This was not a fun flaw question.

At its absolute most basic, the stimulus says:

Conclusion: Not X.

Premise: If we BELIEVED X -> Y.

The assumption here is subtle: Since not Y, not X.

But why on Earth would we make that jump based on the single premise we are given? Also, notice we are drawing a conclusion based on what would be true if we BELIEVED otherwise, not if the case it WERE otherwise.

Answers:

A. A true belief (X) can have bad consequences (maybe, not Y). In other words, the author is failing to consider the possibility that X -> not Y. If this is true, the argument doesn´t work.

B. The author establishes one claim to not be true, but where is the other???

C. Irrelevant, there are no motives mentioned.

D. No implication that the most negative outcome must occur.

E. There is no group of individuals being compared to another.

Question Stem: Sufficient Assumption

Stimulus: Shoe factory employs more unskilled full time workers (W) than all other businesses in town combined.

If shoe factory closes, more than half of town RESIDENTS who are W will lose jobs.

See the shift between the W that are employed at the factory in the premise, and RESIDENTS in the conclusion? Look for an idea connecting these 2 ideas: workers at the factory and residency.

A. residency, no workers

B. workers, no residency

C. workers, no residency

D. everyone employed at the factory is a resident.

E. neither

D works because without it, we have no idea where the workers come from - what if they all live OUTSIDE Centerville? Then there is no way the conclusion is true. So D closes this one gap.

Admin Note: Edited title. Please use the format: "PT#.S#.Q# - brief description of the question."

Weakening Question

I identified 3 premises here:

Conclusion: Polls during the week leading up to an election should be banned.

Goal: Find answers that show why one of the premises isn´t true, or why we shouldn´t believe the conclusion to be true.

Answers:

A. Few people are influenced by polls in the 2 weeks leading up to elections. THIS INCLUDES 1 WEEK LEADING UP TO THE POLL!!! I completely skipped over that obvious implication originally, but see now why it makes sense.

B. Uneven - too specific. What about close elections?

C. Remove motivation actually strengthens.

D. Gains in popularity - who cares? Irrelevant.

E. Informed citizens is a stretch to unaffected citizens. Also the comparison is weak - this is ONE country, and we don´t know anything about it.

My takeaway: Don´t read over answer choices too quickly. Maybe try to visualize even abstract answers and concepts like time - in this case, picture a timelines with a dot representing election. Scribbled out right before it is the 1 week without elections. Answer A says 2 weeks right before, there is no influence. I KNEW I could be looking for an answer showing polls don´t affect citizens, so think about how a bigger line right before your election dot would overlap with the part scribbled out, and see how A is actually giving you about a strong point about the 1 week before.

Stimulus says: Manners are necessarily social (i.e. manners require a social element). Morals are not necessarily social (i.e. morals do not require a social element). Rules of etiquette do not apply to situations with morals or manners alone.

Things I noted upon reading:

Most strongly supported?

A: You can be immoral without causing harm. (i.e. you can not be moral in a case that is not social). Yep, this fits with #3 above.

B: An immoral act is never a violation of etiquette. This could be false if the situation also involved manners, so we can´t say it is supported.

C: Morality applies only when one is alone. I think you´d only choose this if you were hella confused.

D.: It is more important... I stopped reading right there and knew this was wrong. There is no comparison being made in the stimulus.

E: A social situation will never have anything to do with morality. Clearly wrong based on #2 and #3 described above.

Admin Note: Edited title. Please use the format: "PT#.S#.Q# - brief description of the question."