interested as well, im also looking for a serious study buddy to go over sections with, message me if interested

goal: account for a phenomenon that does not account contradicting phenomenon and resolve discrepancy (EXCEPT)

phen 1: recent survey indicates that the average number of books read annually per capita has declined in each of the last 3 years

phen 2: also found that most bookstores reported increased profits during the same period

takeaway: explain why bookstores are seeing increased profits despite a decrease in the number of books being read

(A) can resolve this, if public free libraries do not have popular contemporary novels, some readers are barred from reading those novels due to costs while others may go to bookstores to buy those contemporary novels

(B) does nothing to resolve this argument, even if bookstores are maintaining their profits by not being targeted by theft, why is readership going down?

(C) resolves this discrepancy, it explains why bookstores are increasing their profits through providing coffee

(D) also resolves this discrepancy, the shift from paperback to hardback creates increased profits

(E) resolves this discrepancy, canceled magazine subscriptions went towards purchasing books at bookstores, a new source of income for bookstores

answer choice is clearly B

goal: identify necessary assumption

premise: young people entering the job market will not be able to obtain decent jobs in the professions for which they are trained, resulting in widespread dissatisfaction

premise: it is not fair for those who have worked 40 or more years to deprive overs of opportunities

conclusion: if people who are over 65 are allowed to continue working, we will face unacceptable outcomes, mandatory retirement should be retained

(A) is irrelevant, whether to not they have worked for 40 years does not matter because the ban is based off being 65 yo

(B) we do not need all young people to be highly trained, too strong

(C) whether it is unfair or fair is not really what our argument is concerned about

(D) is irrelevant because we are not concerned about the satisfaction of people 65 and older, it is about whether having those people there is useful

(E) must be true for the argument to work, if it is not the case that people will choose to work past age 65 of retirement ceases to be mandatory, then there is no need for a requirement in the first place since people will oblige on their own will

E is correct

goal: strengthen the reasoning

premise: international travelers experience stresses from international travel that are not experienced by those who do not travel

context/premise: study found businesspeople who travel internationally on business are much more likely to suffer from chronic insomnia than are businesspeople who do not travel on business

MP: likely that these stresses cause the insomnia

(A) is irrelevant, still international travel

(B) is also irrelevant, does not matter whether they enjoy the changes in climate, still other stresses involved

(C) works as blocking out an alternative hypothesis, it is trying to shield the argument from being attacked by a reversal of cause and effect, C is saying that it is not the case that people who already suffer from chronic insomnia are more likely to internationally travel for business than people who do not, in other words we do not have an insomnia-biased population

(D) would weaken our argument, it allows for an alternative explanation, they are trying to show the reversal of our cause-effect hypothesis

(E) is also irrelevant, we are not talking about businesspeople who no longer travel internationally, their lifestyle is different so we can not extrapolate data from that group

answer is C

premise/ctxt: at many electronic retail stores, the consumer has the option of purchasing product warranties that extend beyond the manufacturer's warranty

premise: most problems with electronic goods occur within the period covered by the manufactures warranty

MP: consumers are generally better off not buying extended warranties

we need an answer choice to demonstrate that either everything is covered with the regular warranties or that buying extended warranties is virtually useless

(A) gives us the latter, it states that problems with electronic goods that occur after the manufacturers warranty expires are generally inexpensive to fix in comparison with the cost of an extended warranty

this effectively supports the authors argument that states that consumers are generally better off not buying extended warranties

premise: aesthetic value of a poem cannot be discussed unless it is possible for at least two readers to agree on the correct interpretation of the poem

conclusion: objective poetry is possible only if the (popular belief that a poem has whatever meaning is assigned to it by the reader) is false

there is a gap between discussing the aesthetic value of a poem and objective poetry being possible, check if any of the answer choices have that

D addresses this gap

goal: identify how the statement that chemical R did not cause cancer in laboratory rats functions in the argument

premise: many substances known to be carcinogenic to humans cause no cancer in rats

premise: (explanation for premise above) some carcinogens cause cancer only via long-term exposure and rats are short-lived

conclusion: chemical R did not cause cancer in laboratory rats but we cannot conclude from this that chemical R is safe for humans

it seems that the argument part we are being questioned about reveals that the conclusion found bares no evidence to what we were trying to find out---the experiment thus does not allow us to conclude from this that chemical R is safe for humans just because it did not cause cancer in rats

