PSA/SA questions and Strengthen/MSS always trip me up. Anybody have any recommendations on how to differentiate the two consistently?

#help (Added by Admin)

Hey everybody, I like a lot of people originally had C as my answer but changed it during BR to D. When analyzing why I got this problem wrong I came to the conclusion that I did not fully understand the two statements in the stimulus and as a result this made D more appealing because it was broad and I overlooked the word "should" in D because of that uncertainty.

In order to better make sense of the stimulus I chose to think of the forbidding of companies in terms of sanctions. Hopefully this might help someone else out in a similar predicament:

David: Sanctions that would keep companies from taking on permanent employees are unfair. Why are these sanctions unfair? The sanctions are unfair because the sanctions give companies little leverage against strikers during negotiations.

Lin: NO. What is no referring to? No is referring to David's argument against sanctions. Lin goes on to say without actually saying it directly that the sanctions against hiring permanent employees are actually fine! Why are the sanctions tolerable? Because the companies in question can maintain enough leverage through the hiring of temporary employees.

C makes perfect sense to me now in this light.

David summary: Little leverage afforded without hiring permanent employees. Aka companies lose a lot and are ineffective at negotiating table.

Lin summary: Enough leverage afforded without hiring permanent employees. Aka companies may lose some but not enough to be ineffective at negotiating table.

#help I was on the fence between D and E and incorrectly went with D. I think the big thing that got me was I made it a bit of a stretch to think that "future state of affairs" and the violation as a trustee for future generations were similar enough. The language is similar where it passes the first descriptor test but I think D fails the second test because the flaw is having more to do with cause and effect than any issues with a temporal relationship.

I had this one narrowed down to C and E and one thing that helped me rule out C was really about the subject under discussion. In the stimulus what we know is that there is a physically observed phenomenon that actually happened. When you look at C and E side by side, C is talking just about a claim that may or may not has happened. E on the other hand is about physically witnessing the results of a race aka an observed phenomenon.

#help Did some digging in the comments to try and make sense of AC C and I think I'm content with this one now and just wanted to put this out there to see if I'm using the right train of thought/maybe help someone else struggling in the same way.

I originally ruled C out because of the last part of the AC. I thought that "first thing causing the second" was a referential phrase to laptops causing pay.

After reading through the comments I think I was right to think that. The key mistake I made was glossing over the use of the word "is consistent with" which also means "is possible."

When viewed with that in mind, what C is actually saying is that the author concludes that one thing must have caused the other. When in reality it is only one possibility that A caused B.

So I got this one right but the only thing I struggled on briefly was differentiating the third sentence as either a premise or a sub conclusion. On first read through I thought it was a sub conclusion because it sounds like the author is making a definitive statement and then the last sentence supports it. But during the explanation JY lumps it with the last sentence as a premise. I suppose it doesn't matter since it is not the main conclusion but I was wondering if I am off in thinking that sentence is a sub conclusion?

Damn I had this one but then changed it to B during BR just because of the word "easy" in D.

I’m in a similar boat as Sami just way at the beginning of my journey and it’s exactly what I needed to hear! I’m about a third of the way done with the pod so apologies if this question gets answered but I was wondering when Sami would find time to study while working full time and what her routine was like? I’m insanely impressed with her ability to manage that on top of tutoring and I know this at consistent routine is the area that I need to fix personally.

Thank you for the kind words and that's a great way of thinking about it with the contrapositive! I started logging those tough problems like you said and I think you're right about just coming back to it/similar problems and trusting the process that mastery will come.

#help I got this right through process of elimination and JY didn't mention it in the video but I had a quick question in regards to the third sentence. I read the "Clearly" as a conclusion indicator and ended up thinking that it was a sub conclusion that supported the main conclusion at the end. I thought that our argument part directly supported the sub conclusion so I was looking for that sub conclusion in the answer choices.

I realize that our argument part is the minor premise and that by extension it does support the main conclusion but my question is that is it possible to see both the minor and main conclusion in the answer choice if you are asked to see what role a minor premise plays in an argument part question?

