Flaw Question. I really struggled to see the confusion during both PT and BR, and I'm still working on a concise written explanation for this Q.

Stim: Biologists have learned of new species of amphibians. So, the discovery of the existence of these new species (or rather, the existence of more species than previously known) undermines environmentalist claims that pollution is eliminating many amphibian species every year.

I see the flaw as the author using the newly discovered species as evidence that pollution isn't eliminating species... that the number of species can't have gone down if we are discovering new species!

Of course, this is flawed, because the discovery of new species X does not cancel out the extinction of species Y, even if the addition of X accounts for the subtraction of Y in the total number of amphious species. In other words, just because the number of total amphibious species has stayed the same (maybe even risen, depending on how many more species the author claims were found), that does not erase the extinction of other species... They are different sets of species!

So, it is possible for pollution to have caused the elimination of some species, while new species (who have apparently survived the pollution -- you go little froggos) are discovered.

Answer Choices:

A) what? This seems purposefully convoluted... the author is not confusing kinds of frogs with frogs that are of "those" kinds, or however you'd like to understand this answer choice.

B) The argument does is not a nec./suf. flaw

C) no, the author has a very clear view of cause and effect, it is just that his claims for the cause and effect are incorrect.

D) correlation/causation confusion. No, not at all.

E) Yes! changes in knowledge IS confused with changes in the objects themselves. In the stim., it almost seems like the author justifies their conclusion by replacing the "allegedly" extinct species with the newly discovered species. The newly-found existence of one species does not replace the loss of another. The new knowledge doesn't change that the other species have gone extinct.

@-2 Yes, they'll take your score. BUT schools will have fewer spots in their 2017 class when your score shows up in January than they would in October (when you'd get the September score).

"on their enlarged bodies"

Bahahaha, love it

NOT B!

We don't know that their "beliefs about correlation" does anything, we don't even know what these beliefs are!

C is correct because it correctly states what the argument is showing or leading to, that the people claiming weather causes pain are imagining this cause and effect, because the "researches tried BUT FAILED to find any correlation..."

B is correct because...

There have to be as many P-T as Bladed because if there are more Bladed than PT there is the possibility that there will be more tools for non-engraving, and our conclusion is the opposite.

Ex: P-T 100 (all engraving), Bladed 200 (and only SOME bladed are also engraving) -->

Engraving= 105, 100 PT and 5 Bladed

Non-engraving= 195 Bladed .... This can't happen because need to be more Engraved-->

CORRECT, with equal number of PT and Bladed (100)

Engraved= 105, 100 PT and 5 Bladed

Non-Engraved=95, the 95 remaining Bladed.

SA= having any particular one is enough to make the argument, and not having that particular one means (relatively) nothing.

NA= having any particular one means (relatively) nothing, and not having any particular one of them is enough to destroy the argument.

Mirror opposites. Is this a good way of summarizing the two ideas?

@ Ehh Id take anything from TLS with a grain of salt..especially a poll like that

What is TLS?

Commenting after re-visiting this question and seeing no other explanations below for the stim and answer choices...

Stim:

P: Small bands of humans show up in N. America and encounter many animal species that would be extinct 2,000 years later.

P: The cause for the extinction of these species could not be hunting by humans.

Author states that instead of the cause of the extinctions being the act of hunting by the small bands of humans, the "crucial factor that accounts for the extinctions" is "probably" microorganisms carried and introduced to N. America by the small bands of humans and the animals they brought with them.

Why? Why is this more likely? Well, the author thinks this is more likely for the following reasons (these are just things that I believe the author is trying to get readers to assume)...

1)The author seems to imply that the such small bands of humans (so, too few humans to cause this) could not have caused such a large scale extinction...

2) Or at least what we are lead to believe is a large scale extinction... it could also be the case that the "many species of animals" could have been like 5 different species.

3) It could also be the case that the "small bands of humans" could have been 100's of people, we just don't know.

And these authors can be wily.

C: So, the cause of the extinction is not hunting, it is the microorganisms carried by the newly-arrived humans and their animals. These "disease-causing" microorganism, as they are called, apparently are capable of causing diseases (duh). So, diseases caused mass extinctions, not hunting.

On to the answer choices!

A) I picked this on the PT, on BR, and just now. Tf? Well, I know. My thoughts for picking this were: so the diseases this answer choice refers to were caused by microorganisms in the stim? Doesn't say. IF the diseases were caused by the microorganisms, does that mean the microorganisms are or aren't the "crucial factor," (chicken or egg?) Is the weakness brought on by disease which leads to heightened vulnerability to predators/hunting imply that the microorganisms, the hunting, or the weakness is the crucial factor? Dunno, so probably shouldn't have chosen this one.

B) But we're talking about animals, not humans.

C) I was skeptical about if this actually weakened the P->C in the stim. I kept it through my first pass of the answer choices. But, as has been pointed, this is one of the rare times that the answer choice directly contradicts the stim when the stim said it was hunting. In other words, if the common variable among the now-extinct species was that they were hunted, then yeah, it was likely the hunting. BUT of course, this isn't what the answer choice says. What is says is (something like) a double negative, that "very few" species "not hunted" were extinct 2,000 years after the migration. So, if there are 100 species, 50 hunted and 50 not,

and 2,000 years later 45 of those no hunted are still alive, we might believe hunting has something to do with survival, even if we don't know the stats on the hunted group (or do we? Someone else please jump in here and help me out).

D) This seems to be a popular incorrect choice. But, this answer choice talks about diseases IN GENERAL, but doesn't say the diseases caused by the microorganisms in the stim were the kind of diseases that can be carried without causing suffering. The diseases in the stim could be the kind of disease that causes the WORST and most devastating diseases. We just don't know.

E) So? Irrelevant.

@ I agree with hanging around after the tour. I was a tour guide (in undergrad, but after talking to people at other schools this seems common and I imagine is probably also true in post-grad) and we would always meet with an admissions counselor after each tour to go over how the tour went and our impression of the student. Things we always included in this assessment:

1) Did the student seem interested in the school and engaged during the tour? Or were they on their phone the entire time and getting them to speak was like pulling teeth?

2) What other schools were they applying to? We'd ask, and we'd never hold their answer against someone. If it was one of our competitor schools we would take note and probably try to squeeze in why our school was better than the competitor, relative to the students interests (better pre-med, labs, student/professor ratio).

3) If they had any particular interest like a subject or club we would tell the counselor and then the counselor would provide that student with more info on that department by way of a pamphlet or article. That's why you should come in prepared with interests, if possible. Informing the school of your interests gives the counselors something to go off of - a subject to talk about/focus on - and makes conversation inside and outside of an interview more natural and less forced.

again, this was for undergrad, but I imagine tours in law schools fill the same function. The school is feeling you out as an applicant as much as you are assessing them as a potential choice.