I found that the hardest part about this question was keeping track of who was making what argument. I had to re-read it a few times to be sure.

Once you realize that author argument's is that the carbon deposit argument is wrong because of the presence of biomarkers, it makes things a lot easier. The author is not arguing that the carbon deposit argument is wrong in general, or that animal deposit argument is right in general, but that the presence of biomarkers is sufficient to refute the carbon deposit model. The author claims that the biomarkers are like a smoking gun. To weaken that argument, we only need to make that finding less than sufficient.

D does that by providing an alternative option to the findings. If there are concentrations of bacteria in the core, then perhaps it is the bacteria that was discovered by the biomarker test. The presence of bacteria does not prove or disprove anything, but what it does do is make the biomarker evidence less convincing. It opens the door to doubt if the biomarkers are bacteria or ancient plants/animals. If that biomarker evidence is now less potent, it fails to be sufficient to refute the carbon deposit argument. The author might still be right in general, but not for the reasons he specifies. This is one of those weaken questions where they only want you to weaken and not destroy.

One thing that I have noticed with more difficult strengthen (and weaken as well) questions is that they are argument focused. They are less concerned with trying to strengthen the idea of the conclusion, but the strengthen the argument as a whole. If the argument is A -> B, they don't want you to reaffirm that B is the correct conclusion, but instead that it is A that leads to B.

The argument in this question looks like:

P1. Temperature likely to go up in the Rockies

P2. Rise in temperature will make rain more likely than snow

C. This will melt snow, cause spring flooding, and lower water reserves in summer.

A. confirms premise P1., but confirming a premise does not make the argument better, it only makes the premise better. Premise boosters are a common strengthen question trap.

C. confirms the conclusion, but ignores the argument. It says that there is indeed less summer water when the temperature is higher, but why? Maybe when temperature goes up, more plants grow and consume more water. This could be why there is less summer water. Although the conclusion of less water matches, the reason behind it does not. Since we have to strengthen the argument and not the conclusion, this answer fails to support the author.

D. makes a claim that is far too general.

E. makes a claim but ignores the argument.

B is the correct answer because it focuses on the argument. Not only does it is reassure us that there will be less summer water, but confirms that the reason for less water is the same reason stated by the author.

In short, these harder strengthen question really want us to tune into the exact argument. They don't want us to confirm the conclusion alone, but confirm the steps to get to that conclusion.

This is PT01.S3.13, right?

I don't know if 7sage allows me to link outside info, but you can search the PowerScore forums for that question to get a full explanation.

AC D. makes a statement that cannot really be confirmed by the argument. D says that the scientists did not consider other causes of lethargy, but does the argument ever make that accusation?

The arguments says that lack of exercise could explain the the increase of lethargy, but never says that the researches ignored the role of exercise (or anything else). Perhaps the scientists did consider other factors, but they found them to be less important than fast food.

What the argument does conclude is that the scientific study's conclusion is perhaps not a good one, which is what AC E. says.

I eliminated answer B, but for a different reason, and I am not sure now if I was right. It sounds like B was claiming that the author fails to mention something, but I thought that the author does mention it. To me “organic factors that affect symptoms of mental illness are not distributed evenly across the globe” (part of the argument) is the same idea as “nutritional factors…vary from culture to culture” (answer B). Variations of world food is an example of uneven organic distribution, no?

#help

Lumpers (biological species concept) = animals of the same species interbreed.

Splitters = animals of the same species have similar characteristics.

B. says that X and Y interbreed in the wild (but not in captivity), and therefore are not the same species. This does not quite match up with the the lumper claim (almost says the opposite).

D. says that X and Y interbreed, so are the same species despite having different characteristics. This matches the lumper definition as well as rejecting the splitter definition. The fact about captive animals is irrelevant; it does not need to be involved.

Yes, this seems lime a MSS question because it is not an airtight inference. The question does says what most accurately describes the idea, so that it makes sense to treat it as MSS.

The argument basically says this:

P1. Psych problems have internal and external causes

P2. External causes are based on relationships

C. To help psych problem, you must deal with relationships

Now, the conclusion would make sense if there were only external causes. But, there are external causes as well. So, when the argument says that you must deal with relationships (which are linked to external causes), it assumes that internal can't do it on its own.

D. expresses this idea. Since the argument says you must deal with the external, it makes the necessary assumption that dealing with internal is not good enough.

C. I am not entirely sure, but I think this is not correct because it makes too bold of a claim. The statement says that change will improve the person's health. However, I don't think the argument makes such guarantees. The psychotherapist says that this is the preferred treatment, but not that it has a 100% success rate. This is why C seems more like a sufficient assumption instead of necessary. It isn't necessary because that treatment need not succeed for the psychotherapist to still say that it is something that must be done.

It's not terrible, you don't really need to understand what these term means. All you really need to know about isotopes is that a ratio between them is important. When you see the isotope names, think of them as a ratio.

In short, the argument says:

P1. Biological activity -> Change in the ratio of isotopes

P2. Martian asteroid does not have ratio of isotopes that indicate life

C. No life on Mars.

In other words, it is saying:

P1. A -> B (on Earth)

P2. B (on Martian meteorite)

C. A (on the planet Mars)

This is weaken/except, so there are four weakening AC and one that doesn't.

A. is saying that maybe life that is not from Earth creates a different ratio. That means premise 1 could be more like A -> C on Mars, so it weakens the argument.

B. is saying that climate on Earth plays a large part in the ratio, and so a different climate might have a different ratio. Same as AC A, it alters premise 1 and weakens the argument.