A & D are too strong, eliminate

B: seems descriptively accurate at first, it is supporting the claim that test results obtained from lab rats cannot be extrapolated to humans, this is just what our premises are talking about ---but there is one distinction---it states test results in general, could it be that the scope of the argument is concerned with test results for carcinogenic properties of chemicals and therefore this is too strong?

c: it illustrates the claim that rats are too short-lived to be suitable as test subjects for the carcinogenic properties of substances to which humans are chronically exposed ---this seems descriptively accurate as well and is the primary thing the premises are addressing, to explain why the life span of rats affects the kind of conclusions we can extrapolate from the data we collect from them --I just have a problem with illustrate the claim , the fact that rats are too short lived isn't our primary conclusion

E: it is cited as being insufficient to support the conclusion that chemical R is safe for humans ----this is subtle but I think its correct, it is the result of the study (cited evidence) although the argument says we cannot draw any connection from this (therefore its insufficient)

premise: researchers studied a group of people trying to lose wight and discovered that those in the group who lost the most weight got more calories from protein than carbs and ate their biggest meal during the day

conclusion: anyone who follows their diet which has more protein calories than carbs and requires that your biggest meal is breakfast is sure to lose weight

this is a flawed argument:

can we conclude that all there is to losing weight is the diet of eating early in the day and having higher amounts of protein over carbohydrates?

stuck between B and E

(B) states that a few of the people in the group studied who lost significant amounts of weight got nearly all of their calories from carbs and ate their biggest meal at night---is that the mistake the argument makes, does it overlook the possibility of this? I do not think this is what the argument is overlooking, it could be that these few people did in fact lose weight without the advertised diet plan simply because they were exercising---this doesn't poke a hole in the argument though because the fact still remains that protein and low carbs was more effective for most of the people.

(D) states that some people in the group studied lost no weight yet got more calories from protein than from carbohydrates and ate their biggest meal early in the day---this seems to poke a hole in the arguments reasoning. It could be the case that the individuals who lost weight in the group with the high protein diet were also weight training 5 days a week while those who only followed the diet and didn't partake in physical exercise saw no reduction in weight---in other words the diet alone does not guarantee that you will lose weight.

premise: becoming angry induces temporary incidents of high blood pressure

premise:recent study found people who are easily angered are significantly more likely to have permanently high blood pressure than are people who have tranquil personalities

premise: those with high blood pressure are significantly likely to have heart disease

conclusion: findings indicate that heart disease can result from psychological factors

the argument is saying that people who are easily angered increase their chances of having high blood pressure, they combine this with the fact that high blood pressure increases ones chances of having heart disease and they justify their conclusion that findings indicate that heart diseases can result from psychological factors

if we are asked to weaken this we can look towards E, which provides an alternative explanation, E states it is the physiological factors that cause permanently high blood pressure that generally make people quick to anger---it is thus offering an alternative explanation

D is close but it is attacking the conclusion and not the gap from the premises to the conclusion, tempting trap answer choice

premise: study's methods that convinced biologists parthenogenesis sometimes occurs in mammals was shown to be flawed, no other studies have succeeded in demonstrating this

premise: parthenogenesis is known to occur in a wide variety of nonmammalian vertebrates

conclusion: there must be something about mammalian chromosomes that precludes the possibility of parthenogenesis

the argument concludes that since no studies have yet proven mammalian parthenogenesis and that pathogenesis occurs in non mammalian vertebrates ---it must be the case that mammalian chromosomes prevent the ability for parthenogenesis to take place

(A) is descriptively accurate because something that has not been proved (mammalian parthenogenesis) is for that reason shown to be false

I believe in this question part of the difficulty comes from recognizing the scope of the argument.

premise: legislation in a certain country gave the government increased control over industrial workplace safety conditions

premise: among high-risk industries, the likelihood that a worker will suffer a serious injury has decreased since 1955

conclusion: the legislation, therefore, has increased overall worker safety within high-risk industries

(c) is initially a tempting answer choice because it states the annual number of work-related injuries has increased since the legislation took effect, however, this only appears to weaken because we are not addressing the scope of the argument---which is the number of work place injuries in high risk industries

