I understand that answer choice E does not weaken the scientist's argument, but I fail to understand why it does not strengthen the argument. Could you please explain why answer choice E does not strengthen the argument, in more detail?

Thank you, SoCal Japorean.

After reading all of the previous comments that have been posted, I am still struggling to understand why answer choice D would help strengthen the argument, or in other words be an incorrect answer choice.

I chose answer choice D because I thought it did nothing to the argument. For answer choice D to strengthen the argument, I believe one would have to assume that the size of the natural habitat has an effect over the population of amphibians. I can see why this answer choice could block a potential alternative explanation, i.e. the natural habitat became smaller, thus the population of amphibians declined, but only if the assumption I described is made. I did not find this to be a sufficiently reasonable/small enough assumption to make. Without making any assumptions and taking answer choice D as it is, I find that answer choice D does not help strengthen the argument.

Could someone please help me better understand why answer choice D is incorrect, aside from explaining the reasons why answer choice A is correct?

I chose A and after watching the video I can understand why A is misleading. However, when I was reading the answer choices and considering B, I thought "Why assume that Proto-Indo-European is one of the languages that lack words for prominent elements of the environment of their speakers?"

Could someone help me understand why it is safe to make such an assumption, or at least help me understand why B is the correct answer choice (independently of the other four answer choices being incorrect)?

I understand that E is sufficient, but I am still not understanding why it is necessary, despite Sharon Wayne's explanation. If E is necessary and it is negated, then it should wreck the argument. However, when E is negated, it does not wreck the argument and this leads me to think that E is not necessary.

Negated answer choice E: It is not the case that any pricing practice that does not result in unreasonable prices should be acceptable.

In other words, there are some pricing practices that do not result in unreasonable prices, but are unacceptable.

Considering either of the statements above, it is unclear as to whether or not predatory pricing is a pricing practice that should or should not be acceptable.

I was down to A and C and had a reason to eliminate A, as well as a reason to choose C, independently of eliminating A. Even after watching the video I am still unclear as to why A is the correct answer.

I eliminated A because one would have to assume that because potatoes are not normally a part of the diet of laboratory rats that eating potatoes would lead them to develop intestinal deformities and a weakened immune system. Making such an assumption did not seem right.

My reason for choosing C, independently of eliminating A, was because the "control group rats", i.e. rats that were fed a normal diet of foods that were not genetically modified, were not specified as being laboratory rats, but rather the stimulus merely referred to them as "rats". I thought that C weakened the argument by suggesting that the laboratory rats were more prone to intestinal deformities than the "control group rats" - which were not necessarily laboratory rats - therefore undermining the support provided by the premise to the conclusion.

The topics are: "V cannot be prescribed" and "H and M are prescribed".

It seems like you applied the group 4 rule to the stimulus, as shown by what you came up with. "Unless" falls under group 3 so you are correct that you should negate something, but the other part of the group 3 rule is that the topic you select to negate should also become the sufficient condition. In this instance, you could select the first topic matter to apply this rule to and you would get "V can be prescribed".

Doing so and putting it back into a conditional would allow it to read "If V can be prescribed, then H and M are prescribed", which is equivalent to V -> H&M, also the equivalent of V -> H and V -> M combined. Seems like JY just chose the split up the necessary condition into two conditionals.

Seeing as how answer choice A is the correct one, I am sensing that one would have needed to have interpreted the "otherwise" in answer choice A mean something like "For if it turns out that hiring additional employees will not benefit the company..." in order to conclude that answer choice A best illustrates the principle illustrated by the argument in the stimulus.

However, when I read "otherwise" in answer choice A, I interpreted it to mean something like "If middle-level managers who ask their companies to hire additional employees do not have strong evidence that doing so will benefit the company..." It seemed (and still does seem to be the case) to me that answer choice A did not match up with the principle illustrated in the stimulus.

I am having trouble understanding how to interpret "otherwise" in the context it was used. Please do chime in, if you were able to overcome this difficulty and can explain how you did so.