Another possible approach:

We're first presented with a statement which can be understood as follows: Authors writing books to give pleasure, and those books imparting truth, are INCOMPATIBLE.

The next statement, the conclusion of the stimulus, is that the above statement "cannot be true." In other words, these two things ARE compatible (authors writing books to give pleasure, and those books imparting truth). (Said another way, SOME of the time at least, authors write books to give pleasure, and those books also impart truth.)

You have to process the premises a bit, but they're really saying that it must be the case that some of the time people get pleasure from books that also impart truth (because the idea that no popular books impart truth is absurd). So getting pleasure from reading books and those books imparting truth ARE compatible. But wait, we're missing something: People getting pleasure from books, and the author writing books in order to give pleasure, are in an annoyingly hair-splitting way not necessarily linked. So...what if they are? If the only way for readers to get pleasure from books is if the author intended them to get pleasure, then we've linked these two concepts. Now, people getting pleasure from books (e.g. best-sellers) means those authors must have written those books in order to give pleasure, and some of those books impart truth. So books being written to give pleasure and those books imparting truth must, in fact be compatible.

I think even if you assume for answer choice B that a show produced "last year" was also a "new" show, the answer choice still doesn't help much.

Let's say that 51 shows out of 100 that W&W produced last year were police dramas. That's "most." We also know that "most" of the shows produced by W&W last year were canceled (from the stimulus). Let's say that's 51 shows. So let's say that out of 51 shows canceled, 2 were police dramas. The other 49 police dramas all did amazing. Police dramas might generally be unpopular but W&W is just killing it with the police dramas (no pun intended). So if all the above possibilities are the case, how does that help us conclude that most of the new programs W&W is producing, all of which are police dramas, would likely be canceled?

Regarding Answer Choice B: It seems like the publishing of sensationalistic gossip prevents media from achieving their purpose (to inform people about matters relevant to the choices they make) at least in those specific instances where people are reading the sensationalistic gossip (assuming it actually gets read and that those people can only consume one article/story at a time, both of which seem like reasonable assumptions). I suppose, however, that the media could be achieving their purpose at the same time with other readers/watchers. Hm.

Answer choice A seemed to me to be attributing intentions where perhaps there was no basis to do so (reasons why media report non-choice-relevant content), but the strong characterization of this content as "sensationalistic gossip" I suppose is enough to make a reasonable attribution of non-journalistic intentions to those who report it.

One other reason D might be wrong is because superciliousness is not the absence of confidence. More importantly, in the premises of D, there is statement of causality ("will gain votes as a result"), which contrasts with the premises in the stimulus, which only describe a correlation. The causality language in the stimulus is only found in the conclusion.

@ @

OK guys, I followed your advice! I foolproofed all the LG for PTs up to 39 (at least the ones I could get---there are a handful of early PTs I had trouble getting which only just arrived).

I'm still scoring high 160s to low 170s, and I'm often missing more on LG than on the rest of the three sections put together. I know I am getting better overall at LG--now it typically takes me 1-3 do-overs to feel like I 'own' a game. The last two PTs I was fine with the more familiar games, but when I'm thrown a new type of game, or a really hard one, I fall apart (PT 74 I went -8 on LG).

I'd love some guidance with a study plan. I have 14 days. I still feel I have room for improvement in the other sections.

I have clean PTs 75-79 and C2 left to take of the most recent ones, also PTs 60 - 65, and then most of 40-55. I'm thinking I should just take 3 days to do whatever LG I can from 40-55 and the early tests I just got, and then the LG from 60-65 throughout the next 10 days along with the last 5 PTs.

Please let me know what you think! Thanks!!

I found this question challenging only because I was trying to be so meticulous in mapping the logic. Did anyone else have this problem?

There is cause and effect language ("does not cause them to develop harmful symptoms"), which I thought must find its way onto the map, and there is the word "many" which I instantly think should be translated to a "some" statement. All of this...totally unnecessary.

Another way to look at why Answer Choice C is incorrect might be to consider the time frame.

The cause-effect phenomenon at issue happens around the debate only. After the debate people think Lopez had better arguments (phenomenon), the supposed cause for this is pro-Lopez bias before the debate.

The vote happened after the debate. For all we know Tanner may have, in the intervening period between the debate and the election, been involved in a scandal, thus causing Lopez to win the election. Or Lopez might have promised in a miraculously convincing way to bring coal jobs back to rural areas. Lopez winning the election could have resulting from many causes, so tells us nothing about whether or not viewers were biased before the debate, so his winning has no bearing on the supposed cause of the phenomenon.

As J.Y. points out, we also don't know that the people who vote are the same people who watch the debate.

I think of answer choice A as describing something akin to a side effect. A parallel argument might go:

The most important function of parents is to keep their children alive.

Parents do this by providing meals that kids are willing to eat.

Eating this food makes kids happy and gives them a sense that they are loved.

Answer choice A says "An important function of parents is to make kids happy and give them a sense they are loved."

Answer choice B says "Parents accomplish their most important function by providing meals that kids are willing to eat."

I agree with Accounts Playable below: I think the way that answer choice A is relevant is that the possibility of current environmental damage from dumping sewage actually seem to help the argument. If the now-dumped sewage, currently disposed of in a way that harms the environment (dumping), will instead get turned into oil that can be used to generate power, then we're preventing harm to the environment that dumping sewage may otherwise have caused. This helps to support the second hope---that we can "better protect the environment from harm than we do at present." (I guess no one considered air pollution, but maybe this is some special, special oil.)