(a) provides a better weakening answer choice because it provides us with an alternative explanation, A states that because of the technological innovation, most workplaces in the high-risk industries do not require as much unprotected interaction between workers and heavy machinery as they did in 1955---so in reality it has nothing to do with the legislation but instead the technological innovation that made these conditions much safer

premise: the efficiency of the filtration system varies significantly, even between models of delta vacuum cleaners with identically powerful motors

conclusion: one cannot accurately predict how effectively a particular model cleans simply by determining how powerful its motor is

SA: in order for us to conclude that we cannot effectively predict the cleaning power of a vacuum based off how powerful the motor is, even in cases where two models have identically powerful motors, it must be the case that the dust filtration system has a significant effect on how well the vacuum cleaner cleans

A provides us with this bridge for the gap in the argument

Hi Christopher has it begun?my laptop is having trouble connecting

premise: dried parsley is much less tasty and much less healthful than fresh parsley is

conclusion: dried parsley should never be used in cooking

just because it is less tasty and less healthful, can we really justify in all cases that dried parsley should never be used in cooking?

in order to do this we would need to establish a conditional statement that causes parsley to fail the necessary condition in all cases to where it is never sufficient to be used in cooking

(B) does exactly this: it states that only the tastiest ingredients should be used in cooking

what do we know about dried parsley, its not the tastiest, we thus fail the necessary and trigger the failing of the sufficient condition which means that if dried parsley is not the tastiest, it should never be used in cooking

premise: the result of strong libel laws is that for fear of lawsuits no one says anything bad about public figures

conclusion: ironically, strong laws against libel can make it impossible for anyone in the public eye to have a good reputation

we need to find a principle that accounts for the phenomenon that although no bad things are being said about public figures, none of them have a good reputation

E fits perfectly because it sets up a condition for us that we can trigger in the argument, it states that:

public figures can have good reputations only if other public figures have bad reputations

since no public figures have anything bad said about them, we can make the safe assumption that they do not have bad reputations

since they do not have bad reputations we fail the necessary condition, we trigger the contrapositive and since no public figures have bad reputations, it makes impossible for other public figures to have good reputations

I think part of the difficulty of this question is the subtlety of B, it makes it to where no answer choice seems particularly attractive so we are playing kind of a guessing game.

the argument goes:

OPO: if the crime is motivated to some extent by the desire for some larger good, then the crime should be mitigated (the author concedes the point that some crime should be mitigated)

premise: motives are essentially a matter of conjecture and even vicious motives can be presented as altruistic

conclusion: nonetheless, judges should never mitigate punishment of motives

the implied statement the author makes here is that if we err on the side of allowing motives to influence whether a punishment can be mitigated or not we would utilize an overly lenient system because of the various ways people can conjecture their motives to make them appear altruistic even when this is not the case

for this reason B is the correct answer, the author believe it is better to err on the side of an overly severe punishment than to allow false motives within the system and create an overly lenient system of criminal justice

goal: identify and describe the method of reasoning the professor uses in his argument

premise:

any history book gives only a distorted view of the past because it reflects the biases and prejudices of its author

premise of parallel argument:

each glimpse of ones physical environment occurs from only one perspective

conclusion:

once cannot frame an accurate conception of one's physical environment on the basis of a single momentary perception

MOR:

the argument makes a case for a presumed argument (history books give distorted views because they are offered from biased perspectives) in order to conclude that another argument with a similar resemblance (one cannot frame an accurate conception of ones physical environment on momentary perception) will have the same outcome

C perfectly describes the authors method of reasoning

premise: DNA of contemporary humans is significantly different from that of a neanderthal

premise: previously believed HS ancestors interbred with neanderthals

conclusion: DNA evidence of neanderthal remains shows this isn't the case

NA: it better not be the case that the DNA of HS ancestors is closer to the DNA of neanderthals than is the DNA of contemporary humans , if that were the case the argument would be flipped on its head because it rests on the premise that since contemporary human DNA is vastly different, than HS ancestor DNA must be different as well

C provides us with that answer choice

goal: strengthen the argument ( much of the data on the effects of this weed-killer are probably misleading)

premise:

molecules of a weed killer are always present in two forms, one form kills weed while the other one has no effect

premise:

effectiveness of a weed killer is dependent on which of the two forms is more concentrated in the soil, which varies widely among social conditions

premise:

soil conditions will favor the breakdown of one form or another

conclusion:

much of the data on the effects of this weed-killer are probably misleading

strengthen :

we need to show that the data collected for the effectiveness of the weed killer is inaccurate and not up to bar with application in a wide variety of settings

