized plants" in (E).

All we know and all we can concede are the premises our argument gives, which is that biomarkers in petroleum were found and since they indicate the presence of living organisms, petroleum could not have formed from deep carbon deposits.

If we just focus on this, the subtle gap between "living material" (which, I think the deep carbon hypothesis is mentioning as fossilized plants) and "living organisms" becomes more clear. The argument makes the assumption that deep carbon deposits do not have any living organisms. And (D) weakens his support by denying his assumption.

"Hand-raised eggs" LOL

Hah....the devil is truly in the details

-_-

Damn. That's one hell of a story

https://media.giphy.com/media/Lcn0yF1RcLANG/giphy.gif

@ I've updated with the links you provided but it still doesn't work on Chrome. But I've tried it on Microsoft Edge and it worked on there! This is the first time I had trouble printing and it coincidentally occurred right after my new windows update...hopefully its nothing permanent. Thanks for the help :D

Questions #4, #6 and #7 really show that these questions (and correct answer choices) aren't just pulled out randomly by the test writers - they ask the most salient concepts mentioned the passage.

Question 4:

[testing you whether you understood the importance of reproduction for prions and at large, for pathogenic agents]

- If an agent can't reproduce, you don't have an infection (lines 3-5)

- CJD is an infection ("seeking to identify the pathogen", lines 12-14)

- Prions reproduce and form into a pathogenic conformation (lines 33-37)

- This conformation collects in the brain and destroys nerve cells

- CJS causes the brain to have tiny holes, which is evidence of extensive nerve cell death (lines 17-18)

If we tie this information altogether, it strongly supports answer choice (C). If prions were unable to reproduce, then they cannot establish a viable presence. And no viable presence means no infection, and no infection translates into no CJD.

Question #7:

With the same evidence from above lines, and additional evidence from lines 43 - 45, we can also say that the answer choice (E) most strongly weakens the claim that prions caused CJD.

(C) is wrong because we know prions are present as harmless in many of body's tissues. So it could be that prions are responsible for other degenerative disorders that do not influence brain and nerve cells. We did not establish that prions only existed in brain and nerve cells.

Question 6:

[testing you whether you understood the key element that differentiated prions from other pathogens]

(A) says if its a pathogen, then it has nucleic acid. This is disproved by the statement in lines 22, where it explicitly states that prions lacked nucleic acid and consisted mainly of proteins. This was the crux of the challenge that the existence of prions brought to the prior assumptions that all pathogens contain nucleic acid for means of reproduction.

I think this mindset - that no question is just randomly thrown in - is helpful in your reading process. Anticipating what they think is important and aligning your reading and reasoning skills with that will really pay dividends.

@ The distinction between modal and generics is incredibly insightful!

I hesitated between (C) and (D) and under time, went with (D). In BR it was clear that (D) was very wrong

(D)'s "regular addition" and "commercial fertilizer" makes it wrong. The stimulus never mentions the necessary frequency of adding these nutrients so we cannot infer that both must be added regularly. As J.Y. mentions, we don't need the source of macronutrients to come from commercial fertilizers.

@ congrats!!!

@ YES...now that its here I wish it would go away...But the very best luck to you!!

OMG the day is here

P: Salespeople always steer customers to make big commissions

P: All salespeople in major health stores work on commissions

[from a general scope, now we shift towards a specific situation]

C: When you buy vitamin supplements in major health stores, you can be sure that salespeople's claims are inaccurate.

I completely missed this on timed condition. Made a confidence error and it completely flew over my head. But I think test writers purposefully placed (C) just before (B) - one of their favorite proximity traps - for people who, like me, misunderstood the essential flaw of this reasoning.

The premise goes from what salespeople are motived by [high comissions] to a specific situation and ensures that any salespeople you encounter at a major health store, they will be lying just to make big commissions off of their sales.

But that is a huge assumption. Just because they have a certain motivation to act in a certain way does not preclude them from giving accurate feedback on what they think is a good supplement.

Take away: focus on P → C