@ , this is just what I needed to hear (and see--thanks MJ). I'm starting today.

@ Thank you! This is helpful!

Thanks @ and @ ! I appreciate your input! Yes, I will take this on. If I spend two weeks in an LG intensive, that leaves me only 4 weeks to PT which does make me nervous, but targeted study is probably the best option. I may just take 1 PT/week so I don't slide back on my RC/LR progress.

@ @ : Just wondering if either of you had any other input here! Thanks!

@ Thanks so much for the advice and encouragement. I will do this. Most of those 1-35 games I think were covered in the core curriculum, but I will revisit all of them. I'm a little nervous about just leaving tests 'on the table'--I'm only going to have gone through about 20 PTs before the actual test if I follow this plan, but I will give it a shot. Thanks again!

Hey @! I mean that every game I've done so far (core curriculum and PTs), I've printed out copies and done the game as many times as I needed to feel like I 'owned' the game and completed it under the recommended time.

I was wondering if it would always be correct to stop reading an answer choice like (A) at the point J.Y. does: "A university denies a grant application [STOP]." The answer choice could read, "A university denies a grant application...for a field of theoretical research which would almost definitely yield insight into a practical problem that affects millions of people, and the university has therefore failed to fulfill its obligation." That judgement would be justified by the principle in the stimulus.

The question stem, however, wants an answer choice for which the stimulus justifies the action described. In this case, it seems like the only correct answer choices could be ones in which the obligation was fulfilled (research funded/promoted).

I'm not sure, if we are looking for an action that would be justified by the principle, if the contrapositive could even be used in a correct choice; can anyone enlighten me?

It's interesting how understated answer choice C is.

"You have zero evidence to support your hypothesis. Nada. Zilch. ZERO."

"I see you are questioning the sufficiency of my evidence."

This question threw me because there's no "evidence" that Fraenger even puts forward!

I'm a little puzzled about Q5 here. I chose correctly but on BR was torn between A and C.

The correct answer choice (A) says "The need for warehousing will shift from that of individual books to that of paper and binding material." But the passage says that the digital publication of a book online "involves no physical inventory, thereby eliminating the costs of warehousing..."

If costs for warehousing are eliminated, that seems to contradict the idea that anything could wind up "shifting." The passage doesn't say the costs of warehousing books will be eliminated; it says the cost of warehousing, period, will be eliminated.

It seems plausible to me that there wouldn't need to be warehousing in the new model; the locations with the printing machines could just order paper and binding material, as needed, Amazon.com style, like small businesses do with printer paper. Yeah, sure, the stuff would have to be warehoused by the manufacturer/supplier, but that storage was already happening isn't a direct cost for the publisher.

Maybe the issue is cost of warehousing vs. need, but still, regardless of the model, there's a need for paper/binding material, and a need for it to be stored.

Question 12, asking for a principle that underlies the arguments in both passages.

Answer Choice (E) says "Fingerprint examiners must follow objective standards if fingerprint identification is to be reliable."

I get that Passage B definitely has this as an underlying principle. Because there are no objective standards (among other reasons), we don't know if fingerprint identification is reliable.

On BR I realized that Passage A's argument is more something like "BECAUSE there are objective(-ish) standards, THEREFORE fingerprint identification is reliable." If this is an accurate evaluation of the argument in Passage A, isn't this a mistaken reversal of the conditional statement in the correct answer choice (B→A)?

So..is this one of those rare cases where the answer choice directly attacks a premise?

In this case a premise is that it is "implausible" that hunting could lead to extinction. But the answer choice contradicts this idea, yes? It's supporting the idea that there actually is a causal relationship here between hunting and extinction.

I'm a little stuck on this question, as I don't fully understand why (C) is wrong. If there are 100 manufacturing locations, and let's say they each send an equal number of products to the company, and "various" locations are the ones to receive the inspectors, isn't it totally plausible that, say,10 inspectors were sent to 10 locations out of the 100, and 8 of the10 happened to be the crappiest facilities with a disproportionate number of defective products? If that's the case, then overall, the supplier might still be below the 5% total limit.

Thoughts?

Maybe a half-assed quasi-conditional reasoning process to ponder:

Conclusion: Determine ETs →ETs intelligent.

I look up at the premises and see that ETs communicate → ETs Intelligent. So if I can make the following link happen...

"Determine ETs exist→ ETs Communicate" (that to determine if ETs exist, they must be able to communicate)

then I've solved the problem, because ET's Communicating is dependent on ETs being intelligent.

...then I would just ask, how can I link "Determine ETs Exist" to be dependent on "ETs Communicate"? Well, in English, that's "In order for me to determine if ETs exist, they need to be able to communicate." Well, why? The only answer would be something along the lines of "There's no other way to find out if they exist." Well, if sending a spacecraft would be the only other way to determine if they exist, and we know from the premises that we can't send a spacecraft, then that's the answer I'm looking for.

I did just go with my gut in the moment, however...

It seems like J.Y. gets a little mixed up here in the middle of his explanation. The percentage he's talking about should be the chance of someone having perfect pitch having even a single relative who has perfect pitch, not the percentage of relatives of that person who have perfect pitch. If I have perfect pitch, there's a high chance I have a relative who has perfect pitch. If I don't have perfect pitch, the chances of having a relative who has perfect pitch is much lower. But...similar enough idea, so doesn't make a difference in terms of getting the right answer here.

I like how in the video explanations for more recent tests, J.Y. just lets it all hang out.

Hey @ , thanks for the guidance. I took your advice, took it a bit slower this week. Thanks!