Premise 1: Those who consistently break the law are not deterred by it

Premise 2: Those who consistenly obey the law do not need it since they would have done so even if no law existed against it

Sub-conclusion: In order for a law to be serve a useful prupose, it must deter some of the behaviour it prohibits.

Conclusion: The law prohibiting pedestrians from crossing against red lights serves no useful purpose.

Flaw: Presents a false dichotomy to justify the conclusion. The author erroneously partitions the populous into those who always violate the law and those who never do. What about those who sometimes jay-walk but don't on other occasions due to the law in question?

(A) The argument also fails to consider that those who break the law are more likely to recieve tickets. Descriptively accurate but completely irrelevant as to why the argument is wrong.

(B) It doesn't use the word law or any other polysemic term differently in the premise and conclusion.

(C) same as (B)

(D) Bingo

(E) It also fails to provide evidence that those who consistently break the law are more likely to be hit by cars. This is descriptively accurate due to the limited scope of the question stem but irrelevant as to why the argument is flawed.

I think I got it. The gap in this argument is between the premise and the intermediate conclusion. Essentially the author presents a false dichotomy. The correct answer will most likely protect the argument against an explanation that will foil this dichotomy, i.e, one that will present an alternative solution.

(A) Whenever I see answer choices with absolute quantifiers like "all" in NA questions I am immediately suspicious. This doesn't need to be true because even if it were the argument leaves us with the possibility of doing without such resources, so the argument isn't necessarily destroyed.

(B) Bingo. This negates an alternative solution i.e., "third way" to the false dichotomy presented in the argument that if true would completely destroy the validity of the argument.

(C) Like (A) this doesn't need to be true because if it wasn't we still have the possibility of doing without such resources.

(D) Out of scope. We don't care about the rate of consumption.

(E) Even if this were not true there's still the possibility of just replacing them so this doesn't need to be true.

Thanks for your response Jonathan, my question was about PT35.S1.Q18. I think a mod edited my post when I originally posted it, and put int he wrong question. I've just seen it and changed it back.

P: Violence among teens predates the purported cause of violence among teenagers.

C: Jane's claim that television and movie depictions of violence cause violence among teenagers is mistaken.

Flaw(s):

Fails to consider that despite the fact that violence among teens predates violent movies and television, the latter may in fact be the new or another cause of the pis phenomenon.

Takes for granted that because the phenomenon predates the purported cause, that it cannot be the present cause of the phenomenon.

(A) Maurice doesn't presuppose this. We don't even know if Jane's conclusion is an unpopular policy

(B) Maurice's argument doesn't do this. This would be correct if he misinterpreted Jane's conclusion which is arguably a subjective private judgement of moral permissibility, to be an objective description of something that occurs in society. This doesn't appear to be the case. In his retort he refers to her conclusion/proposition as a recommendation and is therefore cognizant of the fact that it's not a social fact.

(C) Bingo

(D) We have no idea if his premise can be verified or not. Even if it couldn't be, that would not be a reason for which he reasoning is erroneous. We are supposed to concede that it's true, so whether or not it can be verified is irrelevant.

(E) He doesn't equivocate as to the term violence.

Thanks a lot David, that makes a lot more sense! This answer choice is definitely out of scope and you're right the word "any" extends this answer choice beyond the scope of the argument. Perhaps a person that is not fearful of situations in which other people are could be fearful in situations that others aren’t and thus could be courageous by persevering in the face of that fear to attain a particular goal.

My problem was that I kept assuming that a failure to fear situations in which other people would be fearful = a failure to persevere in the face of fear when acting towards a goal and as a consequence I erroneously inferred that it was the contrapositive of the second sentence. However the two statements are not all all equivalent because as I said earlier, even if someone did not fear situations that everyone else did, they could fear other situations (situations that are not feared by everyone else). If they persevered in face of that fear to attain a goal then that person would indeed be acting courageously as indicated by the stimulus.

Your explanation for C was fantastic but just for clarification for answer choice D, is it wrong basically because we don't know which specific workers are being cut?

