I think the explanation for why A is wrong could be improved here. A IS a pretty good alternative explanation for why lake fish don't have armor IF you assume that there are faster predators in lakes (thus, they would have evolved to not have armor so they can be faster and out-swim the predators). The reason it's wrong is because of the assumption you have to make. And for weakening questions, it's better to go with an AC that doesn't have any explicitly necessary assumptions, even if it's not the strongest weakener that you'd like.

I think this is THE worst LR question I have ever seen. A lot of comments point out that you could either interpret the stimulus as saying that hunters, either collectively or individually, kill no fewer deer today. Well, I interpreted it as saying collectively, and even then I still believe C is a better answer choice based on my knowledge of hunting. If there are fewer deer hunters today, then that could reasonably help to explain why the population has been able to increase even if they're killing the same # of deer total, because that could mean that the hunters are far less spread out in North America (yet killing MORE deer per person, because there are more deer to come by for each individual hunter) and therefore driving deer out of fewer areas, allowing them to prosper and reproduce in areas that might have been tough for deer to grow their population in previously, due to the presence of hunters. Yes, that is a huge assumption. But it's just ONE assumption, while AC A requires 3 WAY LARGER assumptions. This might be the only question I have ever come across that I truly believe is incorrect.

If you negate A and say okay well exhibiting complex behavior doesn’t automatically mean you have intelligence, then that destroys the argument, because they're advancing the conclusion by saying it's a parallel to the premise, so the argument is DEPENDING on the link between those two concepts.

I got tripped up by that sentence saying "it's more complex than that", but then realized the entire paragraph is basically intended to explain why they are definitely wrong, even ending in the fact that the novel is actually 'antidomestic'

I also had this question but realized it's because it's reasonable to assume that they were still making glass in the 19th century - there was probably no century-long gap in glass-making. Until 19th century was globe method (and ONLY the globe method), and later there was the rod method, and now there is the tin method. So IMO it's definitely not concrete but it is the most reasonable assumption to make (out of the ACs).

it's not! he swapped the stem in the video to "Which one of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the reasoning in the argument?" for the sake of showing that flaw questions can be very similar to weaken questions in how you answer them. The question's actual stem is a flaw question.

Watch the last minute of the video - it would be closer, but still not correct because 'will do themselves more harm' is not necessary / too strong compared to the argument, which is that they'd be 'more likely to do themselves harm'.

I chose C too because I misunderstood what the conclusion was, but now that I'm looking at it again, it's wrong regardless because it doesn't introduce anything new - it basically restates the main premise.

First, by saying "the other, extrinsic properties" in contrast to the intrinsic properties allows you to reasonably assume that extrinsic properties are the same as not intrinsic.

Therefore, the premise that "it's other, extrinsic properties are irrelevant to our aesthetic interactions with it" (extrinsic --> irrelevant to aesthetic) is the contrapositive to AC C, which is why it's incorrect: "only intrinsic properties are relevant to our aesthetic interactions with it" (relevant to aesthetic --> intrinsic).

Maybe? So here, the stimulus tells us that some things are required in order to have other things. Some of these statements are premises (so we take them to be true / fact) and one is a conclusion (so we KNOW it is not supported as it stands, and we need to find the proof for it - in other words, we need to find a bridge from whatever the premises state to prove that the conclusion flows logically). Practicing the indicator words has helped me to more quickly identify what the 'required' piece is (necessary condition) for some other thing (sufficient condition). In this case, "There can be no X without Y" is just a wordier way of stating that X requires Y. That doesn't always come quickly or naturally to me right now, I still have to draw it out sometimes, but it will eventually, so that's fine. Anywho, back to the question, here are the premises: individual freedom requires social integrity, and pursuing the good life also requires social integrity. we KNOW these to be fact, since they're premises, so we could also say that individual freedom AND pursuing the good life require social integrity. we also now know that if it's required for either, then if there's no social integrity, there will not be individual freedoms or the ability to pursue the good life. Okay so next, the conclusion is that individual freedom also requires rule of law. Now we just have to use the premises to prove this is true. One way would be to say that since we know individual freedom requires social integrity, if social integrity then requires rule of law (which is what AC B states), then we could logically conclude that individual freedom also required rule of law (the conclusion).

Failing a sufficient condition DOES NOT mean they CANT meet the necessary condition.

Failing the necessary condition DOES mean that they CANT meet the sufficient condition.

Meeting a necessary condition DOES NOT mean that they meet the sufficient condition.

Meeting a sufficient condition DOES mean that they meet the necessary condition.

helps me to just think about the necessary being the big bubble and sufficient being the small bubble whenever possible

"Universals exist only where they are instantiated" means that universals being instantiated is necessary in order to know that universals exist, and that universals existing is sufficient to know that the universals were instantiated. Therefore, we know that if universals exist somewhere, they were instantiated there. As you said, if it does (exist), then it is (instantiated). If they were not instantiated, universals do not exist there. On the other hand, we cannot determine that if universals were instantiated, they exist. IDRK what these words really mean in this example so I hope this makes sense :)

Sufficient v Necessary explanation for example 1: Hunting being permitted is sufficient to know that the size of the deer population has not increased in the last eight years (that's all we need to know to draw that conclusion!). Also, the size of the deer population not increasing in the last eight years is necessary if hunting is permitted; necessary, but not sufficient - if we know that the size of the deer population has not increased in the last eight years, that's not sufficient (that is not enough) to say that hunting is permitted. The difference in these two words confused me initially because sufficiency in concept seems smaller than, or easier to meet, than necessity. It's actually the other way around, if that makes sense.

I think the purpose of him doing that was more so to double check that it's correct - you can flip it into the contrapositive to make sure it makes sense both ways / you wrote it correctly, which can be trickier with the reverse logic and a negative in the sentence

The word 'most' in the stimulus always gives me pause - but it's probably not worth thinking about it as which answer choice helps to reconcile this phenomenon the MOST, rather, which answer helps to reconcile it at all, given that 1 AC is absolutely correct and 4 are absolutely incorrect. Does that sound like a right way of thinking of this stimulus that is consistent with other past questions? Or are there some answers that actually do have multiple correct answer choices (or AC that do what the stimulus asks), but 1 really is more correct than the others?

Hi! I have heard great things about this book and am just wondering what order I should do things in; did you read the book before starting 7sage? and if so, do you think that was helpful? Or would you recommend I read it after completing 7sage to help round out my understanding? Thanks!