D. is saying that just because there is general rule that life creates that certain ratio, it does not mean that all parts of the planet will have that ratio. If there is life, the ratio will be there. However, a rock 1000 ft. below the surface might not. That is because there is no life in that rock, but there is still life elsewhere on Earth. So, maybe the Martian sample is similar to that rock 1000 ft. below the ground. That particular rock has no life, but it does not mean that Mars as a whole has no life.

E. is saying that the isotope ratio on Mars is not always the same. So, perhaps the ratio was the same as the one found on Earth in the past. This challenges premise 2 by saying that maybe there was B on Mars.

C. is the correct answer. It says that that isotope ratio on the meteorite is the same as it is on Mars. One possible objection to the argument was that maybe the meteorite is not a good representation of Mars (similar to how AC D says suggests that the ratio found on Earth may not be perfectly representative), but this AC says that it is. So, this does not weaken, but can actually strengthen the argument.

I would say that this is a direct comparison, and the flaw is that it is an improper comparison. In short, the argument says that since we mostly agree that a doctor can still be a good doctor even though he is unhealthy, we can also accept that logician is illogical.

This is an improper comparison because a logician's logical skill is much more necessary for them than a doctor's personal health.

This is why answer choice A is correct. It points out how much more necessary logic is to a logician than personal health is to a doctor.

Maybe another example would help clarify. Many financial planners are not billionaires. However, we don't worry about that, so we should also not worry about plumbers who are unable to fix pipes. Again, this an unfair comparison. You can still be a good financial planner without being a billionaire. You can still organize others people's money very well, but not be filthy rich yourself. However, if a plumber can't work on pipes, then that is like 80% of the job that they can't do, and thus are a garbage plumber.

In short, not all job (-) personal qualities relationships are equal, so you can't compare them all equally.

@ said:

Well, it didn't say we couldn't understand Greek and Latin at all, only that our understanding was imperfect. So our inability to go back to Plato's academy DOESN'T guarantee that our understanding is imperfect?

Not from the info alone. It's a very strong premise, but it's not a premise that can guarantee anything on its own. Very rarely does a single premise guarantee anything without other premises. You would need another premise saying something, "unless you converse with the ancients, you will never have perfect understanding." I think the question is tricking us into making this assumption. However, since the question does not say this, we have to pretend that does not exist.

The question is saying:

A

Therefore B

The problem is that A is very intuitively linked to B. But, the argument never cements the relationship between by explicitly saying that A -> B. If the argument does not express it, you can't assume it.

The main argument of this question is:

Scientists use "light absorbing medium" to explain dim stars.

Einstein's relativity already explains why stars are dim.

Therefore Scientists are wrong.

This a is necessary assumption question, so we had to find something that the argument depends on.

C. sounds more like a sufficient assumption instead of necessary one. It is basically saying that:

If theory explains phenomenon and theory not a part of an existing theory -> Theory is correct.

New theory is a part of existing theory

Therefore, new theory is incorrect

This would indeed ruin the argument, but is it necessary? No, it isn't necessary because that is not the only "rule" you can come up with to lead to the conclusion.

E. does give us a necessary assumption. What if Einstein's relativity did indeed talk about light absorbing mediums? Wouldn't that ruin the argument? The author is saying that the new hypothesis is wrong because relativity already explains the answer. For the theory about light absorbing mediums to be wrong, that means that relativity (which the author says is right) must not include anything about light absorbing mediums. That is the necessary assumption that the author is making.

The conclusion is the first sentence, saying that our understanding of Greek and Latin is imperfect.

A. No, the comment about travelling back in time is not the conclusion

B. The time travel comment contrasts with the previous comment about modern students being fully immersed. So it does contrast the opposing point to help support the conclusion.

C. I chose this answer and got it wrong. I suppose the language is too strong when it says it has no logical connection, because I suppose that it has some connection.

D. The language is too strong. Just because we can't travel back in time does not mean that we can't understand Greek and Latin. That idea may be true, that time travel comment does not guarantee it.

E. There no ancillary conclusions, only the main conclusion.

This question seems rough at first, but the correct answer can be found somewhat easily by eliminating the wrong answers.

A. is wrong because it does not matter if the origin is ancient, if it is still used by the medieval thinkers, it is medieval epistemology (as per the argument).

B. is wrong for a similar reason as A. The origin of the belief may not be non-epistemological, but as long as it became epistemological, that's what it is.

C. is irrelevant because the author states that they are only focusing on the epistemological writings of those medieval authors, not the non-epistemological ones.

D. Although this was the most popular answer, the stimulus clearly accounts for this. The stimulus says, "if any medieval epistemologist believed that the opposite, then that opposite claim is part of medieval epistemology." So, the author is saying that belief and counter-belief are both epistemology. This answer choice tries weaken the argument by showing that sometimes there was conflict, but this does not weaken because the author uses this as a part of the argument.

J.Y. does mention this, but he does so mostly from a common sense way of thinking. He is right, but even if this notion was not something that came to your mind, the author still directly mentions it. You don't even need to think of about principles of historical information gathering, you just need to listen to what the author is arguing.

E. is right because because it is not clearly wrong. All the other answer choices do nothing at all to weaken. If you were in a rush during the test, and had to pick an answer soon or move on, E would still be the best answer choice because while the others are clearly wrong, E is uncertain. An uncertain answer is less likely to be wrong that a wrong answer.

If you have some time to think about it, you can see that it does weaken the argument because the author speaks in a very conditional way. The argument essentially says, "if the medieval authors wrote about epistemology, then it is medieval epistemology." So, a good way to ruin that argument is to take away the sufficient condition. This is what E does. The argument only makes sense if the people were indeed talking about epistemology. If they were not, then the author has no argument.