I chose B. Tough question.

I just knew this was a very difficult Q when I read it, and I got it right! Had it not been for all the great explanations and examples preceding this practice set, I would not have been able to do it. Thank you!

Wow. What a relief to know there is someone else with a similar challenge. Thank you for sharing. I also tend to speed up and miss more carelessly and for the same reason of checking the time and getting anxious. I was thinking that more practice tests would help but you have been preparing for months.

I did have the thought recently that I should skip a Q or two of the types I find hardest and then come back to answer them... or, register my guess if there is no time left.

I know JY advises to skip Q's, and I have not been doing it so that may be the missing tactic needed to improve. I think skipping 1 or 2 Q's with the worst case result of getting them wrong is worth the sacrifice if all the rest can be answered correctly.

Would love to hear from others as well.

Great question. Thanks again for sharing!

I struggled between answer choice C and D. The initial problem I had with C was that the furnace operating efficiently and not needing maintenance seemed to be two different ideas. I struggled with D because the conclusion of the efforts was not discussed. I understood that we should see success. Unfortunately, I got sucked in by D and assumed success. DARN! DARN! DARN! I tell myself repeatedly not to assume! :(

My thinking was that: If flowers are successful in attracting bees, then the bees relying exclusively on flowers for food would mean that the flowers have been successful thus justifying answer choice E. I see the logic of running the contrapositive that answer choice A implies that there would not exist other insects that did not depend on perceiving color. If other insects could evolve not to need to see color, then it strengthens the argument that bees do not need to see color and therefore flowers are the one who evolved. Very tricky. Thanks for the detailed explanation.

I mapped: 1) Hot - some - Unsafe and 2) Hot - some- East. The conclusion was stated to be: 3) Unsafe - some - East. I got it right initially and then thought too hard on the Blind Review and confused myself. The explanation confirmed my initial thinking. Thank you. Just because Unsafe intersects with Hot and East also intersects with Hot does not mean that Unsafe and East intersect.

Not a backstabbing a-hole monkey.... so he provides the correct call! :) I could not be more amused. I fell for the "C" trap but now "see" that D makes more sense. It is the action that the call stimulates the monkeys to take that saves their little lives, and the action they take matches up to where the attack is coming from regardless of whether there are predators who can attack from both air and land. Thanks for making this one memorable! Easier not to repeat the mistake that way!

What an assumption we have to make in choosing the right answer! What if the incomplete reports show one airline to be erroneously better than another? Is the public then more informed about airline safety?

I picked b initially and agree with former observations. This is very tricky but I finally decided that I did not pay enough attention to the conclusion. The conclusion (and the argument) was about family prosperity and not about which businesses make the most money.

That is how I rationalized this and would welcome others' observations about this. Thanks.

The conclusion is: There should be no legal prohibition (law) against gambling which conclusion is illustrated by lawgic as:

/LAG or /Law

Premises are 1) gambling laws are impossible to enforce... /Enforce... and 2) if a law is not effective, it should not be a law... /Eff→/Law

We need to get from /Enforce and /Eff→/Law to the conclusion of /Law which means that we need:

/Enforce→/Eff→/Law.

The part missing is /Enforce→/Eff or, in English: If the law cannot be enforced, then it is not effective. The contrapositive is effective laws are enforceable... or Eff→Enforce.

Translating answer choice A provides Eff → Enforce because it is a group 4 translation where we take the two ideas of Eff and /Enforce and negate the necessary.

I do pretty well on RC and have in mind while reading: what is this saying, and who is saying it?... how would I explain it very quickly? Are there comparisons? Is it an argument? Is it a tribute? What is the author's opinion?

Spending time upfront to thoroughly understand the passage (up to six minutes) is what I strive for. The Q's are then easier, and I can do them very quickly... often in 30 seconds or less each.

What I see most commented on is maintaining interest and the ability to focus on passages. I have thought of it as a contest or a game in order to keep my focus on the questions I try to answer while reading especially where the topic is very unfamiliar (science) and the terminology very difficult (science).

I am sure there are other effective approaches but this has worked for me.

I think I overthought this during blind review and got myself confused but I remember thinking during testing that it was a pretty straightforward A -->B --> C, therefore, NOT A. Answer choice D fits that pattern.

Yes. To make the argument valid, we ignore the bear! Makes sense. Thanks for the explanation.

Conclusion of Graham is: best life is a life full of activity. Graham's premise is: happy only when doing something.

Answer choice D is wrong because we are denying the premise with the phrase "sometimes when sleeping, people are happy, even though they are not doing anything". We are not disproving the conclusion with this statement.

Answer choice B essentially says we are showing Graham's premise to be false, and it is the correct answer choice.

SA questions are very hard for me. For practice, this is how I explain it:

First, one has to recognize the conclusion is: Countries putting collective goals before individual goals (CGBIG) implies (→) that they do not emerge rapidly from recession (/ERR).

Conclusion: CGBIG → /ERR.