(B) provides us with the correct answer choice, almost all of the data on the effects of the weed-killer are drawn from laboratory studies in which both forms of the weed-killers molecules are equally concentrated in the soil and equally likely to break down in that soil

b shows us the the laboratory experiments are not accounting for varying soil conditions and thus are creating soil conditions in which it is equally likely that one or the other of the molecules will work---thus presenting misleading effects

B is the answer because of its relevancy to the argument

premise: accounts of the epidemic mention symptoms of hiccups, which are only known to be present in the ebola virus

premise: other symptoms of the Ebola virus were also mentioned in accounts of the athenian epidemic

conclusion: epidemic can be explained by ebola

(b) states that not all of those who contract ebola experience the symptom of hiccups.But does that make it any less likely they had contracted ebola merely because they didn't experience one of its symptoms.

an analogous argument would be if I were to tell you I had the flu and experienced fever, cough, fatigue and shortness of breath

and you tried to deny my claim by stating there was no way I had the flu because I never experienced a runny-nose---whether or not I experienced one of the symptoms is not indicative of me having the illness or not.

B functions in this same way, it is irrelevant to our argument and therefore does not weaken it.

the difficulty in this question lies in equating the terms high ethical standards and perform a notably ethical action

premise: people should patronize businesses that meet high ethical standards AND the news media should help them with this

premise:hearing of a business's ethical conduct is enough to motivate them to patronize

conclusion: therefore, whenever a business performs a notably ethical action, the news media should cover this

gap we weaken: the assumption that just because a business performs a notably ethical action, that is sufficient to be considered meeting high ethical standards

B attacks this gap by defining for us what it truly means for a business to meet high ethical standards: refraining from performing unethical behavior

this weakens the support the premise offers the conclusion because one cannot conclude that performing a notably ethical action equates with a business refraining from performing unethical behavior

I would love to join this study group as well

premise: EKG program diagnosed a higher proportion of cases than did the highly skilled cardiologist that were evidence for a heart attack

conclusion: interpreting EKG data should be left to computers

goal: weaken conclusion, the gap from the premises to the conclusion is we generalize from instances of correctly diagnosing heart attacks to all analysis of EKG data

(A) strengthener if anything, this would lend more evidence to program

(B) gives us a reason for why cardiologists are still needed for subjective analysis, problems with B is that it states the practice of medicine and really does not narrow the argument to EKG scans

(C) gives us a reason why cardiologists can still be used to interpret EKG data, even though the computer was able to identify heart attacks it may be only able to do this and not analyze other EKG data circumstances that the cardiologist can (could be missing from its code of pattern recognition) ---weakener, keep it

(D) doesn't affect the argument

(E) strengthener, unrepresentative does not take away from the fact he is highly skilled

correct answer is C

a is correct

our conclusion is that although the coal mining business would create new jobs, we can expect the number of jobs in the region to decrease

when the author states that many local businesses depend on our regions natural beauty---he is using that statement as direct evidence for the claim that heavy industrial activity of coal mining would force those businesses (who depend on the region's natural beauty) to close

the claim that coal mining would force those businesses to close is used as a premise for our overall conclusion

thus our argument part (many businesses depend on region's beauty) is being used as direct evidence for a statement (coal mining would force them to close) that is meant to support our arguments overall conclusion (we can expect a decrease in the number of jobs)

D is more descriptively accurate than B

d states that it includes a view that is false merely on the grounds of how people came to believe it, this is descriptively accurate, he rejects the claim that sentimentality detracts from aesthetic value because the critics now view too many movies to where their profession has led them to draw this conclusion

the author then parallels this to someone whose food is usually prepared with a certain type of flavoring, this frequent occurrence led that person to regard that flavoring as negative because of the circumstances of his situation/lifestyle

B would be correct if we could establish an ulterior motive for the movie critics, maybe it could be argued that they would enjoy the movie more?

a motive for them would be that they get paid to give movies with sentimentality a bad review and that same ulterior motive would need to be established for the food guy as well