Doesn't C question the veracity of the premise?

Sue

Premise: usually no one bothers to observe comets when they are so far away from the sun, but in this case it was.

Conclusion: It is not the case that the flare must be highly unusual.

(A) Sue doesn't point out Anne's use of any words

(B) Sue doesn't draw attention to any of Anne's claims. Further there are no apparent inconsistencies in Anne's argument.

(C) Sue doesn't present any evidence that contradicts any of Anne's claims. This would be correct if Sue presented evidence that Comets had indeed been observed far away from the sun.

(D) Bingo. Sue offers an alternative explanation for Anne's evidence : Flares had not been observed because nobody had bothered to observe it, not because such flares were unusual.

(E) Sue undermines Anne's evidence but doesn't agree with her conclusion.

(A) This must be false, we're told that robin committed an act that was illegal and he knew it was illegal

(B) Bingo, we're told in the third sentence that Robin didn't recognize that act was morally wrong (due to his inability to distinguish between morally right and wrong acts)

(C) Is not at all provable based on what we're told in the stimulus.

(D) Same as C

(E) Same as C and D.

How do we know that "out of business" needs to be linked to "difficult to obtain". I thought that we needed to help "newspaper correct" reach "safer", the perceived gap in the argument doesn't do that. Help!

Why was he able to eliminate the S ←s→ LO chain ?

When I diagrammed it, I included it and so my diagram came out like so:

LO ←s→ S → C → MM

Bumping this.

Is there any other reason apart from the word "unacceptable" for why D is incorrect?

It seems like the author is saying: The idea that some species can look the same and not be part of the same species (because they cannot interbreed) is not compatible with the typological theory, therefore is not acceptable.

Somebody must know why D is wrong.

Thanks for your post Daniel. After reviewing this question ad nauseam, I think I got this.

Original argument:

Anyone who insists that X is a subset of Y should agree that Z gave rise to a subset of Y.

Since Z gave rise to X.

(A) This isn't even an argument, it's just a statement.

(B) Bingo. Anyone who insists that A is a subset of B should agree that some C is lower in [insert characteristic] than A. Since C is lower in [insert characteristic] than A.

(C) The conclusion is prescriptive but it doesn't have the subset component that the original argument does. Plus the conclusion is talking about one thing, the conclusion in the original argument talks about two, one of which is a subset of the other. Secondly, none of the subjects the are mentioned in the premises are talked about in the conclusion.

(D) Conclusion mismatch. The conclusion in this argument is not prescriptive, it denotes probability. Plus it doesn't have the have the subset component that the original argument does.

(E) The conclusion is prescriptive but like (D) does not have the subset component that the original argument does.

(A) He seems to consider this possibility or insinuate that it may indeed the case by arguing that the cancer rate is not a consequence of synthetic carcinogenic compounds

(B) Descriptively accurate but not why it's wrong. The author doesn't make a declarative statement as to what actually caused the increased in cancer, only that synthetic carcinogetic compounds are not the cause. If he he concluded that non synthetic carcinogens compounds caused it then this would be correct.

(C) Descriptively accurate, but it's wrong because we're talking about synthetic compounds that are known to be carcinogenic.

(E) Descriptively accurate but it's wrong because we don't care about susceptibility. A wide range of susceptibility does not establish whether or not the overall cancer rate will increase or decrease, be high or low.

Why is it that anything that can be contained int he carve out need not be restricted? If it's not in the not restricted box, then would it not follow that it is always restricted?

ah okay, gotcha. So the fact that the economist's conclusion contradicts the politician's politician is not enough for (A) to be correct because it doesn't encapsulate the economist's entire method of reasoning? Because the politician's conclusion is a principle and the economists conclusion is just the negation of said principle so it follows that they are not compatible.

Also note that in addition to assuming that the terraces in D.C were built to prevent erosion by water, it presumes that they were built by farmers.

What is the difference between disproving and a contradiction ?