I went with A originally and after getting it wrong/doing some review the mistake I made was I thought that the first two sentences were context separated by the "but" in the beginning of the third sentence. I think the key takeaway is to really read with an active voice because then I more than likely would've caught the end of the first sentence and thought "well why should I believe this?" and then from there everything falls into place much more neatly as the first sentence competes and ends up winning as the main conclusion.

#help Does anyone think the premises are weak in supporting the conclusion? I know we don't have to go that in depth during argument part questions but it's bothering me.

In the suspected main conclusion the author is saying that profit should not be considered a reason why there is a lack of available housing which then causes homelessness. What I don't get is it feels like there's a gap between that and the premises that investors will invest in the creation of houses if the market allows for a chance to make a profit. In my head and using lawgic I thought of it like:

Market with profit to be made→ Invest in creation of houses

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

/Profit be a reason why there is lack of available housing

So is he saying that it's not profit's fault there's a lack of housing because of the general market? And since we don't know what influences the market in this scenario we can't make the assumption that its only profit based? That's the only way I can think of bridging the gap between premise/conclusion.

I'm probably overthinking it but I'm just trying to get in the habit of seeing how well everything works with the other parts of the argument for when we start doing more analysis

I made a simple mistake on this so it was an easy fix on a second look today and this is one approach I've found that helps me with dicing through the answer choices. If anyone has seen Thor Ragnarok there's the scene where Thor and Banner are talking about Hulk vs Banner and debating who's better and there's the meme that came from it where Thor goes: "does he though?" I only bring this up because I think of the answer choices in the same way like you would in a conversation similar to the point where after I read each answer choice I ask "does it do that though?" Simple little check and makes you focus on the specific wording in the answer choice like: does it really suggest the primary cause? etc.

Plz accept me peasant law school

I'm down dude!

#help I initially chose C but I think I get what JY is saying. The argument is a contradiction because the way criminals actions are justified applies to everyone. So the author can't shift blame to the law abiding citizens in the conclusion because that same principle applies to them as well.

The principle being that all actions are a product of one's environment. Cool to see a contradiction in action especially one this sneaky.

I'm actually really stoked I got this one wrong because of how clear JY made it on understanding what it really looks like when a presumption is made. Before it was sort of intuitive but this is a great format to keep in mind moving forward!

Hey man and thank you for doing this! I am still going through the CC but I will make sure to PM you as I start taking more PT's

Took me a minute but I think I feel better about this one.

I was able to notice that the author is making a big stretch with his conclusion and was in a similar boat as JY where I knew something was wrong but couldn't really define it.

I mistakenly chose B but had A as a contender because I couldn't make sense of the referential phrasing. Here's my crack at it:

"The failure of cited evidence." -The effect the Dobson's premise has on some historians explanation ie an alternate explanation for the phenomenon.

"to establish a statement" -The historians take that the people of Stonehenge knew about celestial events

"Is taken as evidence that the statement is false." -Author's conclusion that the people of Stonehenge had no knowledge of celestial events.

Lesson here seems like just because you can potentially disprove an argument doesn't mean you can automatically conclude the logical opposite.

Would the flaw be similar to saying something like say:

-New channel: Bigfoot has never been seen before so he does not exist.

-History Channel at 3am: Bigfoot hasn't been seen because there are woods that haven't been fully explored. So bigfoot does exist!

Let me know if I'm off or if there any other examples you guys can think of!

Thank you for your comments this thread helped me understand a separate problem with similar elements!

Made some flash cards for the ones I got wrong and the one I keep coming back to that I need help with is #20.

"The conclusion of the psychiatrists argument is most strongly supported if which one of the following completes the argument?"

I keep thinking this has the making of Pseudo sufficient assumption since it doesn't look like the question is trying to make the conclusion valid just "complete."

Almost every strengthen question I see is focused on mentioning "the principles, if true" and then having to strengthen the argument. This construction looks like almost every PSA question so if anyone has a good way to approach this question to differentiate it from PSA questions I'd greatly appreciate the help!

This is Amazing!