"Or" is actually inclusive, we just don't denote explicitly the potential for "A and B" -- but it's there implicitly.

Lets say in A → B or C, we translate that to:

A → B → C

A → C → B

That does not get rid of the potential for A to lead to both B AND C.

Notice how B → C and C → B don't get rid of the possibility that B → C or that C → B. Remember that B is merely SUFFICIENT for C to trigger, but it is not the end-all-be-all trigger for C.

Lets take the sentence: If one lives in NYC, then one must either file a city tax return or pay a penalty.

That sentence translates to NYC → (FT → PP).

But is FT (not filing taxes) the only possible scenario that I must fulfill in order to PP (pay penalty)? No. I could actually file taxes (FT), but get a parking ticket, and have to pay a penalty (PP). I could hop the turnstile and the police writes me up and I pay a penalty. Sufficient conditions are just one potential scenario of many, therefore B → C and C → B does not get rid of the possibility of B → C and C → B.

Another perspective:

What I found helpful is thinking of A → B → C and A → C → B as carveouts to an infinite number of possibilities, instead of viewing them as rules in which either the first or second must occur. Because to fulfill a B or C scenario, we can fulfill:

- B

- C

- B and C

- or we could even have B and C and D and E...

We can have literally any scenario as long as B or C is in it. So instead of indicating that B and C is another valid outcome, we create carveouts. If we don't have B, then C ABSOLUTELY MUST trigger. If we don't have C, B ABSOLUTELY MUST trigger. But that's it. If B happens, so what? We could have C, we could also not have C, and either is valid. Same as vice versa.

Hope that helps!

Hi Caroline! I was stuck between B and D, and decided against D because of a few reasons:

1) Just because statistical information is more "comprehensible" doesn't mean that more people are likely to change their belief. Conflating comprehension with adopting information is an unreasonable assumption because it's possible that something easy to understand is uninteresting or doesn't garner the attention of people.

2) Notice how broad answer choice D is. Great -- statistical information becomes more comprehensible when we combine it with anecdotes. But do we know if that's happening? We don't. The passage doesn't say whether the statistics people look at have anecdotes, so assuming that this general principle applies to the people in the passage is unreasonable.

3) Now lets say we DO apply this principle of D to the passage -- it's still wrong. The passage states that people don't pay attention to statistical information. Statistical info that is illustrated by anecdotes is a smaller subset of all statistical info, meaning it's likely people still don't pay attention to it even when it's illustrated.

I used to run into a lot of issues where I would dismiss the reliability of the premises in the passage if an attractive answer choice overrode it, but you have to take the premises as facts when you're going into the questions. I noticed that helped me get rid of answers like D.

This was a super tricky answer choice. Hope this helps! Good luck!

not in nyc but would love to join the discord!

I also don't really like diagramming -- for me, I take way too long to draw it out and am prone to make errors that way.

I got the right answer quickly by paying attention to key measurement terms that point out the scope of the claim. Once I saw the word "only" in the first sentence ("Newspapers generally report on only those scientific..."), I know I have to pay attention because this is a really strong claim. Only? So generally speaking, ALL scientific studies that newspapers report have dramatic-sounding claims?

Lets keep reading. The next key measurement term -- "are more frequent". This is pretty ambiguous. Maybe there is 1 more report on a small observational study than a large randomized trial. Maybe there are 50 more. Who knows? If there's only 1 more report, then the argument that there is a positive relationship between small observational studies and dramatic findings is pretty bad. "More frequent" is too broad, and at this point, we should see that theres a disparity in the confidence in the strength of this claim and the first sentence in the passage.

Now, I know I should be looking for answer choices that are largely concerned with the rate of reporting a certain types of study, since this is what the passage focuses on and we've already realized some flaws in that category.

Lets go hunting. The only two answer choices that talk about rate in terms of publishing stories are B and D. B is too general -- while it encourages us to assume that this hypothetical gap represents a significant portion of reported studies, you can also argue that this failure could apply to one, singular study. So its not a strong flaw to point out. D, on the other hand, nicely points out the gap that we saw earlier in "are more frequent". If there is only 1 more report on small observational studies compared to large randomized trials, then the final sentence is a pretty bad argument. But if small observational studies are far more common (D), then we see an entirely other (and reasonable) explanation for the flaw that we found in the generality of "are more frequent".

Hope this made sense!

"A symphony, thought it MAY be a work of art"

In this clause, I thought that the word "may" does not guarantee a symphony's status as a work of art, therefore only some (or most) symphonies are a work of art. My question is does the word "may" imply "all"?

.