So, from there, the premises are from the beginning:

(1) Emerging rapidly from recession (ERR) requires (→) substantial new investment (NI).

ERR → NI

(2) Peoples confidence in the economic policies of their country (CEP) is a precondition of (is required or a necessary condition for) new investment (NI).

NI → CEP

We need to conclude with /ERR so the contrapositive of our premises is:

/CEP → /NI → /ERR

What is missing is the link from CGBIG to get to /ERR. We need to link CGBIG to /CEP or to /NI, and CGBIG needs to be a sufficent condition to /CEP or /NI.

We are looking for: CGBIG → /CEP or CGBIG → /NI.

Answer choice D says CGBIG → /CEP and matches what we need.

Answer choice C says (/CGBIG → NI) → ERR. Just taking the NI → ERR part of this, we can see the clearly the sufficiency/necessity mistake with this answer choice... oldest mistake in the book.

I am ashamed. Someday I will learn not to do it!

Why does the right answer choice talk about new theories or techniques? What value does that adjective serve except to confuse?

Sufficient Assumption Question PT 51 S1 19:

Conclusion is: Creating replicas of oneself is not selfish.

Why? Because selfishness only concerns bringing about the best conditions for oneself.

Lawgic: S → BABCO (bringing about best conditions for oneself); therefore:

CR (creating replicas) → /S (not selfish)

Contrapositive of premise: /BABCO → /S

Missing link is: CR → /BABCO or (creating replicas) is not (bringing about best conditions for oneself).

Thank you!

I thought this one easy for some weird reason I cannot explain. Still, my instincts told me it was hard, and I wanted to see the explanation. Amazingly complicated (but very detailed and logical) explanation! Would be very hard for me to dissect and analyze this question in the manner prescribed in the video under timed conditions. My simple view was: If beauty and truth are not the same, and some portraying the most truth (most realistic) are not among the best, then the most beautiful need to be the best. As another below points out, this allows for the conclusion to be drawn that there is a difference between beauty and truth (they are not the same).

Hope this helps.

This was very helpful to me -- especially the comments about finding what *YOU* might say. I find JY's explanations very helpful but I am still struggling. I think it is because I have not adopted my own attack, and I am going to work on this as suggested. Thank you @-Magnet and all others on this post!

Very tough question. Good explanation.

I chose E at first and then changed to A during blind review. A is the perfect answer choice. It does not attack the Marcusian conclusion that advertising is detrimental to society. Answer choice A properly allows that that conclusion may be true. It states, however, that the Marcusian critique does not provide the grounds to justify that conclusion. Since the passage is about the mistaken premises the Marcusian critique provides to support their conclusion, A is a perfect answer choice.

Answer choice E talks about allowing the Marcusian premises to apply to a few people who are unable or unwilling to distinguish real from false needs. After re-reading the passage, I do not believe the author would highlight in a concluding statement that there are a few people to whom the Marcusian premises apply. The passage states "advertising techniques are unable to induce unwilling behavior in rational, informed adults...". The author is talking about those people and making his point about those people... "rational, informed adults". The author's point is that the Marcusian premises are mistaken when we are talking about rational, informed adults.

This was my thought process in selecting A over E during the blind review. Hope it is helpful.

Love the Ralph answer. Awesome!!!

"attack the "s--t" out of it!" That will help me remember this type of LR question. To win an argument to proceed to do something, create a diversion. Come up with the most ridiculous reason not to proceed and then attack the "s--t" out of that reason thereby arguing to proceed.

For example, I want to go shopping. I tell my husband that my friends have said I cannot go shopping because the stores have not implemented free delivery service for all merchandise purchased. I tell him how ridiculous my friend's are, and he agrees... so, I conclude that I should go shopping! ...even though we bought all the holiday gifts early and there is nothing I really need.

So many uses for this trick; so little time. :)

Wow. What patience analyzing the argument. The conclusion is: contemporary novels have little social significance. The premise states this is because readers cannot enter the mind of the novelist unless they experience it from the moral perspective of the novel's characters. Premise can be represented as:

Enter Novelist's Mind → Experience it from Moral Perspective of Characters.

The last part of the stimulus gives us:

CANNOT Experience it from Moral Perspective of Characters.

We have to then infer that we CANNOT Enter Novelist's Mind (contrapositive).

We need to get from this to the conclusion:

Contemp. Novels → Little Social Significance

So, we need [CANNOT Enter Novelist's Mind → Little Social Significance] in order to make the argument valid.

Answer choice D gives us the contrapositive: Novels have social significance → enter Novelist's Mind.

The creators of this one outdid themselves. :)

I see why C is correct. In our world, who would say this without knowing the experience level of the employees? Even if Barnes is an outside consultant and not familiar with any information about the employees, one would expect that Barnes would either know or find out about the experience level before making such a statement. I have to stop thinking about practical things and focus on the pure validity issue posed by the questions. Otherwise, I pass over the right answers for NA questions as too obvious! And, yes, knowing that the employees are experienced completely wrecks the argument. Good test for the right answers.