Question Break Down:

Moderate Exercise --> Lowers B. Chol. which lowers hardening which lowers blockage of arteries, if data is correct.

Thus: Me--> lowers risk of blockage.

This argument is different from some other S.A questions I have done as the premises and the conclusion pretty much follow. There is no traditional gap in reasoning, where we have to fill in with a statement. Instead, the gap is already filled by a conditional. This is unique. It is, thus, completely logical that if the sufficient is triggered, the conclusion follows as the entire chain follows logically.

Main Takeaway: Sometimes, the simplest thing is in fact correct, and all you need is to trigger a conditional, rather than provide your own premise.

Conclusion: you are not able to truly remain free if it is the case that an external force aids you in your pursuit of political freedom

Premise: Because when an outside force comes to your aid, you (assuming you is a member of this hypothetical society we are talking about and is representative of all people in this society) do not gain certain virtues necessary to maintain freedom.

Pre-Phrase: Something along the lines of "you are not able to get certain virtues without doing something yourself"

A: In my mind this was going directly against what the stimulus was saying.

B: Does it matter whether it is the first political virtue or not--> Plus, we do not even necessarily know what virtues the stimulus is talking about, and thus self-determination may not even be relevant, but we instead assume that it is

C: "A community cannot remain free...w/o first developing virtues" --> Translates to if /certain virtues-->/freedom. This is the principle being presented. The conclusion is that you are not able to remain free. Why? Because an outside actor helped, and you thus you do not get certain virtues. Thus, if you do not have certain virtues, then you cannot remain free

D: Similar to B--> We only know that certain virtues are required to maintain freedom, not that the virtue in question is self-determination.

E: E is prescriptive, and I did not take the principle to be prescriptive

This was my take on the question...I hope it helpes

For those stuck on question 27, I feel your pain. I was in a similar spot. My thinking: "How, with such strong language favoring the policy, is that not an endorsement?" The LSAT writers again preyed on such a narrow assumption that I'm almost impressed (if it wasn't so frustrating).

The way I thought about it was as so:

Politician James: "Ideally we give everyone a billion dollars" --> As an ideal, yes, I think its fair to say everyone would like this, who doesn't want a billion dollars......

Politician James: "But, practically, if you give everyone a billion dollars, inflation will skyrocket, there will be no incentives to work, our population may become lazy etc. etc. Thus, I do not endorse this policy"

In politics, and in this question, more considerations must come in between an ideal world and an endorsement. While it is logical to assume that if something is ideal it is endorsed by the person, this is too narrow of a view.

Hope this helps, it was the angle that got me to understand how this is even a fair AC.

@ said:

(C) is wrong because the new data doesn't imply anything about the total amount of light reflected by the comet. The comet's components reflect much less light than previously believed. That is compatible with the comet reflecting the same amount of light; the comet just could be a lot bigger, for instance.

(B) is right because the comet's components reflect much less light. The comet reflects a certain amount of light, but its components are a lot less reflective than previously calculated. This means that to reflect the same amount of light, much, much more of the reflective materials would be needed. If the comet holds more materials, it would be a lot heavier.

I am writing this out to further my understanding of why C is wrong. The explanation above is perfectly acceptable and was very helpful.

Following up on it, all we know from the text is that the material of Halley's comet reflected considerably less light per unit than was previously thought. Hypothetically, the scientists could have, and probably did, measured the amount of light reflecting correctly, but could have been surprised at the low amount of light that was being reflected. Learning more about the material simply gives scientists an explanation about why the light they very well could have previously measured correctly was much lower than they would have thought (based off their previous knowledge of comets, materials, etc.).

B, on the other hand, takes an extra step, and equates light to mass. Because the light being reflected is measured at much less than the supposed standard, it is completely supported that scientists could have misjudged the true size of the comet, despite accurate light measurements. It is not the light measurements that previous estimates got wrong. Instead, the new evidence about the material changed the conversion rate of light--> mass. B deals with this conversion of light to mass, and thus is supported by the text.