Agreed. You're that just because the speaker's premises do not fully substantiate the reasoning does not mean the author is contradicting himself or herself, that is obvious. However, my issue here is that the proponent uses his premises to justify the claim that there are NO reason to reject the remedy on the basis of health or safety. However, opponent contradicts the proponent's main point by pointing out that there is at least one reason: irradation does not prevent botulism and even conceals it.

However, I think B is wrong on the account that although one of the opponent's claims completely contradicts proponent's conclusion, it does not show that said conclusion in complete contradiction with the premises he/she that are used to substantiate it.

Thanks for your response blah170blah! really helpful. In regards to for first reason for why C is wrong. I'm not entirely sure that this answer choice can be discounted on the basis that the proponent raises only one of the two remedies discussed. This answer choice could conceivably be considered if the opponent described the undesirable consequences of the remedy he raised, no?

I think your second explanation for why C is wrong is more convincing requires the assumption the phrase "either one of" is inclusive, i.e., both, any of the two remedies. I interpreted "either one of" as being exclusive i.e., on or the other but not both. I think your interpretation of "either one of" as being inclusive is correct and that I misinterpreted it.

For B, I agree with you insofar as the undermining of an argument doesn't not necessarily result in the self contradiction of the claims that compose said argument. That said, in this particular instance it appears that by raising the claim irradiation does not prevent botulism, the opponent is demonstrating that the proponent's conclusion: there is no reason to reject irradiation on the grounds of health or safety is self-contradictory. The proponent would not need to contradict himself/herself initially in order for this choice to be correct. The opponent could raise a claim that would show the self-contradictory nature of the proponent's argument no?

Proponent's argument:

Premise 1 : Irradation of good by gamma reyes prevents food from spoiling before it reaches store.

Premise 2: Irradation leaves no radiation behind and vitamin loss is comparable to those that occur during cooking

Premise 3: It kills salmonella bacteria which can cause serious illness.

Conclusion: There is not reason to reject irradation on the basis of health or safety.

Opponent: Irradation doesn't kill the bacteria that leads to botulism a very serious form of food poisoning. In fact irradation conceals botulism by killing the bacteria that emit strong doors to warn consumers of botulism.

This retort seemingly contradicts, the proponents main point that there is no reason to reject irradation on the basis of health and or safety.

Yes, it is, sorry for my extremely late response, I took a break from LG, but have just resumed

A) It's not the conclusion, the subsequent sentence is.

(B) Is wrong because the argument makes no attempt to refute the observed phenomenon (there are higher rates of psychological problems in children of divorced parents). Rather the argument refutes a hypothesis for the phenomenon (that the observed phenomenon is caused by the difficulty of dealing with divorce) by introducing an alternative hypothesis (it is attributable instead of certain behaviours that increase the likelihood of divorce that the children of divorced parents learn and adopt) .

(C) No such claim is even made.

(D) This is essentially saying that the phenomenon is used to prove the alternative hypothesis introduced by the author, this is not the case, the exact opposite is true.

(E) Bingo. It is a phenomenon that the author sets out to prove with this argument. He tries to substantiate his main point but introducing an alternative hypothesis.

Ah thanks a lot for your response Motivated! The huge gap in this argument seems to be that genetic similarities between organism is indicative of whether they share a common ancestor, B weakens the argument by contradicting this assumption. As to answer choice (C), Even if we conceded that the non-rodents the researcher is speaking of were not representative and we assumed that cell structures were in some way relevant to genetics it still wouldn't argument, it is still not clear how it would affect the reasoning of the argument. Assuming (1) that mice also have these same cell structures (2) Again that cell structures were relevant to genetics, at best (C) boosts (albeit slightly ) the premise that "some non rodents have the similar genetic differences as mice". Just overall a terrible choice. What do cell structures have to do with genetic similarities? Like I said even if we assumed tat they were relevant to one another, it still does nothing to exacerbate the reasoning in the argument. In all (C) just requires way too much conjecture and additional assumptions to even be considered.

Is my reasoning off on this one or good? Please tell me if I am overlooking something.